Lieberman rejects "dangerous" Arab peace initiative (Roundup)

Apr 22, 2009, 13:48 GMT

Jerusalem - The Arab peace initiative could lead to the destruction of Israel because of a clause calling for the return to it of millions of Palestinian refugees, Israel's ultra-nationalist foreign minister was quoted Wednesday as saying.

The initiative is a 'dangerous and a tested formula for the destruction of Israel,' Avigdor Lieberman told staffers at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem this week, according to the daily Ma'ariv.

The foreign minister's views sharply contrasted with those of US President Barack Obama, who on Tuesday praised the initiative as a 'very constructive start.' Obama spoke at a White House news conference with Jordan's King Abdullah Tuesday.

Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, had said in Ramallah Friday the initiative should 'be part of the effort' to reach a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs announced Obama had invited both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak, to the White House for separate meetings.

No dates have been set for the three visits, he said, but Israeli and Palestinian officials said Netanyahu would likely visit Washington on May 18, and Abbas on May 28 respectively.

Abbas' spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, called the upcoming White House meeting a 'crossroads' for the Middle East peace process, demanding pressure on the new Israeli government to 'clearly state' it position on a two-state solution to the conflict and to 'take steps on the ground to prove that.'

The Netanyahu government, which includes the premier's hardline but mainstream Likud party as well as Lieberman's ultra-nationalist Israel Beiteinu party to the right and the left-to-centre Labour Party of Defence Minister Ehud Barak to the left, took office late last month following February 10 elections.

Since then, it has rejected calls to openly and directly express support for the two-state solution.

Israeli media reported a rift has developed between Lieberman and Barak, who wants to promote the Arab peace initiative.

They quoted Barak as telling Netanyahu's inner security cabinet Wednesday morning that a 'regional solution' to the Middle East conflict would be a central axis of Israel's policy in the coming years. He called for Israel to cooperate with the US in formulating the details of the solution, in a way that would ensure its security interests.

Ma'ariv added that a 'head-on' clash could also be expected between Lieberman and the Obama administration over the Arab peace initiative.

According to the daily, Netanyahu himself, in his talks last week with Mitchell, signalled he would not reject the initiative out of hand.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yigal Palmor said Lieberman's statement in which he called the Arab peace initiative 'dangerous' and a recipe for Israel's destruction was made during an internal Foreign Ministry discussion and taken out of context.

'He (Lieberman) said that the Arab claim for the return of Palestinian refugees into Israel is a danger to the existence of Israel,' Palmor told the German Press Agency dpa.

'What is dangerous for Israel is not the peace initiative as such, but one specific item in it,' he clarified.

The initiative was first presented by Saudi Arabia at a 2002 summit of the Arab League in Beirut. Adopted, and readopted at another Arab League summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2007, it for the first time ever offered all round normalization of ties by Arab states with Israel, in return for a full Israel withdrawal from the occupied territories and the creation of a Palestinian state there.

Members of previous Israeli governments have since welcomed the Arab offer for normalization as 'historic,' but have rejected the clause calling for a 'just' solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, based on UN General Assembly resolution 194 of December 1948.

The Netanyahu government has since taking office not expressed an opinion on the Arab initiative.

Resolution 194 states that Palestinian refugees of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, which erupted following the creation of Israel in May of that year, should be allowed to return to their homes and that those who choose not to, should be paid compensation.

Palmor called the resolution 'completely obsolete,' because it also called for the internationalization of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. He called a 'total return' of all the refugees and their descendants to Israel 'out of the question.'

Since 1948, the number of registered refugees living in UN-run camps in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and neighbouring Arab countries has grown some five or six-fold to 4.6 million. Israelis fear that the return of all to the homes they, their parents and their grandparents fled in what is now Israel would turn it into a Palestinian state. Many therefore would like to see a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza absorb the vast majority.