Israeli Lieberman: What does Abbas exactly represent ?

JERUSALEM- The Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has attacked Monday the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas whom he puts in doubt legitimacy.

•     “The more authority and legitimacy of Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas nickname editor's note) decline, the more his demands increase and he becomes more rigid in his attitude,” said Lieberman in the Israeli public radio.
  
      “Today you have a (Fatah-land) in Judea and Samaria (Hebrew name of the West Bank, NB) and a (Hamastan) in Ghaza. And what does Abu Mazen represent exactly? Only half the population, in a better case,” he added.
  
      The Palestinian Authority exercises its power in areas under Palestinian control in the West Bank while Hamas controls the Ghaza Strip since the Islamist movement took power by force over the Fatah loyal to President Abbas in June 2007.
  
      In response to this, the Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat accused Mr. Lieberman to use “diversionary tactics” to conceal the failure of Israel to halt settlement in the occupied West Bank.
  
      “The Foreign Minister of Israel hopes divert attention after the refusal of Israel to implement its obligations,” Erakat said in a statement.
  
      This exchange occurs a few days after the Palestinian president had himself challenged Mr. Lieberman, saying to an Egyptian magazine that the Hebrew state would be better without the leader of the ultra-nationalist Israel Beiteinou with the head of his diplomacy.
  
      “If I was in the place (of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), I would not support this coalition and I would not ask Lieberman to join,” said Abbas in the Weekly October.
  
      The choice of Tzipi Livni, Kadima party leader and Leader of the Opposition in Israel, “would have been much better,” said Abbas. Ms. Livni headed diplomacy in the previous Israeli government of Ehud Olmert.
  
      Israel is under strong pressure from the international community, the United States first, to freeze settlement in the West Bank. Mr. Netanyahu refused for the time being and has agreed only to the creation of a Palestinian state associated to conditions that President Abbas has rejected.
  
      
  Ennaharonline/ M. O.