The great Uri Avnery has a new column saying that it's Lieberman's government; he has the key bloc. And the only upside is that in opposition, Tzipi Livni may at last be forced to embrace a real road to peace, not a "peace process." On Lieberman's power and mind:
His rude and violent style is both natural and calculated. It is intended to threaten, to appeal to the most primitive types in society, to draw public attention and to assure media coverage. All these are reminiscent of other countries and other regimes. The first one to congratulate him was - not by chance – the ex-fascist Foreign Minister of Italy.
This week, earlier statements by Lieberman were quoted again and again. He once proposed bombing the huge Aswan dam, an act that would have caused a terrible Tsunami-like deluge and killed many millions of Egyptians. Another time he proposed delivering an ultimatum to the Palestinians: At 8 am we shall bomb your commercial centers, at noon your gas stations, at 2 pm your banks, and so on.
He has proposed drowning thousands of Palestinian prisoners, offering to provide the necessary buses to take them to the coast. Another time he proposed deporting 90% of the 1.2 million Arab citizens of Israel. Recently he told the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, one of the staunchest allies of the Israeli leadership, to “go to hell”.
In the recent election campaign his official program included the demand to annul the citizenship of any Arab who did not prove his loyalty to Israel. That was also his main slogan. This, too, is reminiscent of the programs of certain parties in history.
This is coupled with an open hostility to the Israeli “elites” and everything connected with the founders of the State of Israel.
Some people believe that Lieberman is really not a new phenomenon at all and that he simply brings to the surface traits that were there all the time but were buried beneath a thick layer of sanctimonious hypocrisy.
The real danger posed by ultra right fanatics like Lieberman goes beyond their own extremist views.
People like Netanyahu and his fellow Likudniks now can be painted as "moderates" by the MSM because they are not quite as extreme as Lieberman.
Look for a massive campaign by the lobby to "rebrand" Netenyahu as a "moderate" and a "pragmatist" deserving of the US support.
Remember the media fuss in 2000 when Jorg Haider's nationalist party achieved a small minority position in Austria's government?
Haider's positions were far less extreme than Lieberman's and Netanyahu's, but somehow I don't expect to see the same outrage.
'We' don't criticize Israel because 'we' are "a nation populated by ex-nihilo types" … and there you have it!
I think this is worth mulling over. Yes, the Lobby is powerful but surely it has support, overt (e.g. from Christian Zionists) or, as I understand from the quote above, diffuse and ingrained at the same time from the general population.
Gene.
But the Christian Zionists are undergoing a tsunami themselves. Read A RELIGIOUS RIGHT CRACK-UP? in today's Washington Monthly:
link to washingtonmonthly.com
The money quote:
Haider's party platform is much less right-wing than Lieberman's. Hillary would attack Haider in a NY carpet bag second, but she can muster against Lieberman's political POV is, "that's not helpful."
Which is the retracted by her spokes person.
Once the Zionists lose the protection of the Christian Right (A jew runs John Hagee's Christians United for Israel according to jewsonfirst.org) then it's going to be curtains for a lot of Israel's hard right policies here in the USA.
Slaughtering Palestinians is not a Christian thing to do. I peruse the conservative Christian sites just to keep my finger on the blah-blah-blah, and a lot of them are waking up to what their leaders signed them onto. And they dont like it.
According to The Washington Monthly report above, Cal Thomas wrote some book ten years ago about this which has only now come into vogue.
Crimson Ghost: "People like Netanyahu and his fellow Likudniks now can be painted as "moderates" by the MSM because they are not quite as extreme as Lieberman."
Like you, I'm not thrilled with Netanyahu's supposed new moderation, A piece in today's LA Times by Nicholas Goldberg, the paper's deputy editorial page editor, quotes Joe Lockhart, president Clinton's press secretary, as calling Netanyahu "one of the most obnoxious individuals you're going to come into–just a liar and a cheat."
Sounds about right to me. I still can't forgive Netanyahu for saying what he was obviously thinking the morning of 9-11, that the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade center were "good for Israel."
The last paragraph, that Lieberman is really nothing new, just more honest than past Israeli spokesmen, is basically my view (as I've said here in the past). For this reason and this reason alone, in a way I really am delighted that he's in such an influential position. The rest of the world needs to see what Israel is really all about, and Lieberman is just the guy to make it clear. He is not an "extremist" compared to Netanyahu or even Barak; he's just more honest.
Lucky for us it slipped out, as he corrected himself a second later for PR purposes. His mentality is something the USA should fear, not support. It's the same as the 5 dancing Israelis cheering as the twin towers went down.
Nothing like having the lone superpower as your saturday bell ringer.
Duscany
I recall that someone who claimed to be "in the know" posted here a few months ago that Netanyahu was hated by many in Washinbgton, because he was seen as a fanatic warmonger and a dissembler
Bu the rise of Lieberman may give him some cover as the "lesser evil".
Thanks for the link, MRW. Very interesting read. I remain wary of the movement still given Netanyahu's close association with it, well, part of it at any rate.
“A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.” ~George Washington, ~page 269 of The 5000 Year Leap.
“The nation which indulges toward another habitual hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interests." ~ George Washington
"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson
"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; "special relationships" with none." –Duscany