UK, Israeli FMs hail ties amid protests

Israeli FM Avigdor Lieberman was greeted with protest upon arrival in London. British Foreign Secretary William Hague has welcomed the growing strength of the bilateral relationship with the Israeli regime during talks with visiting Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman amid public outrage over the latter’s visit. Hague said they had a “positive” and “wide-ranging” meeting adding he was “pleased to welcome” Lieberman, despite pro-Palestinian activists’ condemnation of the visit and call for a “ban” on the “criminal” Lieberman. Activists from several pro-Palestinian movements and campaign groups gathered outside the Pillar Hotel in Hendon London, on Tuesday, to condemn the Israeli regime’s crimes and illegal occupation of the Palestinian lands as well as the appropriateness of a government official meeting with Lieberman. The demonstrators carried placards reading “Ban Lieberman”, “Racist Terrorist Not Welcome”, “Lieberman belongs in the International criminal court”, “End Israeli Apartheid” and “Respect Freedom for Palestine, Free Gaza”. They also slammed the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians sponsored by the Jewish National Fund, which had invited Lieberman to speak at a ceremony at the hotel. The rally was called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) which said it “is challenging whether a UK Government Minister should be meeting with an Israeli public figure who has publicly called for the ‘execution of Arab members of the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, and said Palestinian prisoners should be ‘drowned in the Dead Sea’.” PSC said its director Sarah Colborne has written to Foreign Secretary William Hague to protest Lieberman’s visit. “Avigdor Lieberman’s party Yisrael Beiteinu proposed laws in May 2009 to jail Palestinian citizens of Israel for up to three years for marking the anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba. Lieberman himself lives in the illegal Israeli settlement of Nokdim in the West Bank, and is renowned for making extremist comments,” the letter read. Hague did refer to the settlements’ issue during the meeting with Lieberman yet he failed to call for a halt in Tel Aviv’s illegal settlement activities only saying they are “harming” the regime’s “international standing.”