Avigdor Lieberman appointed Deputy Prime-Minister

Globe and Mail

November 7, 2006

Knesset critic urges boycott of Olmert's 'fascist' deputy

Lieberman under fire for plan to expel Israeli Arabs by redrawing the border

By Mark MacKinnon

Jerusalem -- Israel's new Deputy Prime Minister is a dangerous "fascist" who should be boycotted by the international community, a leading Israeli Arab politician said yesterday.

Ahmad Tibi, deputy speaker of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, said that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision last month to invite Avigdor Lieberman into cabinet has given legitimacy to policies that are racist against Arab citizens of the country.

Mr. Lieberman has ignited controversy in recent days by calling for Israel's borders to be redrawn in order to exclude most Arab citizens and make a more homogenously Jewish state. He said Cyprus, which has been divided between Greek and Turkish halves since a war in 1974, was the "best model" for Israel.

"I'm not surprised at all because I know his ideology. But now it's much more dangerous and serious because it's not just the statements of a member of the Knesset, it's the racist statements of the Deputy Prime Minister of the state of Israel," Mr. Tibi said in an interview at his Knesset office.

He compared Mr. Lieberman to other far-right politicians such as Austria's Joerg Haider and France's Jean-Marie Le Pen.

"Practically, he is calling for ethnic cleansing. Using the Cyprus model is outrageous because 160,000 Greek [Cypriots] were deported, by force. But this is the way [Lieberman] sees things."

Over the course of a series of interviews with foreign and domestic media, Mr. Lieberman said that "minorities are the biggest problem in the world" and advocated giving Israel's Arab villages and their citizens to the Palestinian Authority in exchange for Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Once viewed as a fringe extremist, Mr. Lieberman has seen his popularity rise sharply in recent months. Anti-Arab sentiment in Israel has hardened over the course of the 34-day war this summer against Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, and the ongoing firing of rockets by Palestinian groups based in the Gaza Strip. Recent polls suggest Mr. Lieberman is now the country's second most popular politician, trailing only former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, another right-winger.

Mr. Tibi, whose hometown of Taibeh is one of those Mr. Lieberman proposes toexclude from Israel, said the Deputy Prime Minister's popularity reflects growing street-level racism against the Arabs who make up 20 per cent of Israel's population.

A poll taken earlier this year by GeoCartographia, a respected Israeli research group, found that 63 per cent of Israeli Jews saw the country's Arab citizens as a "security and demographic threat to the state," while 40per cent believed that Israeli Arabs should be encouraged to emigrate. The poll was taken in the spring, before the Lebanon war.

"Racism is racism, whether it is in France, Austria or Israel. Lieberman is much more radical than Joerg Haider in Austria. Joerg Haider did not ask to transfer 20 per cent of the Austrian population," Mr. Tibi said. "Lieberman should be isolated and the international community should put pressure ontothe Israeli government to kick him out of the cabinet."

Mr. Lieberman has no love for Mr. Tibi either. Earlier this year, he called for Israeli Arab politicians who had contacts with Hamas, the Islamist group that runs the Palestinian Authority, to be executed. Mr. Tibi, himself a controversial figure who once served as an adviser to Yasser Arafat, flew to Cairo last week to meet with Palestinian foreign minister Mahmoud Zahar, aleading Hamas member. Mr. Tibi has also violated Israeli law by travelling to Lebanon, which is classified as an enemy state.

"World War II ended with the Nuremberg trials," Mr. Lieberman said back inMay. "The heads of the Nazi regime, along with their collaborators, were executed. I hope this will be the fate of the collaborators in this house."

Israeli Arabs aren't the only ones opposed to Mr. Lieberman. His appointment to cabinet was sharply criticized by many on the country's weakened political left, and led to the resignation of cabinet minister Ophir Pines-Paz, a member of the Labour Party, which nonetheless remained in Mr.Olmert's coalition.

Giving Mr. Lieberman the posts of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Affairs was the price Mr. Olmert paid to get Mr. Lieberman and his party, Yisrael Beiteinu ("Our Home is Israel"), to support his coalition government, which was facing the possibility of collapse amidst public dissatisfaction with the conduct and nebulous outcome of the Lebanon war.

While Mr. Olmert was quick to distance himself from Mr. Lieberman's remarks over the weekend, Mr. Tibi said Mr. Olmert should have gone further and dismissed Mr. Lieberman from cabinet.

"You cannot just say that 'I don't agree with these ideas, or these ideas are not representing us.' If you are upgrading him [to Deputy Prime Minister], you are giving him public legitimization, official legitimization and a place from which he can, day by day, express his fascist ideas," Mr.Tibi said.

Mr. Tibi said it was particularly offensive that Mr. Lieberman, who lives in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and who immigrated to Israel from Moldova in 1978 when he was 21, was claiming the right to take away the citizenship of Arabs who had lived in Israel since its formation.