At meeting in Paris, FM tells US counterpart that Israel could offer “effective and reliable” help to moderate Arab states caught in extremists’ cross-hairs.
Kerry meets with Liberman in France June 26, 2014.
Give up trying to broker an Israeli-Palestinian accord, and focus instead on a comprehensive regional agreement, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman told US Secretary of State John Kerry during a meeting Thursday in Paris.
Liberman, meeting Kerry for the first time since the breakdown in March of the US-backed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, said Israel’s ongoing conflict is not only with the Palestinians, but the entire Arab world — of which the Palestinians are a part.
For that reason, Liberman said, it was necessary to reach an accord that will include the moderate Arab states, the Palestinians and the Israeli Arabs. He said that this was the first time that there was a commonality of interests between Israel and the moderate Arab countries, with both very concerned about an Iranian nuclear threat, al-Qaida and the threat from global Jihadists, and that the conflicts in Syria and Iraq will spill over to neighboring countries.
Liberman said that today there was a “foundation” for creating a new “political-diplomatic structure in the Middle East,” adding that the establishment of an independent Kurdish state is now a foregone conclusion.
According to the foreign minister, the extremist elements now wreaking havoc in Iran will soon turn their sites on the Persian Gulf countries, first and foremost Kuwait. Israel, he said, could be an effective and reliable help to to the moderate Arab states facing extremist threats.
The problem with going for a comprehensive solution is that Comrades Kerry and Obama will end up falling back to something like the Saudi plan, or something very close to it.