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11 October 2010 By Stephen
Lendman
Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime
Minister Lieberman represents the worst of Israel's
lunatic fringe, sort of a combination Dick Cheney/John
McCain/Joe Lieberman, too extremist to be entrusted
with power, but he's got it.
On March 18, 2008 in the London
Independent, Robert Fisk headlined, "Why Avigdor
Lieberman is the worst thing that could happen to the
Middle East," saying:
"....Israelis have exalted a
man....who out-Sharons even Ariel Sharon. A few
Palestinians (said) the West will see the 'true face'
of Israel. (He's) talked of drowning Palestinians in
the Dead Sea or executing Israeli Palestinians who
talked to Hamas. (His) incendiary language (promotes)
executions....drownings....hell and loyalty oaths,"
perfect for the role he's assumed, allied with
Israel's most extremist ever Prime Minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu, who also out-Sharons Sharon, no easy feat
by any means.
On September 20, Haaretz writer
Akiva Eldar headlined, "Freeze Lieberman," referring
to his opposition to a settlement freeze, telling
Israeli Radio that his party (Yisrael Beiteinu) has
enough power to stop it and much more, including
obstructing meaningful peace talks.
Eldar's conclusion - "There is no
excuse for Netanyahu to keep the man and his party" as
part of his coalition government. He's an
embarrassment, but for that matter, so is Netanyahu
and Israel's most extremist ever Knesset, a topic
earlier writing addressed.
On August 2, 2009, Haaretz writer
Gideon Levy headlined, "Kahane won," referring to
extremist Rabbi Meir Kanane and his racist Kach Party,
banned by Israel in 1988 under a law passed to
disqualify him and his zealots. Later in 1994, after
the Cave of the Patriachs massacre (committed by Kach
member Baruch Goldstein), it was the first Jewish
organization in more than 40 years to be called a
"threat to security" and outlawed.
Levy said he "can rest in peace."
He's been resurrected. "His doctrine has won....Kahanism
has become legitimate in public discourse....racism
and nationalism (have been transformed) into accepted
values."
If Kahane ran for office today,
"not only would (he and others in his party) not be
banned, (they'd) win many votes....the ostracized is
now accepted, the detestable has become the talented -
that's the slippery slope down which Israeli society
has skidded over the past two decades."
In his youth, Lieberman was a
Kach party member. He "was and is a Kahanist. The
differences between Kach and Yisrael Beiteinu are
miniscule, not fundamental and certainly not a matter
of morality."
For example, Lieberman demands
Israeli Arabs declare loyalty to a "Jewish, Zionist,
and democratic state," its emblems and values, and to
perform military or equivalent service as a condition
for a national identity card signifying citizenship.
Kahana wanted unconditional annulment. Lieberman wants
them transfered to a "Palestinian state." Kahane
wanted them deported.
Israel under Netanyahu/Lieberman
institutionalized racism in its worst form - potential
expulsion or extermination, a "nightmare (that's) here
and now. Kahane is alive and kicking - is he ever - in
the person of his thuggish successor."
His extremism promotes "hatred
for Arabs, hatred of democracy and the rule of law,
and the stink of nationalism, racism and
bloodthirstiness. (He's) the voice of the mob, and the
mob craves hatred, vengeance and bloodshed." He's a
malignancy on the body politic, a "cancerous growth
(throughout) society, (a dangerous, embarrassing)
abomination," one step removed from being Prime
Minister.
Who Is Avigdor
Lieberman?
Hebrew University Professor
Yitzhak Brudny said his "model is not very democratic.
He doesn't like balancing government with checks and
balances. He wants a kind of imperial presiden(cy), an
executive authority. This is why he is dangerous."
Hebrew University Professor Zeev
Sternhell calls him "perhaps the most dangerous
politician in the history of the state of Israel."
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of
the Union for Reform Judaism, describes him as
"outrageous, abominable, hate-filled, (and) brimming
with incitement that, if left unchecked, could lead
Israel to the gates of hell."
David A. Harris, the American
Jewish Committee's Executive Director, says he "define(s)
an entire class of Israelis as suspected traitors," a
fifth column.
Der Spiegel's Christoph Schult
called him a "virulent racist," and for the Guardian's
Daphna Baram an "arch" one.
An unnamed Meretz party member
said "If you liked Mussolini, if you were missing
Stalin, you'll love Lieberman." During the 2009
political campaign, Meretz released an internal memo
comparing him to "Jean-Marie Le Pen in France, (Jorg)
Haider in Austria, and (Vladimir) Zhirinovsky in
Russia."
Known for racism, bullying and
belligerence, Le Pen's views were hard-right. So were
Haider's for praising Nazism and Zhirinovsky's
ultranationalism.
Even ultra-Zionist peace process
critic Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New
Republic, called Lieberman "neo-fascist....a certified
gangster....the Israeli equivalent of Jorg Haider."
Others call him offensive to
basic ethics and morality, and a threat to the rule of
law and democratic freedoms. In a word, he's bad news
for Israel, Palestinians, and the region.
Lieberman's
Roots and Background
Born Evet Lvovich Lieberman in
Moldova (a former Soviet Republic) in 1958, he studied
at a local agricultural institute, worked as a
nightclub bouncer, and later as a Baku, Azerbaijan
broadcaster, before moving to Israel with his parents
in 1978.
He got a Hebrew University social
science degree, served as an IDF corporal, then began
a political career. In the 1980s, he helped found the
Zionist Forum for Soviet Jewry, and was also a member
of the Board of the Jerusalem Economic Corporation and
Secretary of the Jerusalem branch of Israel's
"national workers union," the Histadrut Ovdim Le'umit.
