Avigdor Lieberman, the former Israeli Defense Minister, renewed his incitement against Palestinian citizens on Monday, according to Israeli sources.
Speaking at a campaign trail meeting in Kiryat Ono, the Yisrael Beiteinu chair described the “conflict” as “three-dimensional”, “with the Arab countries, with the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs”, and that “the third conflict, with Israeli Arabs, is the most difficult”.
He added, according to the PNN: “We do not have a separate conflict with the Palestinians, and anyone who claims so, does not understand what he is talking about or is being deliberately misleading.”
“Our conflict is with the entire Muslim world, with the entire Arab world,” Lieberman declared.
The comments were published on Zman Yisrael, the Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site, “and approved for publication by Lieberman though the event was billed as closed to press”.
Lieberman told the attendees that “the arrangement must be three-dimensional and simultaneous with the Arab League, with Israeli Arabs and with the Palestinians”, and “any attempt to reach a separate agreement with the Palestinians or the Arabs of Israel will fail.”
As noted by the report, Lieberman has long called for a permanent settlement to include redrawing Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries so as to remove major population centers of Palestinian citizens.
Born in Moldova, Lieberman is one of the only ministers in the world who does not live in territory officially recognized as his own country. Originally under suspicion over charges of money-laundering and bribery, Lieberman was formally indicted in December of 2012, on lesser charges of fraud and breach of trust.
In 2014, his party was the focus of a corruption probe within the Israeli political spectrum, and, in November of the same year, Lieberman’s life was threatened by an assassination attempt.
Prior to moving to Israel from Moldova, Lieberman worked as a nightclub bouncer. When he moved into an Israeli settlement, he gained infamy when he was charged with beating up a 12-year old boy. He espoused extreme right-wing views, and became a member of the Yisrael Beitenu party, which he now chairs.
