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Lieberman's Status Quo
Reasonable people, from President Shimon Peres to historian of European fascism Zeev Sternhell, have argued fervently that Kadima's Livni and Labor's Barak should join Netanyahu's coalition--that not doing so, in effect, means that Avigdor Lieberman will get the Israel he wants; that the economy and Iran require national solidarity. Barak is trying.
Actually, there is almost nothing the Israeli government can do about the recession. What can the mayors of Silicon Valley do? The government can tweak some budgets and, if it is sane, try to save the educational system (about which more soon). Kadima and Labor can support such tweaking from Knesset committees and the opposition. Regarding Iran, moreover, there is nothing unilateral Israel will be allowed to do, as America tries to engage more creatively with the Islamic Republic. We will hear a lot about centrifuges and 1938. We may have some columnists who think they are Winston Churchill. But the sun sets on our empire pretty much at the same moment that it sets on us.
The basic question is Lieberman. And the basic answer, which supporters
of joining the coalition seem to miss, is that for Lieberman to get
what he wants (settlements and Greater Israel, exclusive sovereignty in
Jerusalem, the relegation of Israeli Arabs to second class citizenship,
the subordination of the judiciary to the imperatives of Jewish
"security") all that he needs to have happen is, well, nothing.
The status quo serves Lieberman perfectly, whether he is in government or not. In fact, his demagogy is so much a product of the status quo ("let's do what we are doing, only harder") that it should bear his name. And so, therefore, it should bear his face. Read Akiva Eldar's trenchant column on this point.
The status quo serves Lieberman perfectly, whether he is in government or not. In fact, his demagogy is so much a product of the status quo ("let's do what we are doing, only harder") that it should bear his name. And so, therefore, it should bear his face. Read Akiva Eldar's trenchant column on this point.
To deny Lieberman his victory, the country has to make significant changes: reorient itself away from the occupation, coordinate strategically with the Obama administration--not try to finesse it. If Livni joins, Eldar shows, she only continues to give his status quo a confusing legitimacy. Let Lieberman try being foreign minister in world that shuns him for saying what so many here just take for granted. Let his supporters see the world shunning him.
Lieberman will desperately try to change perceptions. He will speak, plausibly, of Israel in the European Union. The speed with which he will try to transform himself from Zhirinovsky to De Gaulle will leave some reporters spinning. Do not be fooled: we keep going as we are and he wins.
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To deny Lieberman his victory, the country has to make significant changes
Yeah, it has to give up being an ethnocracy and become a true pluralistic, multicultural, multiethnic democracy that accepts its Arab population as fully equal and as important and essential to the nation as its Jewish population.
Now that the truth has been spoken, we can all sit back and listen to the usual--and endless--rationalizations and denials presented by Israel's supporters, both left and right.
Have fun!
March 23, 2009 7:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see how a rightwing coaltion lasts long. Mainly on whatever ephemeral clout the FSR olim present in Israeli society, Yisrael Beitenu appears to be the new toy in Israeli politics. Not unlike Shinui in 1999, and even with identical parliamentary numbers.
I hate to see Israel go through the agrivating expense and soul crushing experience of yet another round of early elections, but I hope that Livni and Barak keep their respective parties out of Netanyahu's government and allow a rightwing coalition to languish on the proverbial ropes of the political arena until the electorate forms a coherent movement for real progress. Namely, support for genuine efforts toward the political, cultural and economic reintegration of the Jewish people in the region.
March 23, 2009 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Erratum: Shinui won 15 Knesset seats in 2003, not 1999. Time apparently does not fly as fast I sometimes think it does.
March 23, 2009 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that Lieberman's party is the party-of-integrity-du-jour, but if you look at voting patterns over the past 40 years, you see a country narrowly split and, with every generation, gains for the ideological right. The exception was Rabin, Barak and Oslo, when the Russians--the biggest bloc of swing voters--were prepared to give the "generals" a chance. The only thing that can now move Russians and educated Mizrahim to the more "moderate" parties is the conviction that Greater Israel means utter diplomatic isolation.
