FM snubs Lula over Herzl wreath row

Lieberman stays away from Brazilian president's Knesset address, boycotts meeting.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman stayed away from the Knesset during Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s address there on Monday, to protest Lula da Silva’s refusal to lay a wreath at the grave of Theodor Herzl, sources close to Lieberman said on Monday evening.

Lieberman also boycotted a meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his guest afterward to which he had been invited.

This policy, however, did not filter down to the Foreign Ministry staff, who throughout the day were downplaying the incident, saying the Brazilian president’s decision not to lay a wrath at Herzl’s tomb on Monday was due more to confusion over protocol than anything else.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Israel only informed Lula, as the Brazilian president is commonly referred, of the wreath laying ceremony last week, after the schedule had been meticulously planned weeks in advance.



http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=171063


I do love Avigdor Lieberman's approach to international relations. It's so refreshingly unique. My theory is that he's read somewhere that "war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means" and, staunch pacifist that he is, he's resolved that the best way to ensure peace is to make sure he doesn't get any of that dangerous diplomacy stuff anywhere near him...

Now, all he needs to do is to run over Vladimir Putin's cat, and he'll have the complete set...