BY ISRAEL TODAY—
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Sunday warned that the Palestinian Authority is planning to unleash a new wave of violence against Israel in conjunction with its bid for UN recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN in September.
The Palestinian leadership “is planning violence and bloodshed on a scale that has yet to have been seen here,” Lieberman told reporters at the Knesset. “The more they talk about their wish to operate in the diplomatic arena, the more I see preparations for violence and bloodshed.”
Lieberman said the basis for his assessment is recent efforts by the Palestinian Authority to organize massive marches on Israeli army checkpoints and on Jerusalem to coincide with the UN vote.
“You can just imagine what would happen if 30 or 40 thousand people try to forcefully enter Israel,” noted Lieberman. “How are soldiers and officers supposed to react?”
It is now widely accepted that the Palestinian Authority under former leader Yasser Arafat was behind the start of the “Second Intifada” or “Oslo War,” a terrorist uprising against Israel that lasted from the summer of 2000 until it largely fizzled out in 2007.
While it would seem counterproductive for the Palestinians to mar their diplomatic efforts with outbreaks of violence, that strategy has served them well until now.
Every outbreak of Palestinian violence to date has only increased international pressure on Israel to meet Palestinian demands, while carrying little or no diplomatic consequences for the Palestinians.
