OECD thwarted Lieberman attempt to give Mideast peace speech
FM reportedly gave up on his request to address OECD conference with political speech following rejection; U.S. officials deny canceling of Clinton-Lieberman meeting at the event was politically motivated.
By Barak Ravid Tags: Avigdor Lieberman Israel U.S. Benjamin NetanyahuThe organizers of the annual conference of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) refused to allow Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to address the meeting with a Mideast peace policy speech, Haaretz learned on Wednesday.
OECD officials reportedly told the foreign minister that a policy speech was "inappropriate" for the conference, offering, instead, that he spoke on economic issues. This rejection stirred a reported embarrassment in the Israeli delegation, which eventually caused Lieberman to nix the speech altogether.
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Avigdor Lieberman at the Yisrael Beiteinu party convention in Jerusalem on April 13, 2011. |
| Photo by: Emil Salman |
That incident wasn't the only reported confusion as linked to the foreign minister during the OECD event, as Lieberman and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly failed to meet last week, despite attempts by Foreign Ministry officials to set up such a session.
American officials have indicated that the meeting did not take place due to Clinton's tight schedule, while Lieberman's office denied that such a meeting was ever planned to take place.
The two met only a handful of times since Lieberman entered office, with the FM coming to Washington only one time, a month after entering office. Aside from that meeting, Lieberman and Clinton met another time during that U.S. visit, in addition to two other meetings they had during international conferences.
Clinton is considered to hold an especially hard-line in the U.S. administration in regards to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policies, with the planned meeting due to take place one day after Netanyahu's address to Congress.
The meeting was supposed to take place on the sidelines of the OECD conference in Paris last week, attended by both Lieberman and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz.
According to a Foreign Ministry source, Israeli officials were in contact with State Department counterparts to try finalize the meeting, only to discover that it would not take place.
Haaretz learned on Wednesday that the Foreign Ministry hoped to schedule a meeting without setting a set time. However, Lieberman eventually left the venue on the sidelines of which the meeting was planned to take place as a result of Clinton's later than expected arrival.
U.S. officials said that the meeting was cancelled due to scheduling issues, and had nothing to do with a political boycotting of Lieberman. The foreign minister's office, however, said that such a meeting was never supposed to take place: "A meeting was never set and thus such a meeting was never cancelled."
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If Israel's problem really were anti Semitism and persecution, Lieberman would be the best leader, a necessary leader. But in the modern world leaders like him are the problem that prevent countries from progressing.
is not acceptable to international community. I am certain that he will no longer aspire to share his arrogant and moronic ideas to the world leaders in the future or he will repeatedly experience rejections.
is not acceptable to international community. I am certain that he will no longer aspire to share his arrogant and moronic ideas to the world leaders in the future or he will repeatedly experience rejections.
seems to be helpless. Has he lost his course? This seems to be symptomatic of the current Israeli government. They are guiding the country into a dead end.
You give a history of the meeting/non-meetings between these two ministers. Could you compare this to previous administrations/governments--say the immediately previous one. Less? More?
Put a sock in it, and stop embarrassing us!!!
Could the public verbal spanking of a US President have blowback? Does intentional humiliation have a price? Maybe Lieberman should ask Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity to be the intermediary.
C'mon this is a liberal forum yet noone seems to be bothered about the right to speak when its a person from adifferent side of the political platform? Hypocrites?
How dare them not listen to the perfidious rant of a man who's great moment was as a bar bouncer.
Yes? The get rid of this gonnif.
Hearing him speak, in hebrew or english is just embarrassing, the man is not well educated, he has no military experience,he is not qualified to be FM that is the fact.
Israeli officials hold meetings with Americans for one reason only They want something. This is a wearying routine even for such Israel fanboys as the American government. No matter how much America exerts themselves on Israel's behalf, Israelis always want something more and they never stop complaining that America does not do enough. Who can blame hillary?
I expect the White house thinks it is protecting Israel by not letting people here his bile, it would create thousands of pro Palestinian Americans overnight.
Why I do not know. He is a man of vision and a friend of Stephen Harper. More credentials not required. But I wonder how well Netanyahu would be received giving a speech outside Israel to anything other than that in my back pocket American Congress. Somehow I think in most countries he wouldn't even be allowed in. Now I wonder why that would be.
Does the Israeli public realize what an embarrassment your FM is? Have they any idea what a joke your foreign policy has become?
This man is destroy israel in the International Community.
Nobody wants to hear (and be embarrassed by) what the Israeli foreign minister has to say. Everywhere (except Israel) such a person's application for the FM position would have been stamped "Rejected, not qualified".
He should call for a complete halt to settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
lieberman is pro-expulsion.
The job of the FM is to clearly explain to peace-makers and do-gooders that it is not a smart idea to mess up with a nuclear power, especially since it has small territory and therefore nothing to lose.
They should have rescheduled a Lieberman Lieberman meeting then. Imagine those two with the same last name and running their mouths at the same. Ha!
No partner for talks.
We have two narratives here: the Americans saying the meeting was requested and it fell through because of scheduling issues, and the Israelis saying the meeting was never requested in the first place. On the basis of sheer logic, there is no reason for the Americans to apologize for turning down a request that never was made, so we must assume that the FO is trying to cover up what was – ahhh – a subb. This is the very thing which the Americans are trying to deny, with tongue in cheek. Even if we accept the American protestations of schedule crunch, we are still faced with the glaring fact that while Congress has multiple orgasm hanging on Bibi’s every word, Clinton could not bother to make a slight schedule change to appease Liebi. Rather telling of a huge chasm between Congress and the Administration. At least logically that is how it looks.
... ah well, one must suppose that it was ardent wishful thinking on Hilary's part... and then she became bashful... so she denied it...
He would rather lie than accept rejection.
Upset that Livni will never be PM?
It's no secret that the US prefers to work with the far more dovish Ehud Barak, who's effectively doubled as FM in Washington's eyes. He's "their guy" in Netanyahu's cabinet.
You are right that at one time the Americans felt more comfortable dealing with Barak. But he has fallen from grace and right now the Americans don't seem comfy with anyone in Israel.