The drill anticipated a rapid takeover of the West Bank by Hamas following the signing of the peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority. In the exercise, the security forces had to handle the firing of hundreds of rockets into Israel, terrorist attacks, prison riots and breakouts.
As Chenin raised his concerns, Lieberman opened a new front in his attacks on Israel's Arab citizens, following his repeated statements questioning their loyalty to the state. While hosting the Finnish foreign minister on Tuesday, he accused groups of Arab citizens of plotting to secede from the state under orders from the Palestinians in the occupied territories.
"The Palestinians will try, through various groups among Israeli Arabs, to overturn the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state and will work to create different autonomous areas within the state," he said.
Aluf Benn, a senior columnist for the Haaretz newspaper, wrote yesterday that Netanyahu was "hiding behind" Lieberman and that the prime minister was the "true instigator" of the wave of anti-Arab policies and laws the government was promoting.
On Sunday the cabinet approved a bill that would demand a loyalty oath from non-Jews seeking citizenship.
In the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Ahmed Tibi, an Arab MP, accused Netanyahu of being behind "a gradual ethnic-cleansing scheme -- removing as many Arabs as possible while creating a Jewish, homogenous Israel".
Opinion polls among Israel's Arab minority have repeatedly shown strong opposition to any plan to revoke their citizenship or force them into a Palestinian state.
The Association of Civil Rights in Israel, the country's largest human-rights group, wrote to Netanyahu this week calling the media reports "alarming" and demanding assurances that there were no plans for "population transfer".
It added that the impression was being created that "an issue which is completely illegitimate -- the forced revocation of the citizenship of some of the country's Arab citizens -- is perceived by the government as a reasonable and even likely possibility".
Some observers have speculated that the public security minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, who is a member of Lieberman's Yisraeli Beiteinu Party, may have been the driving force behind the exercise.
However, Chenin said such an extensive drill involving so many different branches of the security forces could not have been carried out without the involvement of other government ministers, including Ehud Barak, the defence minister.
Barak, leader of the Labor party, has presented himself in Washington as a moderating influence on Israel's right-wing government.
A version of this article originally appeared in The National (http://www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.
As Chenin raised his concerns, Lieberman opened a new front in his attacks on Israel's Arab citizens, following his repeated statements questioning their loyalty to the state. While hosting the Finnish foreign minister on Tuesday, he accused groups of Arab citizens of plotting to secede from the state under orders from the Palestinians in the occupied territories.
"The Palestinians will try, through various groups among Israeli Arabs, to overturn the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state and will work to create different autonomous areas within the state," he said.
Aluf Benn, a senior columnist for the Haaretz newspaper, wrote yesterday that Netanyahu was "hiding behind" Lieberman and that the prime minister was the "true instigator" of the wave of anti-Arab policies and laws the government was promoting.
On Sunday the cabinet approved a bill that would demand a loyalty oath from non-Jews seeking citizenship.
In the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Ahmed Tibi, an Arab MP, accused Netanyahu of being behind "a gradual ethnic-cleansing scheme -- removing as many Arabs as possible while creating a Jewish, homogenous Israel".
Opinion polls among Israel's Arab minority have repeatedly shown strong opposition to any plan to revoke their citizenship or force them into a Palestinian state.
The Association of Civil Rights in Israel, the country's largest human-rights group, wrote to Netanyahu this week calling the media reports "alarming" and demanding assurances that there were no plans for "population transfer".
It added that the impression was being created that "an issue which is completely illegitimate -- the forced revocation of the citizenship of some of the country's Arab citizens -- is perceived by the government as a reasonable and even likely possibility".
Some observers have speculated that the public security minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, who is a member of Lieberman's Yisraeli Beiteinu Party, may have been the driving force behind the exercise.
However, Chenin said such an extensive drill involving so many different branches of the security forces could not have been carried out without the involvement of other government ministers, including Ehud Barak, the defence minister.
Barak, leader of the Labor party, has presented himself in Washington as a moderating influence on Israel's right-wing government.
A version of this article originally appeared in The National (http://www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.
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