Tel Aviv – Outspoken and hawkish Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman insisted that he supported a Palestinian state as he began his new job as defence minister on Tuesday.
Lieberman, who is controversial and known for his belligerent language, was sworn in on Monday in Jerusalem and welcomed on Tuesday by an honorary guard at defence headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the parliament vote in favour of Lieberman’s appointment that he would take the opportunity to make clear that he remain committed to making peace with the Palestinians and with all our neighbours.
However Netanyahu said he remained committed to the two-state solution,
Lieberman replied him that he listened to everything he said and he absolutely agreed with every word, including two states for two peoples.
Recently, Lieberman said that if he were defence minister he would give the leader of Hamas in Gaza 24 hours to hand over the bodies of Israeli soldiers killed in the 2014 Gaza war.
In 2001, he warned that Israel could bomb the Aswan dam over the Nile if provoked by Egypt.
In a 2008 statement, he said that if then Egyptian president Hosny Mubarak continued to refuse to visit Israel in spite of the cold peace between the two countries, he could “go to hell.”
But he struck a more conciliatory note on Monday.
“I want to remind people that I spoke more than once about recognising that same solution of two states for two peoples,’’ Lieberman said.
Both Netanyahu and Lieberman spoke about the importance of the 2002 Arab League peace initiative.
In which the peace initiative promised normalisation of ties between Israel and Arab states in the region, as soon as Israel signed a peace deal with the Palestinians.
They praised Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi for a May 17 call to revive peace talks.
Meanwhile the last Israeli-Palestinian bilateral negotiations collapsed two years ago. (dpa/NAN)
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