The Mufti and Avigdor: birds of a feather

The Zionist propaganda machine (e.g. Palestinian Media Watch, Arutz Sheva, Christian Broadcasting Network, FrontPageMag) is having the predictable field day with the latest indiscretions from Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, who at a celebration (presumably in Ramallah) marking the 47th anniversary of the founding of Fatah, said (apparently quoting a hadith): "The hour [of resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call, 'O Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.'"

The Mufti's convenient comments come days after Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the Palestinians don't want peace and had entered the talks unwillingly: "Anyone who talks about a breakthrough with the Palestinians has no idea what he’s talking about... The only way forward is to manage the conflict, and not to end the conflict." (Jerusalem Post, Jan. 9)

Pretty funny. We have noted before that Lieberman is an enthusiastic advocate of "transfer"—the official Israeli euphemism for ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, uprooting them from their lands and chasing them across a border which will be redrawn to incorporate Israeli settlements, in violation of every conceivable legal norm. Back in August, the anti-Zionist MondoWeiss blog noted a WikiLeaks cable from 2006 in which the US ambassador expresses outrage at such spewings from Lieberman. The cable, entitled "SUBJECT: RIGHT-WING LIEBERMAN UNABASHEDLY ADVOCATES TRANSFER OF ISRAELI ARABS," reads:

Right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Lieberman told the Ambassador January 31 that separation of Israeli Jews from Israeli Arabs is necessary in order to promote Israeli security and maintain Israel's Jewish identity. To accomplish this, Lieberman proposes that Israel redraw its border with the West Bank through negotiations to place some Israeli-Arab population centers that are close to the Green Line within Palestinian territory, and to include some Israeli settlement blocs within Israel...

Lieberman underlined his view that to avoid conflict, a separation of Israeli Jews from Israeli Arabs must occur. He said his proposal for such a separation is based on the Cyprus model, where, he said, the island's Turks are separated territorially from the island's Greeks. Lieberman said that the roadmap makes a mistake by advocating a two-state solution, wherein Israel retains two peoples within its borders, Jewish and Arab, while the Palestinian state retains only Palestinians. Lieberman asserted that states that are composed of different "nations" continue to experience conflict. The Ambassador noted that the United States maintains its diversity without experiencing such conflict....

Blogger Philip Weiss comments (italics in original):

Wikileaks has released a cable from 2006 of a meeting between the US Ambassador to Israel—then Richard Jones—and Avigdor Lieberman, who was not yet the Foreign Minister, merely the leader of the rightwing party, Yisrael Beteinu. What is shocking about this cable is that the American ambassador is disturbed by Lieberman's frank call for ethnic cleansing and loyalty oaths for Israeli Palestinians, who are a separate "nation" from the Jews. And the ambassador says that such calls violate American values of diversity. But our government never expresses this outrage—not even when Obama comes in. We stick by Israel regardless, though we are informed directly of officials' racist plans.

The problem is that for those on either side of the conflict, the outrage only goes one way. The Zionists are aghast at the Mufti, but take no responsibility for Lieberman, while the anti-Zionists are aghast at Lieberman, and display no concern for the similar (if cruder) rhetoric issuing from the Mufti.

And this is the real obstacle to peace.