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Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Did Avigdor Lieberman say "Al Quds is our capital"?

The International News of Pakistan refuses to write the word "Jerusalem," instead replacing it with "Al-Quds". This means that some of its articles are a little, um, strange sounding:
OCCUPIED-AL-QUDS: Israel’s foreign minister warned on Tuesday that foreign pressure would further intensify the Middle East conflict and insisted al-Quds will remain forever the country’s undivided capital.

“Any attempt to force a solution on the parties without establishing a foundation of mutual trust will only deepen the conflict,” Avigdor Lieberman told diplomats at a reception to mark the 62’nd anniversary of Israel’s creation.

“Peace cannot be enforced, it must be built,” the right-wing minister said at the event held at the presidential residence in al-Quds.

Lieberman recalled the words of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who said 30 years ago, that “the city, north and south, east and west, is entirely under Israel’s sovereignty, our eternal capital city. It cannot be divided. And will never again be divided. Neither directly, nor indirectly.”

Today,” Lieberman said, “I stand before you in al-Quds, as Israel’s foreign minister, and reaffirm late Prime Minister Begin’s statement: al-Quds is our undivided, eternal capital.

Meanwhile, Israelis fired up barbecues in packed campgrounds and beaches across the country on Tuesday as they celebrated the 62nd anniversary of the illegal creation of the Jewish state.