BICOM

A front page report in this morning’s Yediot Ahronot says that Foreign Minister and Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Lieberman will launch his own peace initiative as the centrepiece of his party’s election manifesto.

Lieberman is often regarded as a hard-liner and has recently sharply criticised Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ credentials as a partner for peace. Nonetheless, a regional peace plan is the apparently lynchpin of a draft election platform titled “Swimming against the current—Yisrael Beiteinu’s vision.”

Lieberman argues that there is no choice but to give up on the idea of a “Greater Land of Israel” in favour of a comprehensive compromise with the Arab world which will maintain the “unity of the people.” He writes, “In the end, in the debate on the integrity of the people versus the integrity of the land — the integrity of the people takes precedence.”

The plan reiterates proposals made by Lieberman in the past, which he says would, “enable Israeli Arabs who do not identify with the State of Israel to become part of the Palestinian state.” These include making areas of Northern Israel adjacent to the West Bank, with a largely Arab population, part of a Palestinian state. He also mentions offering economic incentives for Arab Israelis in other areas, “who feel that they are part of the Palestinian people, to resolve the problem of duality and the ‘split personality’ from which they suffer.”

Lieberman’s plan asserts that, “the State of Israel’s conflict is not just a territorial conflict with our Palestinian neighbours, but rather a combined three-dimensional conflict: The Arab states, the Palestinians and the Israeli Arabs.” As a result, he proposes “an arrangement with the Palestinians must be part of a comprehensive arrangement, which will include peace agreements with the Arab states and a land and population swap of Israeli Arabs.”

Lieberman argues that the Arab world is ripe for such an agreement as “The moderate Arab states also realize that the threat to them is not Israel and Zionism, but rather the radical Islamic organizations such as ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbullah.”

Meanwhile, a Hamas activist from the Bethlehem region was charged yesterday with leading a 3-man cell which planned to assassinate Lieberman during the summer. They planned to launch a rocket-propelled grenade launcher as he travelled near his West Bank home in Nokdim.