A far-right Israeli cabinet member said on Sunday ethnically divided Cyprus could serve as a model for a future peace settlement with the Palestinians, Reuters quoted him as saying. "Trading territory and populations could help create a more homogeneous Jewish state," said Avigdor Lieberman, who has long proposed an agreement under which some Israeli Arab towns would come under Palestinian control, according to Reuters. He told Israel Radio, monitored by Reuters, that Cyprus, divided between Greek and Turkish sections since a 1974 war, "can serve as a model" for Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who brought Lieberman and his ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party on board last week in a bid to shore up Israel's governing coalition, distanced himself from his new political ally's remarks. "At the cabinet meeting, the prime minister said that Avigdor Lieberman's opinions about the Israeli Arab citizens are not his own views," said Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin. "The prime minister stated that he has always been in favour of full and equal citizen rights for the Israeli Arab citizens and that they should be full citizens of the state of Israel," she said. In the radio interview, Lieberman said he did not know why Palestinians "deserve a country clean of Jews" while Israel in the meantime was "turning into a binational state". "If we want to maintain the character of a Jewish state there is no choice other than separation," he said. Lieberman's remarks amounted to little more than a repeat of his party's platform, which also advocates annexing parts of the occupied West Bank. But the comments prompted criticism from Israel's Arab minority, which makes up 20 percent of the country's population, Reuters said. "This isn't a country only for the Jews," said Hashem Mahajneh, mayor of Umm el Fahm, one of the Arab communities in Israel that Lieberman has proposed come under Palestinian control.
