Israel must support its troops regardless of any mistakes they make, defense minister says in reference to soldier on trial for killing disarmed attacker. Amona must be destroyed.
By Tovah Lazaroff, JPOST
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Monday night called for a peace deal with the Palestinians that is based on population and land swaps.
“The principle of land for peace has failed,” Liberman said during a wide-ranging policy talk with students at Ariel University.
He promoted what has long been both his diplomatic plan and that of the Yisrael Beytenu party. It calls for the borders of the two-state solution to be drawn in such a way as to exclude the maximum amount of Palestinians and to include as many Israelis as possible.
The best path forward, he said, “is an exchange of territories and population.”
Such a plan would put the settlement blocs within Israel’s final borders, but exclude some Israeli-Arab areas of Israel.
“Why should the Triangle and Umm al-Fahm be part of Israel?” Liberman asked. “Why should I subsidize [Islamic movement leader Raed] Salah and pay [MK] Hanin Zoabi [Joint List]?”
However, he cautioned, such a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would have to be part and parcel of a larger comprehensive agreement with the Arab world.
Legally, he said, there is precedence for this. When he was Foreign Minister, he said he had asked the office’s legal advisors for an opinion on the matter and had received an affirmative response in writing.
They had explained that “it was possible according to international law,” Liberman said.
“I don’t see any reason why they prime minister and the Likud don’t act according to this principle,” he said.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman promised to stand by Staff Sgt. Elon Azaria even if it is proven that he erred in his actions. Azaria is accused of having shot and killed an already neutralized Palestinian terrorist as he lay on the ground.
“We will stand by him even if he was wrong,” Liberman said. “We are obligated to give him all the help and the support that we can.”
He spoke against those who rushed to judge Azaria, who is standing trial for manslaughter for his role in the death of Abdul Fatah al-Sharif, 24, after Sharif had just stabbed a soldier.
“Journalists and politicians should remember that in a democratic country people are innocent until proven guilty,” Liberman said. “That’s particularly true when it comes to soldiers whom the state has sent on a mission, and who are then under pressure when facing terrorism and a threatening population. They could make a mistake.”
Liberman noted that the soldiers in question were young men, age 18 and 19. Azaria, in particular, was condemned in the court of public opinion even before the legal trial began. The military justice system has to work without pressure or connection to any political opinion, he said.
Liberman added his hope that the military court could dismiss publicity surrounding the case and deliver a verdict based on facts.
Liberman reiterated his position on the pending demolition of the West Bank outpost Amona, which the High Court of Justice has mandated must be demolished by December 25.
His ministry must abide by the court decision, Liberman said.
Amona cannot remain in its current location because of the court ruling and because most of the structures are built on private Palestinian property, he said.
Liberman said his policy is that the same law which applies to settlers in the West Bank with regard to illegal building also applies to Palestinians, such as ones built illegally in the village of Sussiya.
The defense minister also spoke of the need to remove religion from politics, particularly when it comes to the allocation of resources.
But this was not the same thing as a separation of religion and state, he said, something that was not possible given deep ties between Judaism and nationalism.
He noted that the Finance Ministry has 17 building inspectors to monitor construction violations, and the Civil Administration has only 25 for Judea and Samaria. But when it comes to the regulation of the kosher food industry in Israel, there are 18,000 inspectors, he said.
Liberman called for the abolition of religious councils, which he said should be replaced with religious service departments within Israel’s municipalities.
This isn’t an anti-religious stance, he said, and described himself as someone who has Friday night dinner and then attends a football game on Saturday.
No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel –
David Ben Gurion
(David Ben-Gurion was the first Prime Minister of Israel and widely hailed as the State’s main founder).
“No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel.
No Jew has the authority to do so.
No Jewish body has the authority to do so.
Not even the entire Jewish People alive today has the right to yield any part of Israel.
It is the right of the Jewish People over the generations, a right that under
no conditions can be cancelled.
Even if Jews during a specific period proclaim they are relinquishing this right, they have neither the power nor the authority to deny it to future generations.
No concession of this type is binding or obligates the Jewish People. Our right to the country – the entire country – exists as an eternal right, and we shall not yield this historic right until its full and complete redemption is realized.”
(David Ben Gurion, Zionist Congress, Basel, Switzerland, 1937.)
“No country in the world exists today by virtue of its ‘right’.
All countries exist today by virtue of their ability to defend themselves against those who seek their destruction
No Jew or Jewish government has the right to evict Jews from their historical land in Greater Israel. “Israel, including Judea and Samaria, and the land east of the Jordan River has been the land of the Jewish people since time immemorial, over 30 centuries. Judea means Land of the Jews. Never in the history of the world has there been an autonomous state in the area that was not Jewish.” There has never been a Nation known as Arab Palestine. The Arabs received over five million sq. mi. of territory, but that was not enough. Violating international law and treaty the British allocated over three quarters of Jewish allocated land to the Arabs as the new Arab state of Jordan. Now the Arabs want more; they will not stop until they have all of Israel without the Jews. The Arab countries expelled over a million Jewish families and confiscated all their assets including businesses, homes and over 75,000 sq. mi. of Jewish owned land for over 25 centuries. No Jews are allowed to live in Jordan or in the West Bank area controlled by the Arab Palestinian Authority – Now you see it is the Arabs who are committing ethnic cleansing, just like they cleansed over a million Jewish families from Arab countries and now they are cleansing the millions of Christians and others.
The Oslo Accord is null and void as Abbas stated in the summer of 2015 at the U.N.
You; the Arabs have murdered the Jews and others and now you want to inherit them?
In view of past history of persecution; Israel and the Jews have an obsolete obligation to defend themselves at all costs. NEVER AGAIN. It must be in action not just words. No capitulation to the bias world.
YJ Draiman