Monday, November 6, 2006
The rise in the political fortunes of Israel Our Home leader, Avigdor Lieberman, has people on both the Left and the Right (mostly the Left) world-wide having conniptions. This article in The Telegraph is garnering a lot of attention: Jews and Arabs can never live together, says Israel's vice PM
...He has no intention of withdrawing Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Instead, he wants to keep them while, "in return", redrawing Israel's border to eject thousands of Israeli Arabs from the country.
"Minorities are the biggest problem in the world," he said in his soft, Russian-accented English. Asked if Israeli citizens of Arab descent should be forced out through territorial redistribution, he said: "I think separation between two nations is the best solution. Cyprus is the best model. Before 1974, the Greeks and Turks lived together and there were frictions and bloodshed and terror.
"After 1974, they constituted all Turks on one part of the island, all Greeks on the other part of the island and there is stability and security."
When it was pointed out that in Cyprus thousands were forcibly driven from their homes, he replied: "Yes, but the final result was better."
Later, an aide to Mr Lieberman tried to flesh out his remarks. "Israeli Arabs don't have to go," he said. "But if they stay they have to take an oath of allegiance to Israel as a Jewish Zionist state."...
Sounds a bit shocking at first, then you realize he may have a point, and a lot of the shock is not so much from what he's saying but by how it will be heard by many ears, and by how it's being portrayed...the article is about the interview, but does not include the interview itself. There's a lot of talk about "racism," which often, unfortunately, substitutes for a serious-headed discussion of the merits.
YNet talks about it, here, Haaretz, here. Haaretz also adds lots of fuel for the heat, but only so-so light, here. Surprisingly, Reuters seems to give a fairly dispassionate accounting, here: Israeli rightist urges Cyprus-like "separation", as does AP, here: Israeli official wants homogenous nation.
I post this not to advocate for what he's saying, nor to denounce it -- I simply don't know enough about internal Israeli politics to express a strong opinion, nor do I know enough about this guy...but I do think it's worth taking a step back and listening for a moment and seeing if there's merit in what he says before simply writing him off and posing with stock denunciations.
There's about as much merit to this as there is to establishing a separate nation for African-Americans. (Yes, some Black nationalist groups adovcated exactly this in the 60s and 70s.)
Slobodan Milosevic has his defenders, too. But Jews should be the last of all people to advocate anything like this.
Is Lieberman going to demand that the Neturei Karta, Satmars and the Ilan Pappe acolytes in Israel take an oath pledging alliegance to Zionist principles as well and if they refuse, threaten them with expulsion?
Lieberman is in cabinet to work on strategic threats to Israel, i.e. Iran and its regional allies and proxies. When he rails on like a wind-up merchant (as if there aren't already enough of these in Israel and in the region) about domestic Israeli issues he doesn't represent the government nor does he appear interested in his cabinet portfolio.
I sincerely hope that other Yisrael Beiteinu backbenchers and party functionaries recognize that Lieberman is just about advancing Lieberman's career aspirations and not those of his party. I hope they bolt, leaving him isolated.
Ehud Olmert is an exremely wily politician. No dreamer he.
He is reaching out ot Lieberman because Lieberman is saying what more and more Israelis have been thinking for the last 4-5 years. In particular:
- After having been led by the left into Oslo's dreams of peace - and watched as that has blown up in our face - we voted by a landslide for Ariel Sharon when he preached a hard line, an end to unilateral concessions.
- The back-to-back conflagrations in Gaza and Lebanon (again, two places from which we retreated unilaterally with the left's soothing urgings to make peace) have completely scuttled any remaining credibility of the secular, left-leaning elites and the "peace" camp. Israelis spent this summer looking at maps with concentric circles showing missle range from Gaza and Lebanon - and it didn't escape most of them that the same missiles, launched from the West Bank, would easily reach the main, densely populated corridor from Tel-Aviv to Haifa.
- The papers run a steady stream of editorials by centrists admitting that that Oslo and unilateral withdrawal have failed, that the PA areas have sunken into chaos, that there is no partner for peace - in fact, the Palis have been emboldened by what they perceive as our weakness, and are now less willing to recognize Israel's right to exist.
So Olmert - desparately trying to shore up his government and ward of the wrath of a public demanding an accounting for the disaster in Lebanon - has publicly put any further withdrawals on hold, and is trying to regain some of that old Likud hawkishness.
That's why he's brought in Lieberman.
It is extremely amusing to hear people express the hope that Lieberman will be marginalized - simply because his opinions scandalize them.
This kinda ignores the reality: Olmert has quite deliberately drawn Lieberman in from the margins at this juncture, because he is saying what many Israelis are thinking.
In Israel, Lieberman's notions are often described as "completing the transfer of populations begun in 1948". This underscores the fact that almost half of Jewish Israelis are refugees expelled from Arab lands, and their descendants. For more:
http://theforgottenrefugees.com/
In addition, a large number of people calling themselves "Palestinians" are recent arrivals - during the 30 years that Israel administered the West Bank and Gaza, illegal immigration from Jordan and Egypt topped out at 35,000 people a year. They came for the "oppressive" running water, electricity, and health care that Israel provided.
Avigdor Lieberman is only the latest in a series of far-right Israeli political figures to hit the scene, speaking the outrageous and getting a lot of attention. Before him, there was Rehavam Ze'evi (until he was assassinated by a Palestinian); and before that, there was Meir Kahane (until he was assassinated by a Palestinian).
Hmm, there may be a pattern here. Mr. L, watch your back.
As to his beliefs, things like this always remind me of a comment my commanding officer in the IDF once said, during the Israeli elections of 1988. He said that he intended to vote for Kahane, which scandalized a lot of us. He then explained: "I wouldn't vote for him to be Prime Minister; a man like that should never be Prime Minister. But I'd want his voice to be heard."
I picked up a similar opinion from my mother, who used to point out that it's the extremes that define where the center is. Without people like Lieberman, the Likud would be considered "far-right". (It sometimes is anyway, even by reporters who know better.) It is the extremes on the right that make center-right positions palatable for public debate; ditto for the extremes on the left.
That's why American politics needs people like Pat Buchanan, much as I despise the man and his politics. Somebody needs to make President Bush look moderate by comparison.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
It isn't too surprising that Libermann is cosying up to Serbia. He likes the Milosevic approach.