Imagine if you will George Wallace in the 1968 presidential campaign telling the white world he knew how to deal with Negroes. To convey this, he coins the slogan: “He speaks Negro.” Or imagine Strom Thurmond running as a Dixecrat for president in 1948 on a States Right platform. His slogan is: “He speaks Nigger.” I imagine too that it would’ve made a great campaign slogan for Ol’ Bull Connor when he ran for sheriff in Montgomery in the 1960s. Show those darkies who’s boss.
Of course, no presidential candidate in this country could get away with adopting such a slogan. We may have racism underlying our politics, but we’re much more genteel about it and speak in code rather than overtly as Avigdor Lieberman does.
All this by way of saying, I find it astonishing that Lieberman can make such a slogan the heart of his campaign and actually win votes by doing it. Not only win votes, but likely become the third largest political party in the process. I don’t want to ever read another pro-Israel comment here that dares to brag about Israeli democracy and the “good deal” that Israeli Arabs get.
Let’s lay bare what this slogan means. It means that Lieberman “speaks their language.” That he knows how to “deal with them.” He fights fire with fire (Arabs are viewed according to these terms as shiftless, violent, and malevolent). One way he will deal with them is by adjusting Israel’s borders so that Israeli Arab villages in northern Israel would be transferred to Palestinian sovereignty, while Jewish settlements in the West Bank would be transferred to Israeli sovereignty. It’s a slightly more sophisticated form of population transfer advocated by the Israeli far-right ultra-nationalists. Slightly more sophisticated but no less odious or racist for that.
Lieberman’s slogan also conveys the hatred and mistrust that many Jews feel for Israeli Arabs. In fact, one of the hallmarks of his ‘populist’ campaign is a McCarthy-style demand for non-Jewish citizens to sign loyalty oaths to the Jewish state and “Israeli democracy.” Apparently the irony of demanding a loyalty oath from 20% of the nation’s citizens and believing that such an oath represents “democratic values” is lost on Lieberman.
Lieberman is the very same politician who on TV called an Israeli Jewish lawyer who brings human rights cases against the IDF for killing civilians in the midst of targeted assassination operations, a “kapo.” He’s the very same who said Israeli Arab Knesset members should be “strung up on lampposts.” Haaretz just revealed he was a member of Meir Kahane’s Kach party when he first arrived in Israel from the Soviet Union. Shortly thereafter, Kach was outlawed as a terrorist organization.
Haaretz’s Gideon Levy as usual puts it so well in Kahane Won:
Rabbi Meir Kahane can rest in peace: His doctrine has won. Twenty years after his Knesset list was disqualified and 18 years after he was murdered, Kahanism has become legitimate in public discourse.
If there is something that typifies Israel’s current murky, hollow election campaign…it is the transformation of racism and nationalism into accepted values…Now the instigator of the new Israeli racism will apparently become the leader of a large party once again in the government. Benjamin Netanyahu has already pledged that Lieberman will be an “important minister” in his government. If someone like Lieberman were to join a government in Europe, Israel would sever ties with it…
…The nightmare is here and now. Kahane is alive and kicking – is he ever – in the person of his thuggish successor.
All this is viewed in Israel as politics as usual, more or less typical jockeying for advantage. No one suggests that Lieberman be arrested for inciting race hatred or violence against an ethnic minority, as would certainly happen in any number of other western democracies. He’s not denounced by mainstream politicians as he would be here. In fact, many Jews believe Lieberman to be a “man’s man” for such disgusting utterances. Anyone who criticizes Lieberman is viewed as hopelessly effete and ineffectual.
Meanwhile, Lieberman’s campaign distracts attention from the real life and death issues that confront Israel: negotiating peace treaties with Syria and the Palestinians. Yisrael Beitenu provides the country with a political sideshow that enables voters to express their frustration and impotence with issues over which they have no control. It allows them to lash out at the weakest sectors of society and blame them for society’s ills.
It’s a shameful performance. A sign of the profound weakness of Israeli democracy. I fear that it hangs by a frayed thread and the least wind will sever it. Israel cannot stand the assaults upon common decency and tolerance represented by Arab-haters like Lieberman.
