Lieberman threatens to murder Palestinian PM and Foreign Minister as bombardment of Gaza continues.

I wonder if Ehud Olmert is regretting yet his decision to welcome the fascist Avigdor Lieberman to join his cabinet as Deputy Prime Minister.

Lieberman has stated:

"If the soldier (Gilad Shalit) is not returned immediately, [Palestinian Prime Minister] Ismail Haniyeh and [Foreign Minister] Mahmoud Zahar can join the company of the shahids," Lieberman said, using the name given to suicide bombers.

Threats from government officials to murder another administration's elected officials really is a step too far, so much so that even other members of the Israeli government have called for Lieberman to be censured:

In response to Lieberman's threats, Defense Minister Amir Peretz told the London-based Daily Telegraph that "these words cause unnecessary agitation. The government needs to censure them."

Meanwhile Olmert is refusing to say when Israel will stop it's current bombardment of the citizens of Gaza which has taken 27 lives this weekend alone.

Olmert told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. "The operation is limited in time but we have no intention of announcing when it will end."

"When we reach the conclusion that the effectiveness of the operation is bringing us closer to reaching the goals, we will definitely pull our forces out of Gaza," he added. "We have no intention to occupy Gaza."

The lack of condemnation worldwide as Israel continues this brutal assault on the Palestinians is startling. And, once again, Israel appears to be claiming that they are behaving in a highly moral manner.

"Who has the moral right to come to us with complaints?" Sneh told Army Radio, after Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar of Hamas said that IAF bombings in Gaza could kill kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Referring to Qassam rocket attacks against the Negev following Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Strip, Sneh said "After the IDF left Gaza, these terrorists turned Beit Hanun into a base for launching rockets solely at a civilian population.

"All those who are crying out should be directing that cry at Hamas, and not at us," he said.

Israel have now started air strikes in Gaza which have killed at least seven people, one of whom was a 12-year-old girl.

No doubt the Israelis would say that this is collateral damage and the only thing we can expect from a terrorist organisation who hide amongst the people.

I wonder if this policy would be considered appropriate were other nations to emulate it?

For instance, the notorious Haitian death squad leader Emmanuel Constant continues to live in New York.

Constant is the founder of the FRAPH (Front for Advancement of Progress in Haiti), the paramilitary group that carried out most of the state terror in the early 1990s under the military junta that overthrew president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Haiti has requested that the US extradite this murderer, a request that the US has so far refused to comply with. Indeed, the Haitian government made a request shortly after 9-11, at the same time as the US were requesting that the Taliban hand over bin Laden.

The US did not even bother to reply to the request.

Now, as the US were then able to bomb Afghanistan freely (as a nation harbouring a fugitive from justice), would it be acceptable for Haiti to have taken out Emmanuel Constant with an Israeli-style missile attack on Queens? And if a certain number of Americans were killed during the process, would this be regarded as "collateral damage"?

Israel continues to behave in the Occupied Territories in a fashion that would not be accepted were any other nation to emulate this behaviour towards any western nation. Why do we accept this?

Indeed, why is there no condemnation of the fascist Lieberman's appointment to such an important Israeli cabinet position?

In Israel itself there is widespread condemnation over Lieberman's remarks "urging Israel to redraw its map to "exchange" part of the Arab population and create a more "homogenous Jewish state," as a solution to Israel's Arab minority "problem.""

Israel's Deputy Prime Minister is openly calling for ethnic cleansing, the very reason that the west intervened in former Yugoslavia. Nor he is he even mildly apologetic about what he has called for:

Lieberman told Army Radio earlier Sunday, "if we want to safeguard Israel's character as a Jewish and Zionist state, there is no other solution," adding that the separation should be "consensual."

"The reason for the [Israeli-Palestinian] 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."

According to Lieberman, Israel had no alternative but to move toward "exchanges of populations and territory, in order to create the most homogeneously Jewish state."

Every time Ahmadinejad makes any comment regarding Israel it is, rightly, written about in our national newspapers. George Bush and Tony Blair have both quoted Ahmadinejad often because of the intemperate language he has used towards the Israelis.

Why is there this silence when the Israeli deputy PM is calling for the Palestinians to be ethnically cleansed?

Indeed, there appears to be one rule for the west and one for the rest of the planet. The people of Northern Ireland would not have accepted us killing eleven of their citizens in order to kill one member of the IRA. Indeed, the world would have, rightly, united in condemnation against us.

Why are we allowing Israel to behave in this way towards the Palestinians?

tag: Israel, Palestine, Israeli incursions, operation, Lieberman, Deputy Prime Minister, ethnic cleansing,