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Envoy to France hid Sarkozy barbs from Lieberman
By Barak Ravid

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told European ambassadors yesterday that he has full confidence in his foreign minister, Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman.

Netanyahu was responding to Monday's report by Channel 2 television that French President Nicolas Sarkozy had advised Netanyahu to get rid of Lieberman.
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At a briefing for the ambassadors, Netanyahu said the foreign minister is completely committed to both peace and security. Moreover, he said, Lieberman is an "important" element of Israel's democratically elected government.

Netanyahu added that he had consulted Lieberman about the content of the speech he gave at Bar-Ilan University earlier this month, in which he expressed support for a two-state solution, and that Lieberman would play an important role in carrying out the policies outlined in that speech.

According to the Channel 2 report, Sarkozy told Netanyahu at their meeting in Paris last week that he ought to get rid of Lieberman and bring in Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni instead. With a coalition comprised of Livni and Labor Party chairman Ehud Barak, who is already in the government, "you can make history," the report quoted Sarkozy as saying.

Netanyahu's office refused to either confirm or deny the report. Lieberman's office said that if it were true, "this constitutes intolerable interference in Israel's domestic affairs."

Haaretz has learned that Lieberman was never briefed by either Netanyahu or his aides about the content of the premier's meeting with Sarkozy, nor was the Foreign Ministry briefed by Israel's ambassador in Paris, Daniel Shek.

The latter omission was due to a direct order by National Security Council chairman Uzi Arad, who told Shek a few days before the meeting that he could not send a telegram to the ministry detailing what was said.

Arad issued this order because he said that sensitive information - such as a planned meeting of the American-Israeli working group on Iran, which Haaretz reported on two weeks ago - was being leaked from the ministry.

Moreover, immediately after the meeting, Netanyahu asked everyone who was present - Shek, Ministers Yuval Steinitz and Gilad Erdan and Labor MK Daniel Ben Simon - to refrain from telling anyone what Sarkozy had said about either Lieberman or Iran's nuclear program.

Sarkozy's office declined to comment yesterday.
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