Looked at another way though, Lieberman’s obsession with Israeli Arabs does raise important questions about the future of Israeli democracy. Will Israel turn into an ethnocracy in which Arabs have little or no rights, while Jews are supreme? Or will Israel recognize that it simply cannot be a real democracy unless it offers ethnic minorities rights that are equal to the majority Jews? In this sense, Lieberman is laying down a marker and saying that for him Israel must become the equivalent to apartheid-era South African. Arabs who remain in Israel under Lieberman’s regime will accept explicit (and not tacit, as in the current system) second-class status. There will be no more talk of equality. Arabs will know who’s the boss. If they don’t like it they will be invited to deplane to any other Arab country that will have them.
This is an Israel that very few Diaspora Jews I know will embrace. Lieberman’s strategy will not only deepen the rift between homeland and Diaspora, it will sever ties except for all but the most hearty pro-Israel supporters. Unfortunately, the Israel lobby here in this country refuses to recognize the danger. They refuse to see that Lieberman is the Jorg Haider, Kurt Waldheim, David Duke, Jean Marie Le-Pen, or yes, the Meir Kahane of the State of Israel. He is the far-right politician who should be the last straw. The one that makes them put their foot down and demand that Israel clean up its act or risk permanent alienation of affection with American Jewry. Will it happen? Don’t hold your breath.
I suppose it could be worse. Back in Lieberman’s old home, Russian neo-Nazi skinheads mimic Al Qaeda and sever the heads of migrant workers and display their handiwork on videos they proudly offer to the public. Imagine Yisrael Beitenu’s youth wing showing Israeli Arabs that they won’t take shit from anyone by beating a few Arabs to within an inch of their lives or even decapitating one or two particularly uppity ones. That would teach THEM a lesson, wouldn’t it?
In the meanwhile, Lieberman stands to become the next defense, foreign or interior minister. In the latter post, he would control the nation’s entire social agenda, law enforcement and judicial apparatus. That’s quite rich considering the police are investigating him and his immediate family on money-laundering charges. Wouldn’t that be a bit of a conflict of interest? Perhaps not in that glorious democracy that is Israel.
It’s important to note that Lieberman’s call for an oath of loyalty is supposed to apply to everyone, which is one of the reasons Rav Ovadya turned on him last week (lots of Shas supporters don’t serve in the army).
Personally, I won’t vote for anyone who will sit in a coalition with Lieberman. Narrows my choices somewhat, but what can you do?
Well done, well said. Yes, it leaves you only Meretz I’d say or Hadash (unlikely knowing yr views).
“Imagine Yisrael Beitenu’s youth wing showing Israeli Arabs that they won’t take shit from anyone by beating a few Arabs to within an inch of their lives or even decapitating one or two particularly uppity ones.”
No decapitations yet, but there is no need to use imagination for the rest. It already happened from time to time. See the attached link (Hebrew) which describes one of these cases. http://www.mako.co.il/news/law/crime/Articles/itemId=6bba45d59171f110VgnVCM100000290c10acRCRD
The interesting thing is to read the talkbacks – there are 16 of them. Only two are decrying the act, and the other 14 are on the spectrum of “the victim probably done something” to “well done! break their bones”
It shows that such incidences are not growing in a void, even after considering the tendency of talkbacks to extremism
A choice of fascism over peace.
All when peace could have been made possible following Oslo (flaws and all).
The problem with Lieberman’s message, is that he has not thought it through.
Loyalty is not an unreasonable thing for a nation to demand of its people. However, loyalty is a TWO-way street. Just as the citizens of the state should be loyal to their state, the state EARNS this loyalty by being loyal (i.e. responsive to) its citizens.
Similarly, the Lieberman party name “Israel Beitenu” which on the one hand sounds like an implicit attack on the legitimacy of Arab citizens of Israel, also carries with it the best response to such an attack: as in, “Exactly, Israel beitenu (gam)”
Richard, sorry to hear you sound so out of sorts. I understand your desperation. It’s deeply disappointing to see the values of decency, compassion, and generosity of spirit that we treasure as Jews being buried in our homeland. But I would like to see you lead us with bitachon and emunah. Hevel’s (of Cain and Abel fame) blood will again sing from the earth, life will sprout anew from unexpected sources…
That’s a wonderful thought. At times like these we need a bit of poetry and hope. Thank you for providing it.
