“We are trying to survive in a very difficult reality and instead of supporting Israel, you blame Israel every day,” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.
Speaking at a joint press conference with his Danih counterpart, Martin Lidegaard, in Jerusalem, Lieberman said that Israel ‘’is facing more and more challenges, more than all of the (European Union) together. It is impossible to compare what happens in Israel and around us. We are keeping the situation under control, with all the frictions with the Palestinians."
“Every day hundreds of people are killed and slaughtered around Israel. We are facing many challenges, more than all of the EU together,” he said.
Europe, he said, “is disregarding this reality.”
A reporter asked Lieberman if Israel planned to change its policies in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in light of European frustration over its settlement activity. European officials and diplomats, the reporter said, “are coming to give you advice. What they hope is that Israel through this friendly advice would change its policies.”
Liberman reacted to the question with anger, explaining that such European advice was “hypocritical.”
Europe is not offering the same type of “advice” to Pakistan and India, even though a comprehensive peace is needed there, the Israeli minister said.
In light of the complex situation in the region, with violence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya, he said he expected Europe to be more “sensitive” to Israel’s security concerns.
Israel, he said, is the only democratic country in the Middle East.
“Every day you are coming with new pressure. It is a mistake. It is hypocritical. In the end of the day it will be counterproductive,” Lieberman said.
European support of Palestinian unilateral moves or imposed solutions to the peace process, was particularly harmful, Liberman said.
He charged that Sweden’s decision last week to recognize Palestine as a state outside of a negotiated peace agreement, the first EU member state to do so, was a “cynical” step to exploit an international situation for its own domestic purposes.
“This position will not advance peace, it will only distance a peaceful resolution and might even undermine all our efforts to achieve a strategic breakthrough in our relations with the Palestinians,” he said.
The Swedish government, he charged, took that step to appease the Muslim community in its country, which is “25 times larger than the Jewish one.”
It is also part of Sweden’s drive to receive the necessary support among UN nations, particularly the 57 Islamic states, to become a member state of the Security Council in the future, the minister said.
The Danish Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard, condemned Israel’s announcement of new construction in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem because it "hinders negotiations and the two-state solution."
But Denmark stated it will not follow Sweden's path and recognize a Palestinian state, but will rather instead continue supporting negotiations towards a two-state solution.