As if we needed another sign of the failure of progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians, now comes word that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is apparently succeeding in bringing into his government an ultra-right wing political leader, Avigdor Lieberman, head of the Israel Beitanu party, a party comprised of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union. This has been Olmert's professed goal all along--though promoting himself and his government as one of the Center-Left, with the Labor Party as the junior partner, Olmert is now extending his hand to one of the most polarizing figures in Israeli politics, someone who openly advocates for involuntary transfer of the Palestinian citizens inside of Israel (about 20% of the population) to a future Palestinian state because he calls them "fifth columnists" and accuses them of being traitors to the state. Lieberman, born in Molodova and who today lives in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, has been likened to Putin in his disregard for democracy.

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