Hawkish Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who has made it clear time and again that he opposes on general principle the idea of a peace settlement with the Palestinians, today again lashed out at the talks.
“Signing a comprehensive peace agreement is an unattainable goal – not next year and not in the next generation,” Lieberman insisted in comments given at a Yisrael Beiteinu event. He added that the settlement freeze had been used to “political advantage” by the Palestinians and must not be allowed to continue.
Lieberman has long opposed the peace talks, insisting that they “hurt Israel” and that any actual deals are impossible. He has advocated instead the “Cyprus model,” which he describes as a plan of mass population transfer that would end in some sort of informal calm.
Lieberman’s comments, as the head of Israel’s diplomatic corps, of course makes the already struggling peace talks even more difficult. Though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has largely tried to conduct an independent foreign policy while leaving Lieberman to fume and occasionally lash out publicly, his party’s opposition to the peace deal (as well as the similar positions of other coalition partners) will make it next to impossible for Netanyahu to even continue the talks past the next few weeks, let alone reach any sort of agreement on Palestinian statehood.
