JERUSALEM – Israel’s foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, has broken a taboo by declaring that Palestinian Arabs who kill Israeli soldiers are not terrorists.

Her comments provoked fierce criticism in Israel and a Right-wing member of parliament demanding that she should be fired.

One of her predecessors as foreign minister said her comments proved that she was too ignorant to hold office.

The argument began when Israeli radio broadcast an interview in which 48-year-old Mrs. Livni said that attacks on Israeli soldiers were “more legitimate” than attacks on Israeli civilians.

“Somebody who is fighting against Israeli soldiers is an enemy and we will fight back,” she said. “But I believe that this is not under the definition of terrorism if the target is a soldier.”

Mrs. Livni first made her comments during an interview recorded several weeks ago by the American ABC television network, where they went largely unnoticed.

But when they were broadcast in Israel this week they provoked an immediate angry reaction.

A former foreign minister, Moshe Arens, led the criticism. He said: “What she said indicates a certain level of ignorance that is not appropriate for a foreign minister. All these people, whether they are trying to attack soldiers at a bus stop or civilians in a shopping mall, are members of terrorist organizations that attack where they see fit.

“It is wrong to differentiate between members of the same terrorist organizations, whether they kill a soldier or a child.”

A member of parliament – the Knesset – for the Right-wing National Union/NRP, Uri Ariel, was even more critical.

He said: “Livni offers legitimacy to those who attack our soldiers.

“In her eyes, someone who murders one of our blood is not considered a terrorist.”

He called on the interim prime minister, Ehud Olmert, to fire her from her ministry, saying “she is unfit to be appointed to her position.” His attack reflected the widely held view in the country that the spilling of any Jewish blood, civilian or military, is an act of terrorism.

Mrs. Livni, whose father, Eitan, was the director of operations for one of the hard-line Jewish nationalist groups that fought against British rule in Palestine in the 1940s, the Irgun, sought to strike a tougher tone in an interview given just before the Jewish holiday of Passover, which began yesterday.

“We must do everything to prevent terrorists from gaining international legitimacy,” she said.

Also yesterday, the secretary-general of the Arab League took the extraordi nary step of opening a bank account in Cairo and calling for donations to meet the Palestinian government’s shortage of funds caused by western sanctions.

Amr Moussa announced his move after America and the European Union drastically reduced their financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority.

Washington and Brussels have cut all direct aid, worth about $61 million a month, on the grounds that the authority was now in the hands of Hamas, which both regard as a terrorist group.

America and the E.U. have promised that the cuts will not affect humanitarian projects on behalf of Palestinian Arab civilians.