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www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1093404.html
By next year, nothing will remain of the demilitarization stipulation that
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set for the formation of a Palestinian
state, Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau warned on Tuesday at an event
sponsored by Yisrael Beiteinu in Jerusalem.
“My fear is that in a few months from now, no one will remember what
Netanyahu said about demilitarization,” Landau said. “They will only
register the fact that the head of the National Camp in Israel supports the
formation of a Palestinian state.”
The national infrastructure minister nonetheless praised Netanyahu for
articulating the precondition and for beginning his recent foreign policy
speech at Bar Ilan University on Sunday with the assertion that Jews were
entitled to live in an independent, Jewish state in the Land of Israel
because of their biblical heritage.
“I was proud to hear Netanyahu’s speech because he said we deserve this land
according to the Bible,” said Landau, a former Likud member who switched
over to Avigdor Lieberman’s party, Yisrael Beiteinu – now Likud senior-most
coalition partner.
Landau’s statements may be seen as a reaction to U.S. President Barack
Obama’s recent speech in Cairo, in which he linked the right of Jews to a
Jewish state to the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust.
Landau was speaking in English before a predominantly American-Israeli crowd
of 100 people at Cafe Joe in the center of the capital. He devoted part of
his speech to defending Yisrael Beiteinu’s contested initiative to require
all citizens to pledge their allegiance to the state.
“The Israeli Arabs have every right in the country, and none on it,” he
said. “We are proposing to apply the loyalty oath to everyone. Many
countries, including the U.S., require new immigrants, for example, to swear
their allegiance.”
Introducing more nationalistic values into the school system with a greater
emphasis on flag and anthem, Landau said, would make Israel “a stronger
country.” In this context, Landau mentioned that as things stand now, “Arab
figures but also Jews stand up against us at times of trial.”
“The attempt of the highly respected U.S. President Barack Obama to
introduce symmetry into his attitude to the region is erroneous,” Landau
said. “There is no symmetry between those who observe human and civil
rights, and those who hand out candies when Israelis and Americans die in
horrible suicide attacks, as we have seen in September 2001.”