March 23, 2009 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bernard Avishai,
From where I sit, the "right & left" paradigm has a different political trajectory over there than here. For example, going back 40 years takes us to Golda Meir. I suspect that our fellow progressives (if I may be so presumptuous) would find it hard to embrace her as such. Heck, any sympathy with Zionism at all is enough to brand one here and now as an incurable neocon. Nevertheless, I agree strongly that any Israeli/Zionist liberal movement must recognize the threat to the forementioned political, cultural and economic reintegration of the Jewish people in the region presented by the political power of the settlement movement in the territories and by calls for minority disenfranchisement in Israel.
March 24, 2009 8:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
and people wonder how the germans came to support hitler.
look..these type of fascists can sprout up anyplace when the climate turns right.
i see it here in the attacks against illegal aliens. but can we make it legit by saying we agree with it?
i dont see how.
March 23, 2009 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
From the US side, I hope that people will ask what 'Yisrael Beitenu' means; I think it is profoundly disturbing that a collective of Russian emigres are calling the West Bank 'our home,' and fighting tooth and nail to evict the people who were born there.
While Lieberman may win in the short term, demagoguery never lasts, and meanwhile, the world will recoil ever more as the new face of Israeli apartheid emerges.
March 23, 2009 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ummm....Leiberman is a bigot, and advocates a form of ethnic cleansing, but he does not advocate a greater Israel.
Yisrael Beiteinu platform calls for a two state solution, with the Arab rich parts of pre-1967 Israel being handed over to a Palestinian state and their citizenship canceled.
10 minutes on "the Google" would show that.
March 24, 2009 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't mean in my last post to suggest that Lieberman is anything but pond scum (though I like his civil marriages platform).
March 24, 2009 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Matthew, Lieberman lives in a settlement. I did not say he supports Greater Israel for divine reasons, which does, I agree differentiate him from some others. But his stance is something like this: I am for a cleansed Jewish state, and would entertain in principle a small, Jerusalemless Palestine next door--but only if we can find a leadership we can trust to agree to this deal, which of course we can't. Try 20 minutes on Google.
March 24, 2009 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh well..., Bibi got Barak.
March 24, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
You write about 'Jewish security' when ,in fact, you correctly mean 'Israeli security'. The majority of world Jewry live outside of Israel, by choice, having no wish to join a society that uses terror to subjugate its neighbours.
We now know that between more than 500 women and children were killed in Gaza by the IDF under the direction of Messrs Olmert and Barak.
Before the latter joins the proposed new government he should first submit himself to the ICC to determine his guilt or innocence of war crimes.
March 25, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree strongly. I believe like Hannah Arendt that national rights precede human rights, and so Jewish security is definitely a legitimate issue within the overall conflict. Until Zionism became mainstream thought within Jewish discourse, Jewish identity was limited to a narrow religious construct, even as the Jewish people contains within it every reasonable qualifier for national legitimacy -- namely, a common language, legal and ethical tradition and a history marked by a common calendar. Religion is subjective and religious communities are vulnerable to the whims of majorities in host nations, but nationality is objective and legitimated by history.
March 25, 2009 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hannah Arendt believed, as you say, that, ultimately, the survival of the state is the first priority - and human rights have to take second place to that, and most of us agree to that premise.
However, in the case of Gaza, in January, Israel's survival was not in any sense, at stake or at risk. The rockets that were fired by militants into northern Israel was and is a warlike act and Israel has to take appropriate action to nullify that threat.
But the murder of over 500 women and children by heavily armed troops was a cowardly and obscene atrocity that had no link with the militant rockets or with any other military objective. It was killing for killing's sake by an army that has been brutalized into believing that Arabs are sub-human and not worthy of life.
That is why Olmert and Barak have to be brought before the International Court to answer charges of war crimes.
March 25, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you on the particulars of Operation Lead Balloon, or whatever it was called.
I disagree with your interpretation of Arendt, who writes in The Origins of Totalitarianism,
Meanwhile, I don't believe that Olmert and Barak will see the dock anytime before Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & Co ever do (or for that matter, Robert Mugabe or Omar Hassan al-Bashir or Vladimir Putin, etc.).
March 26, 2009 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
To clarify, re. Arendt. human rights follow national rights. To the real and ugly political world it is difficult at best to take the former seriously without the latter. It's regrettable that we have come to a state where it must be expressed, but this is just as true for stateless Palestinians as it was for stateless Jews. The good news is that, despite the brutality of the physical conflict, Jewish and Arab national rights in the former British Palestine Mandate are not mutually exclusive.
March 26, 2009 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink