Avigdor Lieberman: Iran Is Obstacle To Mideast Peace

JERUSALEM — Iran is the main obstacle to peace in the Mideast, Israel's new foreign minister said in an interview published Friday.

Avigdor Lieberman told The Jerusalem Post that it will be "impossible to resolve any problem in our region" without dealing with Iran's nuclear program and its support for militant groups opposed to Israel, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

His comments come as differences have appeared between the hard-line government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration over the peace process. President Barack Obama has said the U.S. seeks a "two-state" solution, with the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel, while Netanyahu has not publicly embraced the principle.

Israelis have also expressed concern over Obama's calls for outreach to Iran, which Israel considers its top nemesis.

Lieberman said the obstacle to a peace deal "is not Israel. It is not the Palestinians. It's the Iranians."

He dismissed the "two-state solution" formula as a "slogan." Lieberman did not rule out peace talks or a Palestinian state in the interview, saying only that the "right conditions" had to be created. He did not elaborate.

His comments came a day after his deputy Danny Ayalon said Iran must be reined in for any realistic hope of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. However, Ayalon said action on Iran was not a "pre-condition" for pursuing peace.

Lieberman told the Post that the government was currently preparing its policy platform and that Netanyahu will present it when he meets Obama at the White House in mid-May.

One of Israel's most divisive politicians, Lieberman led his party to gains in the recent election with a campaign questioning the loyalty of Israel's one-fifth Arab minority.

Since becoming Israel's foreign minister, the blunt-talking Lieberman has sparked controversy by dismissing recent peace efforts led by the U.S. Before becoming foreign minister, he riled Israel's key Egyptian allies by suggesting Egypt's president should "go to hell."

Comments

[nowarpleez]

Lieberman is an extremist and the people of Israel have made their choice.

[chaos4700]

Of course if we had any sort of honesty or consistency we'd cut Israel off now, the way we've cut the Palestinians off. Or better yet, fund Livni or Barak as a Western-backed coup starter against Netanyahu the way we tried to do with Abbas.

[Steven Anderson]

I can not believe all of the misdirection BS against Israel on these blogs!The Iranian leadership is in the news every other week with their diatribe taking one angle after the other wanting to see the removal of Israel. On top of that Iran is a major funder of the very terrorist organizations that are constantly sending rockets into the country and marching in the streets for Israel's death. Hmm, why is Iran the major threat according to Lieberman....I wonder. Israel will never be able to have a lasting peace with the Palestinians while the Iranians are dead determined to use the Palestinians as their surrogate fighters and creaters of mayhem. Due to this Iran has to be confronted hard and strong during US dialogue with the country and this issue definitely has to be conditional upon any form of relationships between our two countries. Don't get me wrong, I want the Palestinians to have their homeland/State as well but it is literally impossible under the present state of affairs.

[persianadvocate]

Except that you are unable to provide ANY proof of what you just said because it's not true. Any seeming "threats" from Iran are purposeful mistranslations of the Farsi language intended to deceive those that can't speak the language. Ahmadinejad never even said "Wipe Israel off the Map", for instance. That is a pure lie.

[Steven Anderson]

OK, what is the correct translation. Normalization of relations with Israel. I doubt it....

[chaos4700]

You mean the news networks run by people like Rupert Murdock? Or multinationals like GE? Businessmen with close ties to Israel who profited off the anti-Muslim hysteria against Iraq the first time around and are squaring up to do the same? And all they had to do was change one letter in the name of the target country.

People can read Ahmedinejad's words -- his REAL words, not the falsified MEMRI translations -- for themselves. And I encourage it. There's a lot about the guy not to like but let's not fall for the SAME EXACT TRICK where we're lied into sending our men and women to die looking for WMDs that don't exist.

[Steven Anderson]

So everybody and their mother is lieing about him. Fine, lets see if he really wants peace with Israel.

[semorg]

Mirror?

[curocat]

No, it's Israel and the settlements in the West Bank that is the obstacle to Middle East peace..

