Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman visited the Kuneitra crossing on the Israel-Syria border. (photo credit: ARIEL HERMONI / DEFENSE MINISTRY)
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“I don’t care about a Palestinian State,” Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said Thursday, dismissing US President Donald Trump’s statement that a two-state solution is the best solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The Palestinian State simply does not interest me, what interests me is the Jewish state. And here there are many more acute problems,” he said during a visit to the Quneitra crossing in Israel’s Golan Heights.
“The fact that in the State of Israel the Arabs make up 20% of the population and that they go out for demonstrations and protests with Palestinian flags and not with Israeli flags, I have a problem with that. That’s the real problem, we have to worry about having a Jewish state, and the rest is less interesting,” the defense minister said.
On Wednesday Trump expressed for the first time support for the two-state solution after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
“I like two-state solution. Yeah. That’s what I think… that’s what I think works best. I don’t even have to speak to anybody, that’s my feeling… I think two-state solution works best,” the US president said at a joint press conference.
Following the announcement Netanyahu said that he expects the Trump administration to leave Israel in charge of security of any Palestinian State, telling reporters “I am willing for the Palestinians to have the authority to rule themselves without the authority to harm us.”
On Thursday responding to a question about whether or not a Palestinian state is in Israel’s best interests, Israel’s Defense Minister stressed that the only interest “is a Jewish and secure state.”
Touching on Syria, Liberman said that Israel is ready to re-open the Quneitra crossing with Syria, which was open prior to the regime losing its border to rebel groups.
“We are ready to open the crossing as it was before. From a security and managerial point of view, everything is ready,” he said, adding that “the ball is in the Syrian side of the court.”
According to Liberman, once the crossing is opened on the Syrian side, Druze farmers in Israel will once again be able to sell apples in Syria and Druze women will once again be able to cross into Syria to marry.
Israel captured the Golan Heights, some 1,200 square kilometers, from Syria during the Six Day War in 1967 and unilaterally annexed it in 1981. UN troops, which patrolled the buffer zone with Syria since 1974 left the area after peacekeepers were abducted by al-Qaida linked militants in 2014.
Seven years after losing the area to rebel groups, Syrian troops have once again been deployed to the border with Israel. In order to prevent any clashes between the two enemy countries, Russian military police have been deployed along the Golan Heights border, along with UN Peacekeepers, who returned to the area for the first time in early August.
According to UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq, a key goal in the return of the UNDOF peacekeeping force is the reopening the crossing.
Liberman stressed Thursday that Israel is in daily contact with UNDOF troops along the buffer line and while Israel has no interest in meddling in Syria’s civil war it will work to ensure the security of Israeli citizens.
“We are willing to bring life back to normal. Between the Alpha Line and the Bravo Line is the normality of this abnormal region,” he said.
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