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The government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert moved a step closer to collapse last week when Srategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman resigned his Cabinet position and announced the withdrawal of his Yisrael Beiteinu Party from the governing coalition.
Lieberman said he could no longer remain in a government that was making policy based on the illusion that surrendering more land to the Palestinians will bring peace to the region.
The move comes less than one week after U.S. President George Bush addressed the Israeli Cabinet and strongly urged the ministers to refrain from destabilizing the Olmert government while it is involved in helping to birth a Palestinian Arab state.
Even with Yisrael Beiteinu's departure from the government coalition, the Olmert government still commands a 67-seat majority in the Knesset. However, many expect the Orthodox religious Shas Party to follow Lieberman's lead for the same reasons. A Shas Party pullout would topple the government.
Lieberman informed Olmert that he was resigning his position as Minister for Stategic Affairs and withdrawing his party out of the ruling coalition to protest the starting of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority over the "core issues" for a Palestinian state.
Addressing a press confrence in the Knesset, Lieberman declared that Yisrael Beiteinu had set "clear red lines" for remaining in the coalition. "A month before the Annapolis conference," he stressed, "we published our red lines for staying in the government. We were absolutely clear about what it would take to keep our party in the coalition."
He explained, "If the Olmert government opens negotiations on the co-called core issues for the establishment of a Palestinian state, we would leave the government."
Prime Minister Olmert accepted Lieberman's resignation and thanked him for his "considerable contributions" to the government and to the nation. However, Olmert stressed that he has a "national responsibiliy" to negotiate with the Palestine Authority. "There is no alternative," he said, "to conducting serious diplomatic negotiations in order to reach peace."
Lieberman said that the "land for peace" formula that has governed Israeli negotiations for the past 20 years has been a dramatic failure. He stressed that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria had nothing to do with the Arab world's on-going rejection of Israel as a Jewish state.
"There was conflict and terrorism before 1967," he continued, "when Israel liberated Judea and Samaria, and before 1948, when the State of Israel was established. Anyone who chooses to ignore these facts only helps to bring destruction to the Jewish state."
Lieberman added that Israel must discard the failed land-for-peace formula in favor of population exchange with the Palestinians. He said that 65 percent of the Israeli people support the idea.
He also warned that demography is working against a Jewish population majority in Israel, and challenged the left-wing politicians about their vision of peace. "Pursue your retreat to the 1967 borders, and then what do you have?" he asked. "Then there will be peace? Then there will be no more terrorism?"
He stressed, "Anyone who says Israel's conflict with the Arabs is about territory, settlements or outposts is deceiving himself and others."
Lieberman continued: "And it's no secret. The Israeli Arabs are open about their attitudes. Read the Palestinians' vision statement. It says: 'We demand independence from Israel for the Galilee and Negev. We will never recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish country.'"
He claimed that the current negotiations were leading toward something radically unacceptable - "a state and a half for one nation and half a state for the other. We cannot accept the asymmetry of a Jew-free Palestinian state and a bi-national Israel with 20 percent Arabs." He added that such asymmetry would lead to the destruction of the country.
Lieberman's withdrawal of theYisrael Beiteinu Party not only reduced Olmert's coalition majority from 78 to 67 members, but is also forced attention on the 12-seat Shas Party. Shas Chairman Eli Yishai said last week that his party would follow Lieberman's lead out of the coalition if negotiations began on "core issues" for a Palestinian state.
Olmert would have no way of securing his government's future if the Shas Party bolts. It would mean new elections, a new government coalition, a new Cabinet, and probably a new prime minister.
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Dr. Al Snyder is a former professor of Communications at Liberty University in Virginia and North Greenville University. He has done extensive missionary work in Israel and Africa.
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