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Leading U.S. Senator Says Palestinian Leadership "Hijacked"
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| U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman
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WASHINGTON, March 31 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A leading U.S. senator accused Sunday President George W. Bush of inconsistency in his Middle East policy for sending a mixed message to Israel as it pursues military operations against the Palestinians, and stated that “extremists” have hijacked the Palestinian leadership.
U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman, a senior member of the Armed Services Committee in the Democratic-controlled Senate and a staunch supporter of Israel, said he believed the Palestinian leadership had been "hijacked" by “extremists” whose ultimate goal was not statehood, but "the annihilation of Israel," news agencies reported.
"I fear that a fanatical group of extremist terrorists has hijacked the very legitimate goal of Palestinian statehood," Lieberman, told "Fox News Sunday."
However, Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, speaking on the same program, leveled the blame for the current round of escalating violence on hardline Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, saying he intended to kill Arafat, news agencies reported.
Erekat cited Sharon's regret that he did not kill Arafat 20 years ago in Lebanon, saying, "He will kill President Arafat," and warning, "If they killed President Arafat I can assure you that [the violence] ... we are witnessing now is but the tip of the iceberg."
Lieberman also criticized Bush, saying, "I must say that there's been some inconsistency in the administration - the Bush administration's policy in the last couple of weeks," criticizing U.S. support for a U.N. Security Council resolution that called for Israel to withdraw its troops from the Palestinian town of Ramallah.
Lieberman noted that on Friday and Saturday, Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell had blamed Palestinian “terrorism” for the current crisis and demanded that Yasser Arafat do more to end anti-Israel violence but that in between those statements the United States had voted for the resolution.
"I think this is the time not to stop the Israelis from doing what they are doing in their self-defense," Lieberman said on the "Fox News Sunday".
He likened Palestinian “suicide bombers,” who have staged a series of reprisal attacks throughout Israel over the past week, to the September 11 hijackers in the United States, saying they were "cut from the same cloth."
And Lieberman said Israel's response - the invasion into Ramallah and siege of Arafat's headquarters there - was similar to the U.S. response to the attacks in New York and Washington.
"It's exactly what we did in response to the attacks against us on September 11," he said.
That "is why it is so important now that the United States, as a part of our own war on terrorism, not allow these suicide bombers to succeed and that we do everything we can diplomatically to try to bring the parties back to the table and, frankly, ask whether the Palestinians' goal here is statehood," he said.
Lieberman called on Bush to take "bolder" diplomatic moves to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table as the violence surges, by dispatching Powell to the Middle East to clarify the Palestinian position.
A staunch supporter of Israel, who in 2000 became the first orthodox Jew to run on the presidential ticket of a major U.S. party when he stood for vice president, Lieberman said U.S. special Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni was not succeeding in his mission to secure an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire.
Powell, he said, should go to the Palestinian leadership with a peace proposal from Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, endorsed by Arab leaders at a summit in Lebanon last week, to see whether they were interested even as violence continues.
"Even while that's going on, I think we've got to try to bring the parties together to talk again about a political settlement, including demanding from the Palestinians a clear statement that their goal is statehood, not the annihilation of our ally, Israel," Lieberman said.
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