CAIRO — Israel's new controversial deputy premier and strategic affairs ministers wants Israeli Arabs – a fifth of the population – to be surgically removed to preserve the Jewish, Zionist character of Israel, in fresh "racist" remarks.
"I think separation between two nations is the best solution," hawkish Avigdor Lieberman told Britain's Sunday Telegraph on November 5.
"Cyprus is the best model. Before 1974, the Greeks and Turks lived together and there were frictions and bloodshed and terror," he said.
"After 1974, they constituted all Turks on one part of the island, all Greeks on the other part of the island and there is stability and security."
Reminded that thousands were forcibly driven from their homes, the leader of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitanu (Israel Our Home) said: "Yes, but the final result was better."
"We established Israel as a Jewish country," he said. "I want to provide an Israel that is a Jewish, Zionist country. It's about what kind of country we want to see in the future."
The 48-year-old hardliner, an immigrant from ex-Soviet Moldova, said minorities are "the biggest problem in the world."
Lieberman draws his support mainly from fellow transplants from the former Soviet Union and is known for his hard-line views.
Religious Conflict
"Lieberman's statements are intolerable," said Herzog.
In a later interview with the Israeli Army Radio, Lieberman stood by his comments.
"If we want to safeguard Israel's character as a Jewish and Zionist state, there is no other solution," he said.
"The reason for the conflict is not territory, not occupation, not settlers or settlements, rather friction between the two peoples and the two religions.
"Everywhere, the world over, no matter if it's the former Yugoslavia or the Caucasus region in Russia, or Northern Ireland, wherever there are two peoples and two religions, there is friction."
Lieberman believes the only solution is "exchanges of populations and territory, in order to create the most homogenously Jewish state."
Lieberman is best known in Israel for his widely criticized "Population Exchange" plan, under which the Arab-populated "Triangle" area of the Wadi 'Ara region - would be handed over to the Palestinian Authority in exchange for keeping large Jewish-populated settlement blocs.
He has often made remarks condemned as racist toward Israel's Arab minority.
In June, Lieberman was widely quoted as saying that Arab MKs who held contacts with Hamas should be executed.
He had also proposed to bus thousands of Palestinians to the Dead Sea and drown them there.
Racist
"Israeli Arabs are the salt of the earth, while Lieberman is nothing but an invader," said Tibi.
His new remarks were immediately branded as inapplicable and racist.
"Lieberman's statements are intolerable," Tourism Minister Yitzhak Herzog told public radio.
"Anyone who knows the arrangements in Cyprus knows that they are inapplicable to Israel."
Ophir Pines-Paz, the former culture minister, decried Lieberman's politics as "racist", saying the minister himself was "a strategic threat to Israel."
MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) called for the immediate dismissal of Lieberman from the government in light of his "racist comments."
Israeli Arab MPs also denounced the remarks.
"The prime minister should fire him immediately," said Taleb Al-Sanaa, adding that "these racist declarations are bringing us toward an apartheid regime."
Ahmed Tibi told Haaretz that "Israeli Arabs are the salt of the earth, while Lieberman is nothing but an invader."
Israeli Arabs, who make up nearly a fifth of the population, are descendants of those who stayed when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes by Zionist gangs in1948, when Israel was founded on the rubble of Palestine.
Relations between Israel's Jews and Arabs have long been difficult, with Arabs complaining of discrimination at work place.
The Knesset has further made life unbearable for Israeli Arabs married to Palestinians by adopting a law denying the latter the right to get an Israeli residency to live with their spouses.
Israeli Arabs accused the government of using them as human shields during the summer war on Lebanon, saying it failed to build bomb shelters in their towns and villages as it did in other areas.
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