JERUSALEM: Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni yesterday ruled out the expulsion of Arab-Israelis after a Palestinian state is created.
“The national aspirations (of the Arabs) should be realized elsewhere, but there is no question of carrying out a transfer or forcing them to leave,” she told public radio.
“I am willing to give up a part of the country over which I believe we have rights so that Israel will remain a Jewish and democratic state in which citizens have equal rights, whatever their religion,” she said in reference to the creation of a Palestinian state.
On Thursday, Livni drew criticism for saying Israeli-Arabs who had national aspirations should move to a Palestinian state when it is established.
“My solution for maintaining a Jewish and democratic state of Israel is to have two distinct national entities,” she told a group of secondary school students in Tel Aviv.
“And among other things I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel, those whom we call Arab Israelis, and tell them: ‘your national aspirations lie elsewhere.”
The 50-year-old leader of Israel’s ruling Kadima party vehemently denied charges by critics that she had veered to the right in a bid to compete with former premier Benjamin Netanyahu of the hardline Likud party, her strongest rival in the race toward the February 10 Israeli elections.
