Israeli Foreign Minister and the head of Yisrael Beiteinu Party Avigdor Lieberman on Sunday lashed out at Israel's Arab citizens, threatening to cut their heads off with an axe. "Those who are with us deserve everything, but those who are against us deserve to have their heads chopped off with an axe," Lieberman said during an election rally in the western city of Herzliya. He, meanwhile, added that there was no reason for Umm el-Fahm, an Arab city in northern Israel, to continue to be part of his country.
During Sunday's rally, Lieberman said those who rose the black flag of what is called the "Nakba Day" in mourning over the establishment of Israel, did not deserve to belong to the state of Israel. "I am quite willing to donate them [the people who raise the black flags] to PA chief Mahmoud Abbas," Lieberman said. "It would be my pleasure," he added. He called for including Arab states and Israel's Arab citizens in any settlement with the Palestinians. Lieberman said Israel should seize the opportunity of the presence of similar points of view with Arab states, even without mentioning what these points of view were about. He said there could not be a bilateral settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, calling for a regional settlement that included Arab states and Israel's Arab citizens. "The Palestinians know what is being said about them now in the Arab world," Lieberman said. He added that some Arab states believed that real threats came from the Palestinian faction Hamas and the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), not from Israel.
The Palestinian government has slammed Lieberman and said his assertions made him no different from ISIS. "We urge the Israeli government-and all nations-to arrest the ISIS member Lieberman and boycott him for the threat he poses against humanity and its values," the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The ministry went on to urge the international community to denounce Lieberman's remarks and help protect the Palestinian people from "the mounting fascism of the Israeli community." The statement said "Lieberman's remarks were very dangerous" and added that "smugness of the killer Lieberman would surely be one of the cases brought before the International Criminal Court [ICC] so that he would stand trial for his crimes."
Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Islamic Movement in Northern Israel, described Lieberman's threats as a 'declaration of war.' "Lieberman's statements are not even worthy of comment," Salah said in a Tuesday interview with The Anadolu Agency. "He is a reckless person whose statements amount to a declaration of war on the Muslim world and on the Palestinian people," he added. "The Knesset is a tool of the Zionist project that aims to... legitimize the historical persecution and discrimination that Palestinians have suffered. Israel uses the Arab presence in the Knesset to whitewash its ugly face in front of the international community." Salah said.