Richard – you’d be surprised. It also leaves Meimad-Yeruka. Tough choices, and I’m still not sure if abandoning realism is the right way to go. We will see – I’m off to vote now…
Has Meimad said it wouldn’t sit in a gov’t w. Lieberman?
Not officially. Either way, though, one has to be a realist – PR is about choosing the lesser evil. I voted Meimad, but was very torn over the whole thing – at the end of the day there is (whatever some might say) a real difference between a government headed by Tzipi and one headed by Livni, whatever the strength of Lieberman. We shall see.
*FROM MR. SILVERSTEIN’S POST: “Imagine Yisrael Beitenu’s youth wing showing Israeli Arabs that they won’t take shit from anyone by beating a few Arabs…”
*AN ISRAELI YOUTH (IVANOV) QUOTED IN A “HAARETZ” ARTICLE OF 02-07-09 ENTITLED “Lieberman’s anti-Arab ideology wins over Israel’s teens” –
“We have a problem: Upper Nazareth is surrounded by minorities. There are lots of incidents with them. Women are scared to walk in the streets, and people are afraid they’ll be stabbed. No one knows what to do about it at this point. There are people who live here and during a war they act as a fifth column. It will only be possible to make peace with them after we make war.”
SOURCE – http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1061910.html
*AN EXCERPT FROM A HAARETZ ARTICLE OF 01/27/09 ENTITLED “Police arrest Jewish teens for allegedly assaulting Arab youth in Galilee”:
An Arab youth from the Galilee village of Majd el-Krum was injured lightly on Monday night after a gang of Jewish teens beat him with sticks while he was walking along the promenade in Tiberias.
Police arrested eight suspects ranging from 14 to 16 years of age who are believed to have taken part in the assault.
The victim, Mohammed Mansur, was rushed to Poriah Hospital near Tiberias, where he was treated for injuries sustained all over his body…..
SOURCE – http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1059164.html
Ugly. Somehow it’s entirely okay to wish all Arabs gone while dreaming of keeping all land won through war as legitimate (“we won they lost” – this is the way it has always been, and it included transfer of populations a matter of course, as something “natural”). But on the other hand it’s NOT okay for Arabs to wish all Jews gone- a double standard of a different sort. The issue of the double standard is about not having to behave any better than the worst instincts on the other side. It goes along with Crazy Eddie.
The are ready to compromise of course, a two state solution, sometime in the future when they learn their lesson.
I think more in Israel harbor this desire to be rid of all Arabs because compromise or the risks involved seem just to scary. All the while the risks of an illusion of maintaining some status quo where israel has the upper hand is wishful thinking and far riskier I think.
Sorry- I meant:
They are ready to compromise of course, a two state solution, sometime in the future when they ( the other side) have learned their lesson, in a few generations, not now.
I think more in Israel harbor this desire to be rid of all Arabs because compromise or the risks involved seem just to scary or painful. All the while the risks of an illusion of maintaining some status quo where Israel has the upper hand is wishful thinking and the far greater risk I think.
The thing that really makes me sad, is that the people who were subjected to this very treatment, of being blamed for all a nations problems, of being mistreated and being called immoral dishonest and untrustworthy are doing the very same thing to another people in there land. The one word that kept coming to mind over and over and over is NAZI. Several of my friends in Israel, both Arab and Jewish are very opposed to this guy. Arabs for obvious reasons, and Jews because they recognized the joke that he is. Its really sad so many people voted for him. 🙁
Palestinians lost their homes as a result of the 1948 war. An equal number of Jews were kicked out of Arab countries in the years that followed. Why cant anyone say that a population exchange occurred (like between Greece and Turkey in 1921)?
This is a bogus historical claim. 700,000 Palestinians were exiled from what is now Israel. Very few Jews were “kicked out” of their native Arab countries. Many left due to Zionist blandishments & fearmongering telling them they would be killed by their neighbors if they didn’t leave. There certainly were some anti-Semitic incidents in some places that induced some Jews to leave. But it was nowhere near 700,000.
I have a suspicion that Lieberman’s Arabic is about the same as Blackadder’s Swahili.