Less than a week after declaring that the new Israeli government did not consider itself bound by the Annapolis Conference commitment to a two-state solution with the Palestinians, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman today declared that all peace talks with the Palestinians were “at a dead end.”
Minister Lieberman also cautioned foreign powers to “not interfere” in Israeli affairs, seen by some as a reference to President Barack Obama’s comments yesterday in favor of a two-state solution. He insisted that Israel has “never interfered in the affairs of others, and we expect from others that they not interfere in ours.”
Speaking at the convention of his Yisrael Beiteinu party, Lieberman declared that most of the world had come to accept his ideas, and that the only people who take issue with them are Israeli leftists. His party gained enormously in this year’s elections, on the back of Lieberman’s pro-war statements and the demand that Arabs take loyalty oaths or lose their citizenship.