[betz55]

What BS. Liebermans's new 'condition' serves no other purpose than to stall progress towards negotiations, and to save his government from having to deal with the real issues. Bibi and his moldavian thug of an FM are fooling no one. Israel"s current evasive tactics are not new.

Iran ? The US needs to stop the foreign policy hypocrisy. Israel pre-emptively invades their neighbors, Iran does not.

The Iran 'issue' is 100% Israeli.

Unlike Iran, Israel simply has too much to hide and wants to keep it that way. When is Israel going to sign the NNPT and allow IAEA inspections ? Which Iran has done.

The US and Israel want Iranian nuclear transparency? Then Israel better be just as transparent.

America's silence about Israelis nuclear weapons and lack of membership to the NPT while maintaining such harsh rhetoric towards Iran's nuclear program, which is legally allowed to enrich uranium as a NPT member is an example of the kind of outright double standard BS that the United States has been following in its foreign policy.

Good news? There will be when the US recognizes a two-state solution, a separation between Israel and this one, the United States.

Bibi and Liebermen need to stop the nonsense. The time of the neocons like BiBi is over. When is the media going to start talking about Israeli nukes and start calling for transparency from Israel ? The double standard between Iran and Israel should be pointed out whenever Iran is brought up.

[Wozzeck]

Oh for the good old days!

" One Israeli-Iranian project that indicates the intimacy of the alliance was to develop a long-range missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The missile was the product of Israeli research and development starting in the late 1950's. In the spring of 1977, Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Peres signed a secret agreement in Tehran for the development of a more advanced missile"

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, 'The Israeli Connection'

[yakaria]

Unfortunately that was when the secular Shah was ruling Iran. Now it is run by the Ayatollah. A very hardline Islamic Fundamentalist.

[Solaris123]

good point yakaria,

[chaos4700]

"Secular" Shah. You mean puppet western dictator who inflicted terrible crimes upon his own people after being installed to power in a coup that overturned a legitimate democratic government.

Seriously. You're backing the shah?

[sshaler]

As if Israel isn't an obstacle to peace. I'm getting so fed up of exceptionalism everywhere I find it.

[ratcityreprobate]

Speaking of crazies, Lieberman you think Iran is a problem, wait a few weeks until the Taliban take over Pakistan with its nukes and missiles with the range to reach Israel. Then you will have an immediate problem and there is not much that you will be able to do about it. Sure Ahmadinejad is crazy but the Iranians as a whole including the Mullahs are not, but the Taliban are even crazier he is and Pakistan is a failed state where the Taliban will soon be calling the shots.

You should be working towards peace rather than threatening your friends or your enemies.

[Justtellthetruth]

If Israel attacks Iran, the Iranians will mine the gulf and destabilize Iraq.

Oil will go to 500 per barrel, and gas will be 12 dollars per gallon. We will then be Forced to intercede, and we will be thrust into a depression that will make the 20s and 30s look like the good old days. being thrust into yet another war of MUCH greater magnitude than Iraq or Afghanistan, we will open the door for the Taliban (and Al qeada) to take over the nukes in Pakistan.

Israel is holding a gun to OUR HEAD, NOT Irans. That is how desperately they want to continue building the settlements. It is the Israelis who are the greatest threat to US security. The Iranians do not threaten us OR Israel at all.

[louisamast]

And "Ahmadinejad is crazy" because? Oh I know you heard it from MSM! What a logic? Is that the same MSM that pushed us to Iraq War?

[Soori]

Israel has always had three objectives:

(1) To demonstrate its deterrance capabilities - the "fear of us" - It aims to defeat the spirit of the Palestinian people and the Arab world and bring them to submission.

(2) To foil any peace process

(3) To remain the preeminent power in the region to do as she wishes

As such Israel continues to create one enemy after another to demonstrate to the U.S. and the Europeans to a lesser extent this sense of "existential threat" to its existence. By playing the victim card it wins major concessions from the U.S. in every which way: military aid, financial aid, and benefits from U.S.'s veto power on its behalf.

