Israeli Army Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beytenu) blasted Israeli Arab Joint List head Ayman Odeh over the latter’s participation in a memorial ceremony held in Ramallah for late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s death.
Yediot Ahronot Hebrew newspaper quoted Lieberman as saying in his Facebook official page “He wouldn’t come to the funeral of Peres in Jerusalem but today he goes and eulogizes Arafat in Ramallah.”
“We will continue to work to make sure that he is not a Knesset Member in Jerusalem and at most will be a city council member in Ramallah” he wrote.
Odeh defended his decision to attend the ceremony saying that it is a peace and hope message.
Lieberman could not just stop incitement against Arab community he said.
Israeli analysts said that that Lieberman’s threat appears to be a public relations move as he has no legal means for actually carrying it out.
Lieberman has been leading a boycott of the Joint List since the Peres funeral last month which the entire Arab party members declined to attend due to the criminal history that Peres represented.
