RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) – Israel’s defense chief threatened Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers and dismissed the Palestinian president as an incapable leader in a rare interview published Monday in the main Palestinian newspaper.
The positions of ultranationalist minister, Avigdor Lieberman, are well known but it’s unusual for Palestinian media to interview him. The interview in the Al Quds daily comes at a time of heightened tensions between the two sides.
Lieberman said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was not capable of signing a peace deal with Israel. “This agreement needs someone else, someone capable of taking a tough decision,” he said.
Lieberman, a West Bank settler, has stoked controversy in the past with incendiary remarks about the Palestinians and the Arab minority in Israel. Lieberman, who became defense minister earlier this year, is one of Israel’s most polarizing politicians.
The interview angered some Palestinians, with the Palestinian Ministry of Information issuing a statement criticizing the reporter as “giving a stage to the murderer Lieberman.”