BY RYAN JONES, ISRAEL TODAY—
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has made no secret of his belief that concluding a genuine peace deal with the Palestinian Authority simply is not possible at present. He reiterated that position in an address to foreign ambassadors and consuls in Jerusalem on Sunday.
With so much of the region in turmoil – from the Islamist takeover in Egypt, to the fragile condition of Iraq’s democracy, to the ongoing bloodshed in Syria – now is not to the time to be pushing an ill-advised Israeli-Palestinian peace arrangement.
“In the midst of an earthquake do you start to lay the foundations for a new building?” Lieberman asked rhetorically.
As he has in the past, Lieberman suggested that the focus of Israel and the international community should be maintaining the status quo in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while trying to improve economic conditions in Palestinian-ruled areas.
As further evidence that a true peace is not possible at this time, Lieberman pointed to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ trip to Turkey last week, during which he had a highly publicized meeting with female Palestinian terrorist Amneh Muna.
In 2001 Muna used the Internet to lure 16-year-old Ofir Rahum to the Palestinian town of Ramallah, where she and accomplices brutally murdered the Israeli youth. Muna was released from an Israeli prison in the recent prisoner swap that saw Israel free over 1,000 terrorists in exchange for abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Lieberman previously noted that Abbas had no reason to visit Muna except to glorify the terrorist murder of Israeli Jews, even when the victims are children. With such people, it is impossible to have truly peaceful coexistence.