Israeli Arabs disloyal to the Jewish state should be beheaded, Israel's fiery foreign minister has declared
— sparking outrage for drawing on the barbarian tactics of the Islamic State.
"Whoever's with us, should get everything," Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday in reference to the loyalty of Israeli Arabs, who make up some 20 percent of Israel's population,
Haaretz reports.
"Those who are against us, there's nothing to be done
— we need to pick up an ax and cut off his head. Otherwise we won't survive here."
Lieberman added Israel acts like "fools, misers and weaklings," and "there is no place for such people in the Middle East,"
the Jerusalem Post reports.
Lieberman's remarks were condemned by prominent Israeli Arab politician and legislator Ahmad Tibi.
Tibi said The Joint List, made up of several Arab parties and one mixed Arab-Jewish party, "will remove racists' and fascists' heads only through democratic means
— bringing as many [Knesset] seats as possible and active participation in the election," the Post reports.
"The stronger we are, the weaker the Jewish Islamic State will be."
In the Sunday speech, Lieberman also reiterated his position advocating the transfer of at least some of Israel's Arab citizens, Haaretz reports.
"There is no reason for Umm al-Fahm to be part of the State of Israel," Lieberman said about a northern Israeli town populated by Arab citizens of Israel, Haaretz reports.
"Citizens of the State of Israel who raise a black flag on Nakba Day
— from my perspective, they can leave, and I'm very happily willing to donate them to Abu Mazen," he said, referring to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Nakba Day is one in which Israeli Arabs and Palestinians mark Israel’s establishment as a tragedy, the Post notes.
Former ambassador to South Africa and former Foreign Ministry director-general Alone Liel, along with former ambassador to France Daniel Shek, accused Lieberman of racism.
"It’s shocking that the foreign minister spoke in a blatantly racist way against 20 percent of the citizens of the country he is supposed to represent," Shek told the Post.
The Palestinian Authority called for Lieberman's arrest, the Post reports.
A spokesman for Lieberman's party said the comments were "made in the context of presenting the party's platform on the issue of instituting the death penalty for mass murderers and terrorists,"
NBC News reports.
"The foreign minister was paraphrasing [Zionist leader] Ze'ev Jabotinsky who said that we should be very generous to those who stand with you and cruel to those [who] physically stand against you … Thousands of terrorists with blood on their hands have been released over the last few years and there is a feeling that there needs to be a different approach to disincentivize murder and terrorism [by] our enemies."
Lieberman's rhetoric has led to accusations of racism in the past,
The Washington Post reports.
Last year, Lieberman called for a boycott of Arab businesses that had shut their doors in protest of Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza, and in November he proposed Israeli Arabs be given "economic incentives" to leave their homes in Israel for the West Bank.
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