From 1993 - 1997, he was Director
General for the Likud party and Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's chief of staff during his first
term. In 1999, he established the far-right,
ultranationalist Israel Beiteinu Party (Israel is Our
Home), the same year he became a MK. He's also held
other positions, including Minister of National
Infrastructure, Minister of Transportation, and is
currently Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.
Across the board, his positions
are over the top to put it mildly. On September 5, he
called peace with the Palestinians unattainable, "not
next year and not for the next generation....Our
proposal is: No to unilateral concessions, no to
continuing the settlement freeze (a fake moratorium,
in fact, never frozen, and), yes to serious
negotiations and mutual gestures of good faith,"
though he offers none of his own.
"The peace process," he said "is
based on three false basic assumptions. That the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main fact of
instability in the Middle East, that the conflict is
territorial and not ideological, and that the
establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967
borders will end the conflict."
On the contrary, he says. Give up
some land and they'll demand more. Never mind that all
of it belongs to them. For over 43 years, Israel has
been an illegal occupier, what Lieberman other Israeli
politicians omit from their rhetoric, important truths
too disturbing to admit.
Deploring peace, he says those
for it "should prepare for war and be strong." He also
believes "tensions within the Muslim world are 95 to
98 percent of all the problems of the Middle East,
(the) Israeli-Palestinian conflict account(ing) for
two percent."
He, his party, and the Netanyahu
government want all valued West Bank and Jerusalem
Judaized, confining Palestinians to isolated, resource
poor cantons, surrounded by hostile settlers, free to
commit violence with impunity.
Conflict for him is "about values
and vision, and is part of a world wide collision
between the West or the free world, and the radical
Islamic world. Israel represents the free world, and
the Palestinian Authority and Hamas represent the
Islamic radical world."
His solution - "separation, like
in the Balkans. The best model is Cyprus: before 1974,
Greeks and Turks lived together and there was friction
and terror." After separation, "we haven't seen a
peace agreement, but there is security. The same we
must see in our region."
His racist extremism is also well
known. Besides demanding a "loyalty oath" as a
condition of citizenship, he wants a separate
Palestinian entity, excluded from majority Jewish
areas, what Americans enacted 1960s civil rights
legislation to ban.
In February 2007, he said "Israel
is under a dual terrorist attack, from within and from
without. And terrorism from within is always more
dangerous (than) from without." Earlier in the
Knesset, he wanted Palestinian MKs hanged as
collaborators, saying:
"World War II ended with the
Nuremberg trials. The heads of the Nazi regime, along
with their collaborators, were executed. I hope this
will be the fate of the (Arab MK and other)
collaborators."
In March 2002, he said:
"I would not hesitate to send the
Israeli army into all of Area A (under PA control) for
48 hours. Destroy the foundations of all the
authority's military infrastructure and all of the
police buildings, the arsenals, all the posts of the
security forces....not leav(ing) one stone on another.
Destroy everything."
He also wanted air strikes on all
Palestinian commercial areas and other parts of its
civilian economy. In 2003, when Sharon (for political,
not magnanimous, reasons) suggested 350 Palestinian
prisoners get amnesty, he responded:
"It would be better to drown
these prisoners in the Dead Sea if possible, since
that's the lowest point in the world," adding his
willingness, as Transportation Minister, to load up
busses and take them there.
In January 2009, he compared Cast
Lead to America's 1940s war in the Pacific, saying
Gaza should be "treated like Chechnya," and Israel
"must continue to fight Hamas just like the United
States did with the Japanese in World War II,"
suggesting ending it the same way with weapons of mass
destruction.
He also believes pandering to
international opinion is a mistake, showing weakness,
not strength. He's so ultranationalist and hard-right,
many call him fascist. Under investigation for alleged
fraud, accepting a bribe, money laundering,
embezzlement, and obstruction of justice, others say
he's corrupt. In addition, on May 24, 2010, Israeli
police recommended indicting him for Breach of Trust
for receiving classified information about his
criminal investigation.
Earlier, on September 24, 2001,
in Jerusalem District Court, he admitted attacking a
12-year old boy in December 1999 in the Nokdim
settlement who'd hit his son. Charged with assaulting
and threatening him, he was convicted, but copped a
plea to pay a fine and avoid harsher punishment.
Jamal Zahalka, an Arab MK Balad
Party head, says Israel lurched to the right after
Yitzhak Rabin's 1995 assassination. The 2000 Camp
David failure, followed by the second Intifada, Hamas'
January 2006 election, the Lebanon summer 2006 war,
and Cast Lead solidified hardline views. "Lieberman
didn't suddenly appear like Minerva from the head of
Jupiter. He rode the wave and he's not alone."
Hassan Jabareen, founder and
director of the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights
in Israel, agrees, saying:
"He didn't establish racism in
Israel....This product wasn't shaped by him. He just
got the fruits of the others," using them for his own
advantage. Israel is in crisis, he believes, caused by
a lurch to the right. "They try to suppress our
identity. But the state won't be more Jewish if we
stop commemorating the Nakba (or) stop criticizing
Zionism. When segregation becomes ideology, (it) has
only one place to be translated - (into) law. Here in
Israel, segregation (has become) ideology. The Jews
want to live alone without Arabs."
Lieberman is their most prominent
spokesman. He's not a traditional "Greater Israel"
right-winger. He's more pragmatic, opportunist, and
secular, but unbending in his views like Netanyahu. As
long as they're in power, Palestinians and Israeli
Arabs face persecution of the worst kind short of
total expulsion or outright extermination. But those
possibilities can't be ruled out.
Stephen Lendman lives in
Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished
guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the
Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central
time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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