Strains between the prime and foreign ministers could reshape the coalition

"AVIGDOR LIEBERMAN, Israel’s foreign minister, has asked European countries to consider building a power station, a desalination plant and a harbour in the Gaza Strip, promising Israel’s full co-operation in bringing in the necessary raw materials. The aim, says Mr Lieberman, is to end Gaza’s residual dependence on Israel and let the territory’s 1.6m Palestinians fend for themselves. Its connection with the West Bank would be severed, making a territorially linked Palestinian state nigh-impossible to attain."

Why not establish an independent Palestine initially comprising Gaza and subsequently adding the West Bank? Half a state is better than no state. The West Bank and Gaza are not linked now and zero is happening or likely to happen with the current 'peace' process.

Initially Palestine (Gaza) would have to be funded the West - it largely is anyway. Israel should also pay war reparations for 2009 damages. The establishment of a free Palestine in Gaza would add increased focus and pressure for the end of the occupation in the West Bank. I suggest the UN and the West should take Lieberman up on his proposal.

Here is a Russian that obviously has very little claim to the Palestinian lands, and still has the gall to do just that. Put a Palestinian next to this thug, test both their DNA and then decide who the land belongs to. Simply enough done.

But this racist will claim that 2000 years ago someone in his line lived in the Palestinian lands and so the Palestinians are the ones that don't belong there now.

But then again, I suppose you can justify anything if you try hard enough.

Apparently jewish judges in these stolen lands also believe "the sanctity of 'jewish' bodies and souls"... can be ruined if they sleep with Palestinians.

Racism towards the Palestinians in their own lands didn't begin with the influx of Russians into Palestinian lands, but it surely has become more blatant since their arrival en masse.

I think Lieberman's suggestion is really nothing more than a ploy to weaken resistance to an all-Israeli West Bank. Currently Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank are united by their distrust and persecution of Israel; though one supports Hamas and the other Fatah, they recognize each other at least as sharing a common foe. However, if Israel formally accepts the independence of Gaza while keeping the status of the West Bank indeterminate, that much political support for Palestinian rights to their land will vanish.

That said, it would be groundless optimism to suppose that a better deal for the Palestinians to come along in the next decade or more. A free and sovereign Gaza, along with reparative payments to West Bank Palestinians to leave or buy land free and clear might be the compromise both sides are looking for.

Shocking photos of ghettogaza :

www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001127.html

The Saudi peace plan calls for an independent Palestine comprising the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The US and the EU should endorse this proposal, and accept Hamas as a participant in the political process of establishing a viable independent Palestine. And Israel needs to end the blockade of Gaza.

So the democratic Western countries refuse to take seriously Lieberman's suggestion that they made a precious gift to the people of Gaza - a power-plant, a desalination station and a modern harbour?

And they really don't want to rid poor oppressed Palestinians of the hostile Israeli blockade?

I'm shocked, I tell you I'm really shocked! That means that exactly like tyrannical medieval Arab regimes they need only deprived, impoverished, desperate Palestinians as fodder and pawns for their political games. What a shame!

Yes, there should be a country called Gaza Land independent of Israel, Egypt, Palestines in the West Bank. Given an opportunity this new country could sustain itself by tourism only. Right now, Hamas in the Gaza are the biggest headache for Israelis. Once Gaza issue is resolved Israel can concentrate on West Bank for Palestine. Hopefully, international communities specially US and UK and Arab countries will come forward and help the people of Gaza to prosper.

Fantastic proposal! I'm with Lieberman all the way to an independent Gaza Strip & back!

Then Palestinians should have no axe to grind - if one were to believe their incessant & ever-changing claims for the same & more. But then again, they say a lot of things they don't truly want! So...??

Lieber Gott! Lieberman plans to create a state the size of a suburb out of a power plant and a port. No wonder the world at large has a hard time taking Israeli protestations of peaceful intentions seriously.

This is a new trick of the racist hooligan,Arab hater(see Yoel Marcus article on Haaretz),"foreign minister" accepted nowhere.After 4 years of starvation (a diet how is called now)of 1,6 millions people,suddenly full "independence".Independence in lieberman style means to cut Gaza Palestinian population from the Palestinian of West Bank.What this "genius"will get"First the hated Palestinian number in occupied territories will decrease to a half.The connection between Gaza and West Bank ,which have to go through Israel and should be built by it will be canceled and West Bank settlements ,some 40%from West Bank annexed to Israel

Lieberman should never leave Israel's government. It is the one that best represents today's Israel: extreme-rightist, ultra-nationalist, racist, brutish... He's Israel personified!

