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Jewish settlers' champion could be next Israeli foreign minister

Avigdor Lieberman proposes loyalty oath for Israeli Arabs

Last Updated: Monday, March 16, 2009 | 12:23 PM ET Comments7Recommend2

CBC News

Hard-liner Avigdor Lieberman has moved closer to becoming Israel's foreign minister in a coalition deal with prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli newspapers reported on Monday.

Avigdor Lieberman stands to become Israel's foreign minister under a coalition deal, but the appointment is not a certainty. (Canadian Press)Lieberman, 50, is an immigrant from the former Soviet Union who became a champion of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and a settler himself.

A onetime deputy prime minister, he has proposed that Israeli Arabs be denied citizenship unless they sign loyalty oaths, and urged that all leaders of the Hamas militant movement in the Palestinian territories be assassinated.

Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party and Lieberman's farther-right Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home) have agreed to divide up key cabinet posts, with Lieberman getting the Foreign Ministry, the Jerusalem Post reported on its website.

But that could change if the centrist Kadima party agreed to join a national unity government, it said. Kadima leader Tzipi Livni is the current foreign minister.

The deal with Yisrael Beitenu was widely expected and leaves Netanyahu short of a governing majority, the newspaper Haaretz said. The agreement states both parties favour the creation of a wide coalition — leaving the door open for centrists — and raises the possibility that someone else might become foreign minister if other parties join, it said.

Beiteinu 'agrees to a 2-state union'

Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arabic news channel, said in a report from Jerusalem on its English-language website that Israel's international ties could suffer if Lieberman becomes foreign minister.

But it added : "The important point to note is that Yisrael Beiteinu agrees to a two-state solution, perhaps different from the kind of two-state solution that Palestinians might envisage.

"Lieberman's [party] wants a pure Jewish state and anyone who doesn't pledge an oath of allegiance to Israel must be deported to another state alongside, which he sees as a Palestinian state."

The Associated Press reported that Netanyahu's negotiators were set to meet with a team from Shas, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish party with 11 seats in the 120-seat parliament.

If Kadima stays outside the government, he is expected to try to bring in smaller hard-line parties such as Jewish Home, National Union and United Torah Judaism, giving him a possible majority of 65, the AP said.

In last month's election, his Likud party won 27 seats, to which Yisrael Beitenu adds 15. Kadima won 28 seats, but Netanyahu was chosen to form a government because a majority of members of parliament said they favoured him over Livni as prime minister.