These enemies are also used very conveniently to continue to push back any peace process, as it continues to confiscate more land until there is no Palestine to speak with.

If you look at every war of aggression that Israel has started you will see that it was at a time when there was a period of what one could say rather calm, a lull in attacks; therefore a potential for sitting down and entering into a peace negotiation - but what does Israel do? Israel does what it always does? It provokes an attack? It finds an enemy?

So now it is Iran's turn!

In fact it is Israel which is a threat to the peace and security of the ME and drags the U.S. with it in endless regional conflicts.

[louisamast]

The only reason Israel has not attached Iran yet is because she is not sure that Iran does not for sure posses nuclear capability. That by itself proves that Iran should have nuclear capability to prevent another catastrophe.

[coollbreezz]

so true.. the biggest obstacle to middle east peace is Israel and the ultra right including Lieberman. The people of the world are learning the truth about israel and how the people presiding in Israel are Ashkenazi Jews who are not descendants of Shem but of Japheth. Therefor they have no relationship to Abraham according to the Torah. The modern day Jews converted to the religion.
http://www.iamthewitness.com/Koestler13thTribe.htm
http://joeland7.blogspot.com/2009/04/testimony-of-jew-truth-about-zionism.html

[Spiritof1982]

I'm not sure how your Biblical history is at all pertinent here. Please go back to Sunday (or Friday, or Saturday) school.

[gexex]

Israel always cries that is my enemy no that is my enemy no no that one is my enemy BUT they don't look to themselves at the first and see how many UN resolutions(more than 35) they are violating for 60 years against those POOR enemies.

[Morocco]

Look who's talking? A bigot and a racist who thrives on calling Palestinians names, now he want to portrait himself as a peace scholar. SIC.

[jacobnyc]

There can be no peace deal unless Iran is stopped from:
(A) Developing a Nuclear Weapon and
(B) Funding extremists militant groups like Hamas and Hezbollah who are fighting Iran's proxy war for them.

[chaos4700]

A) No evidence they are pursuing nuclear weapons so... there we are. Do yourself a favor and go look up the NIE and the IAEA reports on the matter -- maybe we should PAY ATTENTION to the weapons inspectors this time?

B) Proxy war with /whom/?! What a joke! First Iraq's Hussein was the great mastermind behind Islamic terrorism... and now it's Iran's Ahmedinejad?! You think you can just cut and paste and recycle this rhetoric, get /another/ few thousand American soldiers to die for nothing and the same trick will work again?

[jacobnyc]

The United States would never tolerated such a behavior if we were in Israel's shoes. This kind of bias against the Israelis does us no good. Israel has never attacked any of its neighbors until it was in self-defense.

Ariel Sharon dismantled settlements in Gaza and pulled the occupying army out in 2004 after accepting the Bush-Rice “road map for peace” the previous year. Instead of stabilizing Gaza and allowing for responsible self-rule, Gaza became more radical than before. In 2007, Hamas staged a coup d’etat and took full control over the territory and expanded its missile and rocket attacks on Israel. The IDF has had to conduct major military operations twice in Gaza since then, and have also had to conduct many smaller operations to pinpoint launch sites. The West wants Israel to start dismantling settlements in the West Bank and withdraw there as well, but Netanyahu and his new government can be forgiven for not wanting to make the same mistake twice. Eventually, that will have to happen if a two-state solution is to work, but that’s not the real first step. The real first step is to have a partner actually interested in peace and peaceful co-existence with a secure Israel. Thus far, all of the Annapolises, Wye Rivers, and Oslos have failed to produce such a partner, mostly because Palestinians by and large cling to the annihilationist policy with Israel, or as they put it, the “Zionist entity.”

[SpoonieLuv]

True, the Gaza Strip has been a hotbed of extremism. But don't you think that the continued blockade of this Strip is a significant contributor to this rise in extremism? When you attempt to deny a people their basic human dignity, you lead otherwise peaceful people to become outraged with their condition and angry toward their oppressors. How can you expect the Palestinians to be willing to come to the bargaining table as an equal partner when Israel makes it so difficult for them to put food on the dinner table?

