Bethlehem - Ma'an - Israel's settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are just a pretext for the Arab world to complain, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman insisted on Friday.

The foreign minister is himself a West Bank settler.

"In terms of facts, our settlements are just a pretext for the Arab world to complain," Lieberman told the Russian-language REKA radio. "As we all remember, settlements have not prevented us from signing a peace agreement with Egypt."

He added, "I'd also like to call to mind that we have evacuated tens of settlements in the Gaza Strip. And what do we have now? Hamas in Gaza and Kassams in Sderot."

Lieberman also said European opposition to the settlements was "a sort of political slogan ... there were no Jewish settlements before 1967, but terror, conflicts, and tension never ceased to exist between 1948 and 1967. Furthermore, the Arab world was in control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for 19 years, but then, nobody tried to create the Palestinian state."

The official lives in the illegal West Bank settlement of Nokdim, near Bethlehem.