FM Lieberman: Arab initiative 'a recipe for Israel's destruction'

        Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has dismissed the Arab peace initiative hours after US President Barack Obama called the plan a "very constructive start." "This is a dangerous plan, a recipe for Israel's destruction" Lieberman reportedly said in a Foreign Ministry meeting Tuesday night. Lieberman emphasized that the most problematic part of the initiative was that it called for a right of return for the descendants of Palestinian refugees, Army Radio reported. US President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged Israelis and Palestinians to take concrete steps toward peace, saying that "we can't talk forever," and that he expected to see progress on the ground in the coming months. Obama spoke warmly of the Arab peace plan following a meeting with Jordanian King Abdullah II, noting, "We have gone out of our way to complement the efforts of those Arab states that were involved in formulating the Arab Peace Initiative as a very constructive start." Lieberman's statement is also at variance with views recently expressed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak in praise of the Arab initiative. Barak on Sunday urged Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to put forward an Israeli peace initiative based on the Arab plan. Only three weeks ago the incoming foreign minister in effect reversed Israeli diplomatic policy of the last two years, saying Jerusalem was not obligated by the Annapolis process. "There is one document that obligates us - and that's not the Annapolis conference, it has no validity," Lieberman told Foreign Ministry employees gathered in the ministry for a changing of the guard ceremony together with outgoing foreign minister Tzipi Livni. (10,35)