Avigdor Lieberman (Photo: International Middle East Media Center)
Israel Hayom English Editor Amir Mizroch live tweeted an event with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman today where he revisited many of his favorite themes including the threat that Palestinian citizens of Israel represent, and his undemocratic vision for the future of Israel. Lieberman was addressing the Sanhedrin Forum for young professionals in Tel Aviv and although the event was supposed to be off-the-record Mizroch tweeted that Lieberman knew it was being reported. Just as reminder, Lieberman and Benjamin Netanyahu will be merging their political parties ahead of Israeli elections in January.
Here are some of the highlights:
Israeli fm Lieberman: separation of religion and state not possible in Israel we r only nation in world whose religion tied to nationality
— Amir Mizroch (@Amirmizroch) November 13, 2012
Israel fm Lieberman: land for peace formula is bankrupt. It got us nothing but violence
— Amir Mizroch (@Amirmizroch) November 13, 2012
Israel fm Lieberman: our concept of “no loyalty no citizenship” used to be extreme now gotten into the central stream in Israeli politics
— Amir Mizroch (@Amirmizroch) November 13, 2012
Israeli fm Lieberman: Sachnin fans asked Beitar Jlm not to bring Israeli flags to soccer game. That’s provocation. They belong in Palestine
— Amir Mizroch (@Amirmizroch) November 13, 2012
Israel fm says Israeli Arabs are part of the Palestinian people so should not be part of Jewish state Arab towns should be part of Palestine
— Amir Mizroch (@Amirmizroch) November 13, 2012
Israel’s foreign minister: when it comes down to the choice btw Jewish or Democratic Israel it has to be Jewish. What do #JFNAGA folks say?
— Amir Mizroch (@Amirmizroch) November 13, 2012
The “JFNAGA” refers to the Jewish Federations of North American General Assembly which is taking place now in Baltimore.
Israeli fm @avigdorliberman: Jewish state more important than democratic state. We r the only Jewish state so more important to be Jewish
— Amir Mizroch (@Amirmizroch) November 13, 2012
Foreign minister @avigdorliberman: there is no chance for diplomatic solution with Palestinians so next elections r about internal issues
— Amir Mizroch (@Amirmizroch) November 13, 2012
You can read more on Mizroch’s Twitter feed here.
Thanks Adam. I certainly hope that such ideas will wake American Jews up from their comfortable slumber and make them realize that Israel has evolved in a direction incompatible with their democratic, anti-slavery, anti-Jim Crow American heritage and shed any sense of “dual loyalty” to Lieberman’s sick state. Israel gravely imperils the Jewish “brand”.
Lieberman is such an ignorant, murderous thug. He reminds me of Fred West, who lived in Gloucester in England and was a serial killer. He murdered the novelist Martin Amis’s cousin, Lucy Partington, in 1973. She had been waiting for a bus.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2000/may/11/features11.g2
Everything about her, even her name, pointed towards the light. Given this, I cannot find order or meaning in a darkness so deep and durable. The death of Lucy Partington represents a fantastic collision (collide: “from col- ‘together’ + laedere ‘to strike'”). It is what happens when darkness meets light, when experience meets innocence, when the false meets the true, when utter godlessness meets purity of spirit, when this –
Hi May it your Dad Writeing to you. or lette me have your telephone number… or Write to me as soon as you can, please may I have to sort out watt Mr Ogden did to me, my new solicitors are Brilliant I Read What you sead about me in News of the that was loylty you read what Scott canavan sead he had –
meets this –
things are as big as you make them –
I can fill a whole body,
a whole day of life
with worry
about a few words
on one scrap of paper;
yet, the same evening,
looking up,
can frame my fingers
to fit the sky
in my cupped hands.
Yet, astoundingly, this is the man that Abraham Foxman of the ADL, a self-described ‘civil rights activist’, defends without failing. He has even called criticism of Lieberman ‘overblown’.
Maybe it isn’t only Israel that needs a democratic – and truly liberal – shakeup in Jewish communal affairs.
No surprise here. Fascists — from Musolini to Hitler to Lieberman — hate democracy.
Lieberman’s tune would change if any (even slight) attempt were made by USA or EU to force Israel by BDS-like actions — such as ending annual gifts from USA, removal of ambassadors, suspension of commercial airtraffic, suspension of payments to Israel for agricultural exports, or suspension of payments to Israel for all exports — (ahem) to force Israel to remove all settlers, dismantle all settlements and the wall, or ANYTHING LIKE IT. Any such goal and any such sanction. The bigger the better.
I hope something along those lines happens BEFORE the Israeli election, just as Palestine makes its bid for quasi-state-status at UN.