Avigdor Lieberman speaking some truths...

Israel's Foreign Minister and leading fascist Avigdor Lieberman is doing exactly what Gideon Levy was hoping he'd do which is namely shoot off at the mouth and say things that would "lift the veil" and reveal the "nation's true face". Leiberman, speaking to a Russian daily is quoted saying "Believe me, America accepts all of our decisions".

Judging from the Harman scandal those "decisions" may be indistinguishable.

Also coming out in his interview, was a deviation from standard Israeli sabre rattling: Iran isn't Israel's "number one strategic threat" but is in fact (at least) number two. He thinks (and is probably right) that Pakistan and Afghanistan pose more danger. I would argue - and have before - that Israel's biggest strategic threats are in fact their own far right, of which Mr. Lieberman is the secular flag waver, and the unsustainability of the Occupation. Lieberman, naturally thinks otherwise.

Haaretz article:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1080097.html

The "PMs" and "the Kingmaker"

Here are a couple of fun facts about the men and women at center stage in the Israeli Elections:

Tzipi Livni was a Mossad agent. Her father, Eitan Livni, was Chief Operations Officer for Irgun. Don't know what Irgun is? Well Irgun is... how would I describe it... the Hamas of Israel? He had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for his participation in the "terrorist" murder of six people. Then he escaped from jail and after the State of Israel was created he was elected to the Knesset for the Likud party. But I'm sure Tzipi is nothing like her father. She has others commit murder for her. Plus, shes not in the Likud party anymore!

Binyamin Netanyahu went to both MIT and Harvard which is why his English is so perfectly accented to deliver encouraging speeches at AIPAC meetings. He is the author of two books on "combatting terrorism" which as an Israeli politician must be fairly short books since there is only "one way to deal with terrorists". And as I mentioned in an earlier post, he quit the Cabinet of Ariel Sharon over the closing of Israeli settlements and the "withdrawal" of the Israeli military in Gaza. Remember: he doesn't recognize the right of a Palestinian State to exist. A cheery thought in terms of any future "peace talks".

And then there is Avigdor Lieberman about whom I've written too much already. Apart from his fascism, don't forget that Lieberman, like many Israeli politicians, is currently being investigated for criminal acts. The investigation pertains to alleged bribes received by Lieberman over the development of the Oasis Casino outside of Jericho.

At least none of them are rapists (as far as we know) since thats the role of the President.

Likud will win...

With Kadima up one seat it looks like Livni's party will "win" the election. Two things make it unlikely that Livni will actually be the next Prime Minister though...

1. Unless she makes an agreement with either Likud (unlikely) or Yisrael Beiteinu she won't be able to garner enough seats in coalition to make her the next PM. I can't see Likud agreeing to any power sharing agreement where Netanyahu isn't the PM, especially when they only have one or two seats less than Kadima. The question then, is how far to the right is Israel's "centrist" party anyway? The only real option for them is Yisrael Beiteinu, Lieberman's fascist party. In which case, it still doesn't matter if it's Livni or Netanyahu.

2. Apparently the thousands of Israelis stationed on military bases around the country have yet to have their votes tallied. I've said it before: a nation of conscripts is bad for the collective psychology of any society, and one can only imagine what sort of voting mind frame a soldier is in. My guess: Likud will have overwhelming support. We'll see in the next few days.

Election Day in Israel

Today is election day in Israel.

I think this election will be one of the most important in Israel's history. Likud is ahead in the polls with a slight margin over Kadima. Yisrael Beitnu, Avigdor Lieberman's ultra-nationalist/fascist party sits in third. Here is Haaretz's latest poll figures. Keep in mind, governments in Israel are formed through coalitions. Haaretz's is referring to the two most likely coalitions: a right-wing, religious bloc, and a "centrist-left" bloc.

The final Haaretz poll before the election suggested a strong right-wing bloc, comprising Likud with 27 seats, Yisrael Beiteinu on 18 seats, ultra-Orthodox Shas with nine seats and a combined veteran party National Union and fledgling Habayit Hayehudi (the Jewish home) on six seats. According to the poll, a center-left bloc would only be able to muster 54 seats, six short of the 61-seat threshold needed to form a majority coalition. This bloc would consist of Kadima with 25 seats, Labor on 14 seats, New Movemment-Meretz on 7 seats, Jewish-Arab party Hadash on three seats, the United Arab List-Ta'al on three seats and predominantly Arab Balad with two seats.

There are two things that make me say that this is the most important election in Israeli history since Begin's Likud party defeated Labour in 1977.

1. Yisrael Beiteinu is projected to win 18 seats. If you've been reading my posts from the last couple of weeks you know that Yisrael Beiteinu is Avigdor Lieberman's party. If this poll is accurate, fewer Israelis are going to vote for the founding "natural governing party" of the State of Israel (Labour), than they will for a party whose platform calls for ethnic cleansing. I think that this is a monumental shift in Israeli voting patterns. The emergence of Kadima as a centrist party alternative to Labour on the left and Likud on the right becomes a historical footnote when more people vote for a fascist party than the party of David Ben Gurion.

