Hamas won a national legislative election and took over the PA. Lieberman represents nowhere that level of support among Israelis. He is A legitimate representative of a certain racist, rejectionist, extreme nationalist minority constituency within Israeli society. His roughly 13-15% of the vote is being magnified by Netanyahu’s giving him the f.m. portfolio. Further, Lieberman has put forward no proposals that have any semblance of realism (except to him) for resolving the conflict.

On the other hand, Hamas has put forward a number of pragmatic proposals that are worthy of negotiation. Yet Israel rejects even talking. Notice I did not say that Hamas’ proposals are themselves worthy of being final positions. But they are worthy of being discussed. Lieberman’s proposals are dead in the water. Implementing them would likely involve massive civil conflict with Israel’s Arab minority. I don’t want to say civil war since that may be too extreme. But the amount of resistance would be enormous. And it would spill over into the Jewish community as well. Hell, even Alex Stein might not like them & even do something about it instead of grandstanding here.