While it does raise suspicions that such a plan is suggested by a politician like Lieberman IMHO it should be picked up. It will reduce the poverty in Gaza and provide a good start for a 2-state-solution. At the same time it must ofc be emphasized that the ultimate border of a Palestinian state has to be drawn according to the UN, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Creating a Gaza-only nation while at the same time slowly driving Palestinians from East Jerusalem and creating more and more settlements in the other supposedly Palestinian areas is by no means a viable solution, and will only lead to more problems.

@ Shree Shrestha:

"Hopefully, international communities specially US and UK and Arab countries will come forward and help the people of Gaza to prosper".

Yeah right. And pigs can fly.

@benwardsbr:

Lieber Gott! The world at large created a Muslim nation of Kossovo where, in accordance to the last census, the population was 1.6 million. Exactly the same as in Gaza.

There is another similarity, too: the biggest industry both in Gaza and in Kossovo is smuggling, though Gazans smuggle to their enclave, and Kosovars to the rest of Europe.

Do you have a hard time to digest this?

Continuation of my previous post:

The more you think about this, the more viable seems Lieberman's plan.

There are more similarities between Gaza and Kosovo than one can spot from the first glance.

1. Population size.
2. Islam.
3. Smuggling

These points I've already mentioned. Let's go on:

4. Favourite pastime: terrorism.
5. Life on a dole, as "world's at large" kept woman.
6. The most creative and active minority expelled (Jews from Gaza, Serbs from Kosovo)
7. Both Gaza and Kosovo have Mother Countries: Egypt and Albania.

UN and EU shouldn't waste the rich experience they gained in Kosovo, and keep up the good work in Gaza.

Avigdor - for the top UN job!

All or nuthin! My way or the highway! To hell with compromise or meeting half way...

Such continued inflexible intransigence & assine stubborness from both sides, will only perpetuate & reinforce the irrevocable stalemate of sixty plus years.

So I say, to hell with all of 'em! Let them sort things out any which way they want. Outside intervention hasn't worked, all these long decades, so why bother now??

Live or let die..

Perhaps many pundits are oblivious that, Arabs in West Bank have little in common with those who live in Gaza. Prior to the division of this region during the 1930's and 40's by the British mandate, there were no states with recognized boundaries as we know them today.

Arab communities were organized, more-less around tribal, Secretarial (Sunni, Shi'ite, Allawite, etc) communities. The same is true for the Arabs who assumed their "Palestinian" identities only after 1967 war.

The Arabs in WB have very little common with those in Gaza. In reality they are "Jordanians", while the Gazan's are "Egyptians".

Call the spade, a spade. Stop pretending that these two groups have much in common. Except common religion and language, these two groups have nothing else in common, which is reflected by their respective political and religious affiliations.

It is therefore, best for the region is declare the division between Gaza (Hamas) and WB (PLO) a permanent one, where each will pursue its own national identity and way of life.

After all, Lieberman is just responding to Hamas's own call for independence and freedom from Israeli occupation.

LIEBERMAN actually has a good idea. He is a loathsome right wing extremist. Why not let the Gazans be self sufficient ?

Some 350,000 Israeli citizens originally from the Soviet Union are not recognised by the state rabbinate as Jewish. That is the main point. These Ethnic Russians - as always with them - are cheaters. They import in Israel the slave mentality related to them and provoked, inside Israel, a slide toward a dictatorial tendency - extreme right policy , included racist ones - which is so usual in Russia.

This idea of Lieberman is absurd because the main goal

The best is that Lieberman will be put out of the government and that a new government of National Union will be put in place - with the goal to finally recognize a two states solution - a Palestinian state with Jerusalem East as capital - and later, hopefully, an union between these two states in the same form as European Union - which will make wars between them useless - and cooperation and free movements the usual.

This idea of Lieberman is absurd because the main goal is to forbid the creation of a Palestinian state. It was the idea of Sharon : the dream to reduce Palestinian state at Gaza.