Lieberman has drawn comparisons to French National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen for his open hatred of non-Jews. But his position that all non-Jewish Israeli citizens (meaning the Arab-Israelis who live in Israel, about 20% of the population) should have to take a Loyalty Oath is a first step in his preferred solution to the Palestinian question. Lieberman wants all Arab Israelis to be forcibly transferred to Jordan. Keep in mind that nearly all Arab-Israelis are descendants of Palestinian residents who did not leave or were not evicted in 1948 and have lived in Israel all of their lives, since non-Jews cannot immigrate and become Israeli citizens.

Mainstream media in North America, to their credit, have seen the proposition of the Loyalty Oath and made the Le Pen comparison. Of course, no one would dare make the inevitable next step and admit that a fascist proposing ethnic cleansing as a "solution" to the bothersome presence of a different race merits the comparison to another famous European racist.

2. This election is also significant because it comes on the heels of the Israeli military "offensive" in the Gaza Strip. Forget for a second, if you can, that the IDF killed or wounded 1500 children, and that most of the dozen Israeli casualties were soldiers killed by friendly fire. This was an all out assault on a civilian population in retaliation for rockets fired into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip.

And it was incredibly popular in Israel. So much so, it appears, that the parties that launched the assault, Kadima (Prime Minister Ehud Olmert) and Labour (Defense Minister Ehud Barak) that killed more than a thousand Palestinians, won't win the elections. It seems that what Israel needs is a government more eager to kill and to maintain the Occupation, not one that even maintains the pretense of a "Peace".

I'd like to say that this comes as an ironic counterpoint to the Barack Obama's election in the United States. I'd like to say that while the US, Israel's biggest fancier and unquestioning champion has chosen "Hope" as a political ideology, Israel has chosen the opposite. But the deep cynic in me doesn't think that this is true. If an Avigdor Lieberman didn't emerge at the height of suicide bombings in Israel, what has happened now, fifteen years later that sees a society prepared to elect a Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu coalition?

The answer to my own question borrows from another Obama saying: "Yes, we can". Israel can have it all. Occupation, a non existent Palestinian body politic, economic prosperity, and maybe, one day, and Arab free Israel. And they can do this because so many of us, in other parts of the world, will let them.

On Gideon Levy's Netanyahu article

As I mentioned yesterday the prospect of Benjamin Netanyahu's impending election as Israel's Prime Minister is deeply disturbing. My disappointment hasn't exactly been alleviated by Gideon Levy's nihilistic call for Netanyahu's election. Levy wants Netanyahu to be elected so the "the veil will be lifted and the nation's true face revealed". The revelation would ostensibly be that Israel is a State founded upon the racist ideology of Zionism and that the majority of the population support the continuation of the brutal occupation of Palestine. That the idea of peace was a masquerade. That while Israel said it was "focused on peace and the end of the occupation", it did everything it could to "further entrench the occupation and distance any chance of a potential agreement".

So, with Netanyahu's election, Levy surmises that the world will finally be able to see Israel for what it is.

I like Gideon Levy quite a bit. I saw him deliver an impassioned talk in Montreal a few years ago without any notes. As one of the few Israelis reporting regularly from the Occupied Territories he's a rare voice for justice in a nation mostly deaf to the plight of their neighbours. A plight they've created.

But let me tell you why his article yesterday scares me.

In many ways, he's right. The election of Netanyahu will make Israel's contempt for a just peace with the Palestinians all the more apparent. What he doesn't mention is the strength of Avigdor Lieberman as well. Compared to Lieberman, Netanyahu looks like Israel's Barack Obama. Lieberman is the leader of the ultra-right wing Yisreal Beiteinu ("Israel is our Home"). His jump in the popular vote could make him, once again, a key player in the Knesset and secure him another big Cabinet position. As an advocate for the forcible transfer of Arabs from Israel (also known as "ethnic cleansing") his prominence in the Government should be another blow to the "masquerade" that Levy refers to.

But it won't.

What scares me most about Levy's hope for Netanyahu's election isn't that Netanyahu will make the Occupation more brutal (which it probably will). My fear isn't that his election reminds us that Israeli society, while not monolithic, is still by and large contemptuous of Palestinians (which it is). My fear is not that his election will lift the veil on the fraud that is the "peace process".

My fear is that the world will see this and still not care.

Oh Bibi...

I heard on the radio this morning that polling for Isreal's elections next week is suggesting that Benjamin (Binyamin, "Bibi") Netanyahu will be Israel's next Prime Minister (again).

Here are the quick highlights of Netanyahu's career: Elected Likud leader in 1993, Prime Minister from 1996-1999, cabinet minister (Foreign, Finance) from 2002-2005, reelected Likud leader in August 2007.

But now the lowlights...

Netanyahu resigned from the Cabinet in August of 2005 after Sharon (then Likud leader) implemented his "Gaza Disengagement Plan".

Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed that in terms of negotiations with the Palestinians he would 1. never negotiate with pre-conditions, 2. never negotiate over Jerusalem, 3. never surrender the Golan Heights.

Netanyahu opened a new exit for the Western Wall Tunnel in 1996, sparking riots that killed 70 Palestinians and 16 Israeli soldiers.

Netanyahu, like most Israeli politicians, has been implicated in corruption allegations.

Netanyahu does not support the creation of a Palestinian State (and thus, refuses to recognize their "right to exist").

As disturbing as the return of Israel's "right-wing" party to power is, it's not the thing that worries me most about next weeks elections. What is truly frightening is the likelihood that hundreds of thousands of Israelis will vote for Avigdor Lieberman.

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.