ISRAEL'S new hard-line foreign minister delivered a scathing critique of Middle East peace efforts yesterday, rejecting the past year of United States-led negotiations and telling a room crowded with cringing diplomats that concessions to the Palestinians invite only war.
Avigdor Lieberman's first speech since taking office, along with accusations by Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Palestinian president, that the new Israeli government is opposed to peace, signalled tough times ahead for regional diplomacy.
"Whoever t
hinks that concessions will achieve something is wrong. He will bring pressures and more wars," Mr Lieberman said. "What we have to explain to the world is that the list of priorities must change."
The appointment of Mr Lieberman, the leader of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu, has raised international concerns because of his hard-line positions on peace and an election campaign that was widely seen as racist.
His campaign proposal to strip the citizenship of people who do not pledge loyalty to the Israeli state and the slogan that "only Lieberman understands Arabic" were viewed as thinly veiled swipes at the country's Arab minority.
Yesterday's speech at the foreign ministry only added to Palestinian trepidation over the new government of Benjamin Netanyahu. In his first term as prime minister a decade ago, Mr Netanyahu took a tough line in peace talks and frequently clashed with his Palestinian counterparts.
