MID: Treat Hamas like Japan in WWII: Israeli nationalist leader
14 Jan 2009 4:13 AM
JERUSALEM, Jan 13 AFP - Israel should follow the example set by the United States when it brought Japan to its knees at the end of World War II, the head of an ultra-nationalist opposition party was quoted as saying Tuesday.
"We must continue to fight Hamas just like the United States did with the Japanese in World War II," Avigdor Lieberman said, according to the website of the Jerusalem Post newspaper.
Japan surrendered in 1945 after atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Lieberman, who quit Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's coalition government last year, said Israel needed to "break the will" of Hamas in Gaza where more than 900 Palestinians have been killed in a war that began on December 27.
"Israel won't be secure so long as Hamas is in power, and therefore we need to come to a decision that we will break the will of Hamas to keep fighting," he was quoted as saying during a speech at Bar-Ilan University, near Tel Aviv.
Lieberman's comments, which were widely broadcast on radio stations in Gaza and circulated on text messages, drew a withering response from senior Palestinians.
Mustafa Barghuthi, an independent lawmaker and former Palestinian information minister, said Lieberman's comments reflected the contempt felt by Israelis towards the Palestinians.
"This shows one more time that Israel never learn lessons from the past and rather invokes one of the bloodiest massacres in history to be the fate of the Gazans. They don't have respect for human life", he said.
Lieberman's right-wing Yisrael Beitenu party, which draws its core support from Israel's large Russian immigrant community, is tipped to emerge as the fourth largest party in elections due on February 10.
