Israeli Parliament Member Calls for Military Occupation of Southern Lebanon for 50 Years

JAKARTA - Israeli parliament member from the hardline opposition group Avigdor Liberman called for the country's military to re-occupy southern Lebanon, as a consequence of the actions of the militant group Hezbollah.

Avigdor Liberman said Lebanon must "pay territorially" for the damage caused by Hezbollah attacks on Israel's northern cities.

The former defense minister said the Israeli military must "close" southern Lebanon and drive the militant group north of the Litani river, even if that means 50 years of occupation.

"It is impossible for an entire city to have almost half of its buildings just destroyed," he said at a weekly faction meeting of the Yisrael Beytenu Party, referring to northern Israel whose buildings suffered damage from missiles, reported by The Times of Israel, January 2.

"We will not annex anything, and we will not build settlements, but we will relinquish the territory only if there is a government in Beirut that knows how to exercise its sovereignty," he explained.

"Everything between Litany and Israel must be under IDF control," he said, comparing it to Germany's post-World War II military occupation.

"If Lebanon doesn't want to pay on its territory, we don't do anything," he stressed.

It is known that the Israeli military occupied southern Lebanon to keep Hezbollah away from the borders from 1982 until its decline in 2000.

Liberman also opposed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the war against Hamas, and said his government |doesn't know how to end the war in the south or how to act in the north."