Európa magatartása emlékeztet 1938-ra. Avigdor Lieberman Izraeli külügyminiszter szerint

One of the biggest diplomatic challenges Israel will face in 2015 will be Europe’s view of Israeli policies, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday, during a meeting with the Israeli envoys to the European Union, held at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

Lieberman was quoted by Channel 2 as saying, „I’m not sure devoting so much time to the Palestinian issue is in Israel’s best interest. The challenge is to present an initiative that addresses Israel’s interests first. If I have to analyze all the challenges we face, I would have to say that our biggest diplomatic challenge is not the Palestinians or the Arab nations, but the West.”

Lieberman leveled harsh criticism at the support lent by the European Union to the Palestinian Authority’s unilateral moves in the international theater, and especially the decision of several U.N. Security Council members to back a Palestinian resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and the establishment of a Palestinian state, with east Jerusalem as its capital, by late 2017.

While the Palestinian Authority’s move was defeated, the foreign minister said the fact that Britain had abstained during the vote, while France and Luxemburg had voted in favor of it, proved some European nations were forsaking Israel.

„Some European nations’ conduct is reminiscent of 1938, just before the Munich Agreement,” he said, evoking the deal negotiated between European powers and Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II. „The conduct by countries like Sweden and Ireland is reminiscent of how [European powers] abandoned Czechoslovakia to its fate. Now they are making all kinds of excuses to abandon Israel, even though we are the only country in the Middle East to represent Western values.”

Lieberman further said that the EU’s attempt to link its ties to Israel to the Palestinian issue only increases the number of anti-Semitic attacks in some European countries.

„Sometimes, you are just amazed by the amount of lies, fabrications, and the distortion of reality you find in the records of meetings held by European parliaments. It’s like another chapter in ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ Sometimes, you are simply stunned by how otherwise respectable and serious individuals simply make things up and lie through their teeth,” he said.

Meanwhile, Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirshenbaum, who has been implicated in the Yisrael Beytenu corruption scandal, reportedly informed Lieberman on Friday of her desire to withdraw her name form the party’s Knesset list, as well as resign as Yisrael Beytenu’s election campaign director.

A Yisrael Beytenu statement released Saturday said Lieberman had asked Kirshenbaum to reconsider her decision and remain in both positions, and that she had agreed to withdraw her resignation. The statement prompted conjectures that the move was yet another political ploy employed as part of Yisrael Beytenu’s crisis management strategy.

Speaking at a cultural event Saturday, Lieberman criticized the media, saying, „In a normal country, a person is innocent until proven guilty. No one involved in this case has been convicted by the court, but they have all been convicted by the media. This is another attempt, the sixth attempt, to trample over an entire party. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — no one in Yisrael Beytenu has ever been convicted of theft, bribery or breach of trust.”

Lieberman alleged that „one of the people questioned in this case, who was questioned not because he was a suspect, but to pressure the other suspects, attempted suicide,” but did not elaborate further.

Police sources said investigators had no knowledge of suicide attempt by any of the individuals implicated in the case.

The Attorney-General’s Office rejected Lieberman’s claims of political persecution, saying, „The investigation is conducted in a professional manner with one goal and one goal only — to discover the truth.”