Palestine rejects Israeli defense chief's attempts to find new peace partner

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said on Monday that attempts by Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman to find a Palestinian partner other than President Mahmoud Abbas "are destined to fail."

In an interview with Palestinian Al-Quds daily, published on Monday, Lieberman said that Israel needs an alternative to Abbas.

"We need someone who is able to take a tough decision that would be considered as an earthquake because it will open the door for Israel to establish ties with Arab states," he said.

"He [Lieberman] is illusive if he thinks that he may find a Palestinian peace partner that fits his criteria and his positions of promoting empty economic facilitations as an alternative to ending the occupation of the land of the state of Palestine," the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"He got used, like other members of the governing rightist coalition in Israel, to promoting lies and false preaches that contradict with signed agreements, violating international law and the four Geneva Conventions, and reflecting his position to hold on to occupation and settlement," it said.

It added that Lieberman's statements come to re-define the "racist... carrot-and-stick" policy that he adopted when he first assumed office as defense minister.

This policy "will not succeed in concealing the true intentions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to deepen the occupation and Judization of the Palestinian lands," it said.

Meanwhile, Palestinians on Monday slammed the Al-Quds daily for interviewing Lieberman.

Talal Abu Zarifa, a senior official in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, rejected the interview, saying that "Lieberman is a criminal whose hands are tarnished with the blood of Palestinians."

Publishing the interview "is a wrong step and opens the door for propaganda to the leaders of the occupation," he said.

"This is a clear normalization with the occupation," he added.

The Islamist Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, also condemned the interview.

"Al-Quds daily has no right to publish an interview for the criminal, Lieberman, who never stops threatening the Palestinian people to kill them," Hamas spokesman Hazen Qassem told Xinhua. Endit