ISRAEL: Sarkozy’s alleged comments on Lieberman spark controversy
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REUTERS – French President Nicolas Sarkozy has urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get rid of Israel’s ultranationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli media reports said on Tuesday.
Sarkozy’s office had no immediate comment on the remarks Israeli newspapers and Channel 2 television attributed to him from his talks last Wednesday in Paris with Netanyahu. . You must get rid of this person, the Haaretz newspaper and Ynet website quoted Sarkozy as telling Netanyahu.
A spokesperson for Lieberman, leader of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, said that if Sarkozy made the comments, they would amount to intolerable meddling in Israeli affairs.
The reports said Sarkozy compared Lieberman, accused of racism by Israeli Arab lawmakers, with French far-rightist Jean Marie Le Pen, but retracted the remark after Netanyahu countered that the foreign minister left a different impression in private conversations.
The reports about Sarkozy’s purported remarks put a spotlight on a rift between Israel and the West over Netanyahu’s rejection of calls for a total halt to Jewish settlement building.
Lieberman has angered Israel’s Arab minority by questioning their loyalty to the Jewish state and suggesting some of their towns be ceded to Palestinian jurisdiction in exchange for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Avigdor Lieberman – France – Israel – Nicolas Sarkozy
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Lieberman, himself a settler, has said settlements are no obstacle to peace