Liberman on ‘disloyal’ Arab citizens: Off with their heads
Former diplomats protest foreign minister’s conduct • Tibi calls Yisrael Beytenu chairman ‘Jewish ISIS’
Former diplomats and intellectuals came out against Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman Monday, a day after he called to decapitate Israeli Arabs who are “against us.” “Whoever is with us should get everything,” the Yisrael Beytenu chairman said in a speech at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya Sunday. “Whoever is against us, there’s nothing else to do. We have to lift up an ax and remove his head, otherwise we won’t survive here.” According to Liberman, Israel acts like “fools, misers and weaklings,” and “there is no place for such people in the Middle East.” Liberman repeated his party’s platform that Umm el-Fahm and the surrounding area should be part of a future Palestinian state, not Israel. “Israeli citizens who wave a black flag on Nakba Day [on which Israeli Arabs and Palestinians mark Israel’s establishment as a tragedy] can leave, and I am willing to donate them to [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] very happily,” he added. When an Arab student in the audience accused Liberman of saying she does not belong in Israel, he responded: “You are a citizen and there is no problem with that. I expect every Arab, Christian or Jewish citizen to be loyal to our state, without a connection to religion, and enlist in national service.” Former ambassador to South Africa and former Foreign Ministry director-general Alon Liel and former ambassador to France Daniel Shek are working on a letter to be signed by other diplomats criticizing the conduct of the foreign minister. “It’s shocking that the foreign minister spoke in a blatantly racist way against 20 percent of the citizens of the country he is supposed to represent,” Shek stated. MK Ahmed Tibi (UAL-Ta’al) called Liberman the “Jewish Islamic State.” Tibi added that The Joint List, made up of several Arab parties and one mixed Arab-Jewish party, “will remove the heads of racists and fascists only through democratic means – bringing as many [Knesset] seats as possible and active participation in the election. The stronger we are, the weaker Jewish Islamic State will be.” The Palestinian Authority called for the arrest and trial of Liberman for his comments. In a strongly worded statement, the PA Foreign Ministry called for the arrest of Liberman “because he poses a threat to humanity.” The ministry said Liberman’s remarks were “very dangerous,” adding that the “smugness of the killer Liberman would surely be one of the cases brought before the International Criminal Court so that he would stand trial for his crimes.” The ministry claimed Liberman’s remarks were part of an “official Israeli call for ethnic cleansing and an extension of the fascist policies of the settlers.”