Lieberman’s letter to the Quartet

Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman
(Photo by Tomer Appelbaum / Haaretz)

On Monday 20 August Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman sent a letter to USA Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (all the members of the Quartet on the Middle East).

According to Hareetz, “The letter is the high point of a campaign Lieberman has been conducting in the past year to delegitimize Abbas, but it is the first time he has suggested a concrete process for removing him, such as holding new elections.”

The letter highlights what in Lieberman’s opinion are “gestures” from the Israeli state to the Palestinian Authority (PA). Lieberman’s states he is shocked to see that despite so many “gestures of goodwill” (funny way to call what is done purely on the interest of Israel) the PA is raising its activity “against Israel” in the diplomatic and legal arenas. These include, in Lieberman’s words: “illegal construction in Area C”, encouraging an “economic boycott on the Israel economy” and “repeated negative statements against Israel”, accusations of murder of Yasser Arafat by Israel and attacks to the existence of the state of Israel.

Lieberman accuses PA President Mahmoud Abbas of being an obstacle to peace and calls on the Quartet to press for new elections in the PA to replace him so as to truly “strenghten the Palestinian leadership”. He accuses Abbas of “encouraging a culture of hatred” against Israel and “praising terrorists”, among others, and defines the PA as a “despotic government riddled with corruption”. He calls on elections in the PA in order “to bring a serious change to the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians” (note the subtility: Palestinians instead of Palestine).

There are many questions that come to my mind: what peace?; what negociations?; what peace process?; on what ground Israel or any other state in the world can even think of calling for elections somewhere else?; what makes Lieberman think that Abbas would not be reelected?; how someone who justifies the military occupation of a people dares to talk about “gestures of goodwill” when finally complying with some of the most basic human rights that they do not hesitate to deny?; how can someone like Lieberman accuse anyone of encouraging hatred?; why Abbas praises terrorists and Lieberman, who has never stopped encouraging illegal settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories, dares to portray himself as a defendor of democracy?; has Lieberman forgot what he denies calling Palestine is under military occupation since 1967 by the same country he represents?; what is a “serious change” for him, having a PA government that goes even beyond the current collaboration with the occupier that the Abbas government represents?

And so on.

Lieberman’s blatant lies on many of the aspects he talks about in the letter reach a peak when he raises the topic of the settlements. He goes on to say that Israel temporarily froze the construction of settlements (which has never ever happened); that the last one to be constructed was in 1991 (he does not mention that by “construct” they do not mean “expand already existing settlements”); that Israel took the “painful” decision to evacuate a number of settlements especially in Gaza and the Sinai (he seems only to care for pain when it is suffered by Jewish); and that in any case settlements only constitute a somewhat 1% of the West Bank (which is not true, apart from the fact that if it was, that 1% would not be less than illegal anyway).

Lieberman says that “the claim that settlements are an obstacle to peace is unfounded” based on the ground that Israel signed peace treaties with [Mubarak’s] Egypt and [Hashemite] Jordan. Needless to say each one of the 3 countries were/are a great example of democracy, apart from the fact that it is quite easy to sign peace treaties with a state that is mainly oppressing not you but your neighbour.

As Haaretz notes, it seems that Lieberman wrote the letter because “he sensed that his messages on the Palestinian issue were not being properly conveyed to Western countries.”

Thank you Mr. Lieberman, now it is crystal clear.

From Tahrir to an Islamist government in Egypt

Egypt’s Election Commission has just announced Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi winner of the second round of the Egyptian presidential elections.

The results have followed weeks of protests and accusations of corruption not only from the two parties but from the rest of the political groups in the contest.

According to the Electoral Commission the Muslim Brotherhood candidate has received 13.2 million votes (51%) while Ahmed Shafiq, the final prime minister under Hosni Mubarak and the candidate of the army, received 12.3 million.

Where did the secular protests in Tahrir square go? Evan Hill from Al Jazeera points:

Faced with the prospect of being ruled by an all-powerful military fronted by a president with deep ties to the ousted regime of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s secular pro-revolution political forces have struck a tenuous alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood in one final push to wrest back the momentum of the transition.

In a press conference on Friday to announce the pact, Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohammed Morsi said the new front of ideologically opposed parties “represents the unity of all political forces and affiliations in Egypt”.

Will Morsi’s victory be a simple change of persons or a change of regime? The future relations between the Egyptian army (the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces or SCAF) and the newly elected President are very unclear. As reported by Al Jazeera:

Shortly before the polls closed last week, the generals issued a decree sharply limiting the powers of the new president. It permitted him to declare war, for example, only with the approval of the military council.

SCAF will also keep control of legislative power, and the budget, until a new parliament is elected. Egyptians went to the polls in November to elect a legislature, which was dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, but it was dissolved earlier this month after a high court ruling found parts of the electoral law unconstitutional.

(···) But it’s unclear whether the Brotherhood ultimately accepted those decisions in exchange for the presidency.

Either way, the military council – which has promised to hand over power to a civilian government on June 30, in a “grand ceremony” – will remain a powerful force in Egyptian politics, despite the election of a civilian president.

It is also unclear what steps will the new government take towards Israel, or the impact it will have in Palestine, especially in Hamas run Gaza. Egypt has promoted the reunification between Hamas and Fatah, in talks for more than a year on a widely acclaimed and seriously feared unity government in Palestine.

Whatever it happens, what is sure is that millions of people not only in the Middle East but around the world will be following the new steps of the Islamists in the most populated country of the region and the consequences it will have in the international arena.