Dans une interview publiée jeudi par le journal Haaretz, Avigdor Lieberman subordonne tout progrès vers la paix au désarmement des militants du Hamas dans la bande de Gaza. "Sans cela, il sera difficile d'avancer."
 
"Nous mènerons des discussions avec l'Autorité palestinienne mais nous voulons nous assurer qu'elle peut honorer ses engagements", dit-il. "La feuille de route impose des obligations à Israël et nous les honorerons mais nous exigeons une réciprocité."
 
Le plan de paix international exige notamment d'Israël un "gel" de ses activités de colonisation, or ni Lieberman ni Netanyahu n'y sont favorables.
 
Selon le négociateur palestinien Saëb Eerekat, Avigdor Lieberman ne fait qu'instrumentaliser la "feuille de route" pour éluder le processus de paix.
 
"Il chercher à réécrire la feuille de route pour qu'elle soit conforme à son intention de ne pas cesser les activités de colonisation et de ne pas négocier sur les questions centrales."
 
Mais, in fine, en présentant la feuille de route comme l'unique référence du gouvernement, Lieberman lie Israël sur un point que n'a cessé d'éluder Netanyahu : l'objectif ultime d'un Etat palestinien.

Robert Gates, US defence secretary, has said Israel is unlikely to attack Iran this year to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Mr Gates said he does not expect Israel – which believes the US estimate for when Iran could develop a nuclear weapon is too sanguine – to take military action this year.
 
“I guess I would say I would be surprised…if they did act this year,” said Mr Gates.
 
As he was sworn in as the new Israeli prime minister this week, Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the greatest danger to Israel was Iran’s attempt to develop nuclear weapons. But asked whether Iran would cross a nuclear “red line” this year, Mr Gates said: “I don’t know, I would guess probably not”.
 
“I think we have more time than that. How much more time I don’t know,” said Mr Gates. “It is a year, two years, three years. It is somewhere in that window.”
 
Israel raised the spectre of war last year by conducting a large scale military exercise that some experts saw as a practice run for an attack on Iran. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs, later delivered an unusual public warning following a visit to Israel, saying “this is a very unstable part of the world, and I don’t need it to be more unstable”.

Je suis le doyen des dirigeants arabes, le roi des rois d’Afrique et l’imam des musulmans

Défiant le puissant allié américain, il a rejeté le processus d'Annapolis, ultime tentative de l'Administration Bush pour relancer fin 2007 un processus de paix moribond, auquel Nétanyahou s'était pourtant dit lié, tout comme Obama. Excluant toute rétrocession du Golan, il a aussi claqué la porte au nez des Syriens, ne proposant que la paix en échange de la paix.

En voulant «préparer la guerre pour avoir la paix», en refusant de croire que des concessions unilatérales peuvent amener la sécurité pour l'État d'Israël, Lieberman apparaît en fin de compte comme le représentant de la majorité des électeurs qui ont voté pour Nétanyahou et les partis d'extrême droite, aujourd'hui majoritaires à la Knesset. Mais il n'est pas certain que le déclarer publiquement aide beaucoup le nouveau gouvernement dans ses relations avec l'étranger et, en premier lieu, avec ses alliés.

Le Caire a déjà fait savoir que ses contacts avec les Israéliens se feraient par l'intermédiaire du ministre de la Défense, Ehoud Barak.

That was the first test of strength inside the Netanyahu-Lieberman-Barak triangle. Lieberman has demonstrated his contempt for both Netanyahu and Barak.
 
His political base is secure, because he is the only person who can topple the government at any moment. After the Knesset debate on the new government, only 69 members voted for it. If one adds the five Labor members who “were present but did not participate in the vote” (a voting device that is less negative than abstaining), the government has 74 votes. Meaning: without Lieberman’s 15 members, the government does not command a majority.
...
 
....From the Foreign Office ceremony he hurried to another ritual ministerial handover, this time at the Ministry for Internal Security (formerly called the Ministry of Police).
 
What business did he have there? None. It is highly unusual for a minister to attend such a ceremony in another ministry. True, the new Internal Security minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, belongs to Lieberman’s party, but that is not relevant. After all, he did not attend the similar ceremony at the Immigration Absorption ministry, where another member of his party was installed.
 
The riddle was solved the next day, when the freshly installed Foreign Minister spent seven hours in a police interrogation room, answering questions about suspected bribery, money laundering and such, in connection with huge sums that were transferred from abroad to a company that belongs to his 23 year old daughter.
 
That explains his presence at the police ministry ceremony. He was photographed standing next to the chiefs of the criminal investigation department. It would be hard to see his appearance there as anything other than a crude and shameless threat against those who were to interrogate him on the morrow.

 He will maintain this government as long as it suits him and overthrow it the moment he feels that new elections will give him supreme power.
 
His rude and violent style is both natural and calculated. It is intended to threaten, to appeal to the most primitive types in society, to draw public attention and to assure media coverage. All these are reminiscent of other countries and other regimes. The first one to congratulate him was - not by chance – the ex-fascist Foreign Minister of Italy.
 
This week, earlier statements by Lieberman were quoted again and again. He once proposed bombing the huge Aswan dam, an act that would have caused a terrible Tsunami-like deluge and killed many millions of Egyptians. Another time he proposed delivering an ultimatum to the Palestinians: At 8 am we shall bomb your commercial centers, at noon your gas stations, at 2 pm your banks, and so on.
 
He has proposed drowning thousands of Palestinian prisoners, offering to provide the necessary buses to take them to the coast. Another time he proposed deporting 90% of the 1.2 million Arab citizens of Israel. Recently he told the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, one of the staunchest allies of the Israeli leadership, to “go to hell”.
 
In the recent election campaign his official program included the demand to annul the citizenship of any Arab who did not prove his loyalty to Israel. That was also his main slogan. This, too, is reminiscent of the programs of certain parties in history.
 
This is coupled with an open hostility to the Israeli “elites” and everything connected with the founders of the State of Israel.
 
Some people believe that Lieberman is really not a new phenomenon at all and that he simply brings to the surface traits that were there all the time but were buried beneath a thick layer of sanctimonious hypocrisy.
 
What is his solution to the historic Israeli-Arab conflict? In the past, he spoke about a regime of cantons for the Palestinians. They will live in several enclaves in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which will be disconnected from each other and dominated by Israel. No Palestinian State, of course, no Arab East Jerusalem. He even proposed adding to these cantons some areas of Israel inhabited by a dense Palestinian population, whose Israeli citizenship would be revoked.

 At the Foreign Office ceremony, Lieberman declared that the Annapolis agreement, which was dictated by President Bush, is invalid, and that only the “Road Map” counts. The Foreign Ministry spokesmen hurried to explain that the “Road Map” also speaks about “two states”. They forgot to remind the world that the Israeli government had “accepted” the Road Map only with 14 provisos that rob it of any content. For example: that Palestinians must “destroy the terrorist infrastructure” (What is that? Who decides?) before Israel shall make any move, including the freeze of the settlements.
 
(That may remind one of the rich Jew in the Shtetl, who dictated his Last Will and Testament, dividing his wealth between his relatives and friends and adding: “In case of my death, this Will shall be null and void.”)
 
As far as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is concerned, the controversy between Olmert and Livni on the one side and Netanyahu and Lieberman on the other is about tactics rather than strategy. The strategy of all of them is to prevent the creation of a normal, free and viable Palestinian state. Tzipi Livni was for a tactic of endless negotiations, decorated with pronouncement about peace and “two nation-states”. Not for nothing did Netanyahu mock her: You had several years to achieve agreement with the Palestinians. So why didn’t you?