It is a Clash of Civilizations

[Violet_Crumble]

In an interview for Der Spiegel, the outspoken, Russian born, Israeli FM explains why there will be no negotiations over Jerusalem, his beliefs about peace in the Middle East and the Iranian issue. (Abridged)

SPIEGEL: Mr. Foreign Minister, the week the Palestinians finally agreed to hold new peace negotiations, your government announced plans to build 1,600 more housing units in a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem. You have provoked not only the Palestinians, but also your most important ally. Why?

Lieberman: We didn't provoke anybody. I hear all the condemnations of Israel regarding so-called East Jerusalem. In the same week 60 people were killed in Pakistan in terror attacks. In every country around us there is bloodshed and tension. But everybody prefers to criticize Israel. I am waiting for the day when the German Bundestag debates the violation of human rights in Saudi Arabia.

SPIEGEL: But we are speaking to the Israeli foreign minister, not the Saudi one.

Lieberman: To put all the blame on Israel is hypocrisy. We are the only democracy in the Middle East. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict represent maybe 3 percent of all the conflicts in the region. Members of the United States Congress and US Senators tell us that, in their visits to the Gulf countries, Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Jordan, their
Arab counterparts only very briefly mention the Palestinians, and that it is pure lip service. Ninety-five percent of the time they warn about the Iranian threat.

SPIEGEL: But at the moment everybody is speaking about Israel. The US is blaming your government for undermining the peace process and cancelled a visit of its special envoy George Mitchell.

Lieberman: Even between the best of friends mistakes and misunderstandings can happen. We never promised to stop building in Jerusalem. But the announcement during the visit of US Vice President Joe Biden was a mistake -- a bureaucratic mistake of the building committee in charge.

SPIEGEL: So you are only criticizing the timing but not the plan to expand existing settlements?

Lieberman: You must understand: It is not settlements. Sixty-five percent of the Jewish population of Jerusalem live in new neighborhoods that we started to build after the Six-Day War in 1967.

SPIEGEL: Even the Americans regard them as settlements. They lie beyond the '67 borders and that is a problem.

Lieberman: They lie beyond the '67 borders, but they are not small villages, but municipal neighbourhoods with tens of thousands of residents.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/9409

[xchrom]

1. What an interesting psychological insight. Nt

[Jefferson23]

2. From the OP:

"Lieberman: To put all the blame on Israel is hypocrisy. We are the only democracy in the Middle East. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict represent maybe 3 percent of all the conflicts in the region. Members of the United States Congress and US Senators tell us that, in their visits to the Gulf countries, Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Jordan, their
Arab counterparts only very briefly mention the Palestinians, and that it is pure lip service. Ninety-five percent of the time they warn about the Iranian threat."

He is one mother fucking liar.

[Scurrilous]

3. "He is one mother fucking liar."

I concur. :thumbsup:

[subsuelo]

5. "a bureaucratic mistake of the building committee in charge"

that's another lie.

He's also completely unconcerned that the lies are so obvious

[Tripmann]

4. Either that or seriously deluded.

Maybe both

[Crunchy Frog]

6. "Why can't we be left to dispossess the Palestinians in peace?"

[shira]

7. "Ninety-five percent of the time they warn about the Iranian threat."

Al-Arabiya Director: An Iranian Bomb Will Help Iran Take Over the Region

'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, director-general of the Saudi Al-Arabiya network, wrote in the Saudi London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that nuclear weapons in Iran's hands would help it take over the region: "We are not afraid of an Iranian bomb. This weapon will not be put to military use; it will be used as a way to change the rules of the game.

"What we are afraid of is Iran's policy, that uses all means to force its existence , and nuclear weapons is only means. If Saddam had had a nuclear bomb when he invaded Kuwait, it would have remained occupied to this day, because the superpowers would not have risked war with a state with nuclear weapons. If Iran tomorrow takes over Bahrain – something that is altogether possible – or if its militias take over southern Iraq, no superpower will dare to use military means to stop it. The international community will have the options of conducting negotiations and bargaining with Iran, or of implementing economic sanctions against it – that everyone knows never deterred any occupier in the past, and will certainly not deter Iran...

"We fear the logic of the current regime in Tehran, which spent the country's funds on Hizbullah, Hamas, the extremist movements in Bahrain, Iraq and Yemen, and the Muslim Brotherhood, and supported every extremist in the region. The Ahmadinejad regime aspires to expansion, hegemony, and a clear takeover on the ground, and to do this he needs a nuclear umbrella to protect him from deterrence by superpower.

"The Gulf states, that built giant cities and factories all along the coast, will, when Iran possesses nuclear weapons, become hostage to the caprices of Ahmadinejad and his extremist government...
"The region cannot be left to the test of reality. When we find out that the reality is painful, we will have already missed the chance ."<11>

http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4086.htm

In other words, the Gulf and Arab states are scared shitless of Iran.

The Palestinians are only lip service to them.

[kayecy]

8. And the relevance of your posting to Lieberman's excuses is what?..............n/t

[shira]

9. to show that in this case, he's right....Palestinians come in a distant 2nd to the Iranian threat

Not just to Israelis but also in the Arab world.

[Violet_Crumble]

10. You didn't show that 95% of Arab counterparts say that to Lieberman...

In that case, as in many others, he was lying, as is the habit of fascist and bigoted extremists such as him...