[Paulo1]

Jacob you are a gifted writer with solid points to make. I find litle argument with your observations but believe you intentionally fail to see perspectives other than those that support the policies of that bigot Leiberman. The Israeli's are not the only ones lacking a serious a negotiating partner. You yourself engage in the same kind of leaps of logic that forbid such leadership from emerging. Somehow a list of facts is turned into a new set of preconditions. In this case with Iran playing the role of new impediment. Given the ever shifting Israeli penchant for preconditions one can be forgiven for wondering if there is any possible combination of events short of pure surrender that are acceptable to Israel?
Until you are willing to see the flaws in leadership on both sides your comments are little more than window dressing for continued support for any action or inaction Israel decides it wishes to take.

[polaris12]

Right on. Jacob is just regurgitating the standard Israeli talking points, which have been refuted over and over again by Israeli scholars and writers. Five years ago, it was Iraq and Sadam Hussein that were the obstacles to peace and before that it was Yassir Arafat and Fatah that were the obstacles to peace. This year it is Iran. And now Leiberman and Netanyahu, put the additional condition that Palestinians must not only recognize Israeli's right to exist, but must recognize it as an exclusively Jewish State, thus signing away their own right to existence within the boundaries of land that Israel now claims. This is all just a mask to hide Israel's true aims of complete ethnic cleansing of all Arabs from the area and the elimination of any possible Islamic rivals in the region.

[louisamast]

Israel will NOT allow any peace between US and Iran to take place. When it comes to Iran, Israel’s interest and American interest do not coincide. Since Iran has been isolated from American Businesses, the big gainers have been mainly China, India and Russia. At the time American businesses were prohibited to do business in Iran, Chinese and Russian businesses have been signing tens of billion Dollars contracts. If US-Iran relations is ever improved, Iran would make a strong and effective US ally in the Middle East and US may not have to rely on Israel so much. Consequently there would be no longer any incentive for billions of Dollars of annually financial and military US aides to Israel. Therefore every time there is a chance that there could be some improvement in the US-Iran relation, the process is sabotaged directly by Israel or indirectly via Israel’s special interest groups such as AIPAC &Associates.

[zaz33]

The Israeli leadership knows that demographics will eventually destroy Israel as a Jewish state. However, no Israeli leader has the courage to take on the settlers and dismantle the settlements.

The result is a " kick the can down the road " policy, and eventually, a one state solution for someone else to deal with.

[Justtellthetruth]

Furthermore, if the Israeli's don't make a credible and lasting peace with all of their neighbors (it's ALL about the settlements and occupation going away) before the US becomes largely energy independent, They will find themselves abandoned and left to suffer the consequences of their actions alone, in the same way that the US abandoned the Mujaheddin fighters in Afghanistan after they helped us bring the soviet union down.

Anyone who believes that we are going to continue to spend money or shed blood in the middle east after we have left oil behind is sadly mistaken. Look at the continent of Africa. Its overwhelmed with problems that make the Middle east look positively stable in comparison, yet we spend almost no money there, nor do we commit troops to help solve local spats (or genocides, wars, ethnic cleansings, ect).

Anyone who actually cares about Israel would be working FEVERISHLY to end the settlements and occupation and establish a lasting peace.

[Solaris123]

"The Israeli leadership knows that demographics will eventually destroy Israel as a Jewish state."

Palestinain leadership lost all the military engagements ( including the latest one in Gaza) rejected peace, are unwilling to try anything actually constructive.
Now the only hope---periodically resurrected-- domination by over-population.
Never mind the suffering of the people forced into this Malthusian non- solution.
Of all the silly ideas...
Yep, it working REAL well in Gaza. Enjoy the wait.

[chaos4700]

The invasion of Gaza by Israel wasn't a "military engagement" it was a slaughter. Israel targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure, not Hamas. You'd think a people who lived through something like the Warsaw Ghetto wouldn't be so keen to inflict it on other people.