Word: palestinian
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...swearing-in ceremony, Netanyahu's Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, sent aggressive signals, renouncing some of the relatively dovish positions of outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert - whose government spent its final year in office negotiating indirectly with Syria and directly with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Lieberman rejected the Bush Administration's Annapolis peace initiative, under which Olmert and Abbas had talked about the parameters of a Palestinian state. And he insisted that Israel would never withdraw from the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967. "Whoever thinks that he will achieve something by way of concessions - no, he will only...
Despite his hard-line inflammatory rhetoric, however, Lieberman may be a pragmatist. Unlike many on Israel's right - including Netanyahu - Lieberman supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a Ha'aretz interview after taking office, Lieberman said Israel should abide by the 2002 Roadmap, which calls for a Palestinian state. The Roadmap obliges the Palestinians to cease violence, dismantle the capabilities of terrorist organizations and reform their political institutions before any movement toward the creation of a Palestinian state. But it also obliges Israel to freeze settlement construction and dismantle all settlement outposts built since March...
...remains to be seen whether Lieberman is willing to accept a truly independent Palestinian state - Netanyahu has indicated that he won't, insisting, in the name of the Jewish state's security, that Israel control the air space and borders of such an entity and have veto power over its military and foreign policies. Netanyahu's track record, however, is more pragmatic than ideological. Despite his open loathing of Yasser Arafat, Netanyahu and his previous government signed a deal in 1998 with the late PLO leader for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of the West Bank, including...
...worth noting, of course, that even had the more dovish Livni been in charge, peace with the Palestinians would not be achieved anytime soon. That's because political divisions on the Palestinian and Arab side are an even bigger mess than the hawkish Netanyahu's hodgepodge coalition of ultranationalist hard-liners like Lieberman and longtime peace negotiators like his Defense Minister, Labor Party leader Barak...
...Netanyahu: an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, excepting the large Jewish settlements around Jerusalem; having Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and a future Palestine; the adoption of a special status for the Old City, holy to Christians, Jews and Muslims; the return of refugees to a Palestinian state, with Israel accepting some responsibility for their plight; and the presence of a multinational force in the Palestinian territories during an interim period to guarantee Israel's security from terrorist attacks. (See pictures of Israeli soldiers sweeping into Gaza...