Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday night that the comments made  by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman at the UN General Assembly “do not reflect the stance of the government, and certainly not the stance of the Labor party. The Labor party believes in continuing the direct talks in order to achieve an agreement with the Palestinians, and in order not to play into the hands of Israel's enemies,” Barak said.

Among other things, Lieberman said that he did not expect a true peace agreement to develop between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the near future, and that the only arrangement that made sense between Israel and the PA was the one he suggested, exchanging land and populations.