While it is well known perhaps to Israelis, few outside know that Avigdor Lieberman, whom Israel’s new prime minister is poised to name as foreign minister, plead guilty in 2001 to beating a child. I’d heard of this story but never read any news coverage about the event nor read a confirmation that Lieberman was actually convicted.
One of my readers challenged my claim that he was and another confirmed that he had been. But I still could find no reference in Google or the Haaretz English language site. So in the interest in filling that gap on the English web, I decided to write this post. Of course, an added important element is letting the world know that Israel’s likely next foreign minister is a convicted child beater.
The September 25, 2001 Haaretz reports (translated from Hebrew):
Lieberman acknowledged yesterday in the Jerusalem District Court that he attacked a 12 year old boy from the Tekoah settlement, who had hit his son. He was charged with assaulting and threatening him. Lieberman was convicted based on his own confession in the context of a plea bargain. His attorney asked the judges, in the context of the arrangement, to restrict his punishment to a fine [17,500 shekels] and the defendant’s promise that he will not commit such an act in the future.
The beating occured in December, 1999 at the Nokdim settlement. His son told him that three boys hit him. Lieberman located one of the boys in a trailer and hit him in the face. After the boy fell and was injured, the defendant grabbed him by the shirt-collar and arm, took him back to his parent’s home in Tekoa and threatened that he would attack him again if he returned to Nokdim.
Another article notes that the complainant received his head injury when he was thrown into a wall by Lieberman.
The article notes that one of the reasons the prosecutor accepted the plea bargain rather than pursue the matter to trial was that Lieberman’s actions were not “characteristic” of his normal behavior. I guess she momentarily forgot he’d been a nightclub bouncer in Moldova and ignored his threats of death leveled against Arab MKs semi-regularly.
The court record in Hebrew can be found here. Thanks to Gershom Gorenberg for helping with this research.
Discerning minds will recall that Lieberman has already settled on who will be his number 2 at the foreign ministry: none other than his legal “fixer” in the child assault case, Dov Weisglass. The latter is best known for telling an Israeli newspaper, while he was Ariel Sharon’s political fixer, that the Gaza disengagement was like “formaldehyde” which would put the peace process with the Palestinians into a deep freeze. This Weisglass keeps coming back like a bad penny.
Another interesting incident from Lieberman’s recent past should prove relevant to his ability to do his job as foreign minister: while complaining that Hosni Mubarak refuses to visit Israel, he told the Knesset that the Egyptian president can “go to Hell for all I care.” Would you say we have a problem of a lack of diplomatic temperament here? Egypt is Israel’s most important interlocutor in all matters pertaining to the Palestinians. Having cursed that nation’s leader, how will Yevgeny be able to have any sort of working relationship with him?
A sign of the bankruptcy of Netanyahu’s political calculations in forming his new government is that this incident either didn’t enter into his considerations; or, if it did, he dismissed it. That tells you quite a bit about Netanyahu.
Wow what a country. The future foreign minister makes constantly speeches which would make any Klu Klux clan member envy and seems to beat children. The former president is in court for serial rapes. The PM and numerous members of Knesset have and have had difficulties with their “private” financial arrangements and police and courts. Israel must hold the world record with this constant stream of scandals and crimes with politicians among the so called western democracies, to which Israel claims to belong.
Well one could say that the Israeli police is without doubt very effective. On the other hand is it really impossible in Israel to find honest candidates for Knesset and government, who have not tried personally to benefit from criminal businesses and treat women, children and Arabs with respect?
If I remember correctly, the kids were beating up his son, who was also younger than they were. If those kids were Gentiles, he would have been called a hero.
So let me see if I’ve got this right. If your son beats up my son, then I, an adult weighing five times more than him, am entitled to whale on your child, throw him into a wall and pummel him till he falls to the ground. Then I’m entitled to grab your son by the scruff of the neck & drive him to your house & tell you what a shitty father you are & what a shitty son he is? Is that what you’re claiming I should be entitled to do?
Hey, that works in the Wild West and in an Israeli settlement perhaps. But it doesn’t work so well in civilized society. You may call Lieberman a hero for his anti social behavior. But back in the real world we have better names for it.
Let’s talk about your so-called “civilized society” and what happens in it. Three boys bully and beat up your son. You go and talk to the parents. They are apologetic and assure you it wont happen again. The next day, they beat your son up even worse. You again go to the parents and they say they will punish their children, apologize, and again assure you it won’t happen again. Soon after, they beat your son even worse than before. This time you go to the police, you file charges, spend countless hours working through the bureaucracy of the court system ultimately for these boys to only get a month’s worth of probation one year later. The next day, they beat the shit out of your son again.
Sounds like a great society.
It sounds like nothing that a typical American father whose kid was beaten up won’t do.
@Richard
You are entitled to protect your family jewel. Kids shouldn’t be beating on other kids, especially younger ones-you are against bullying from what I gather. B.BarNavi hit the nail on the head I think.
“what a shitty father you are..”
Yes-parents today don’t get enough discipline themselves-sometimes they themselves act like kids-kids raising kids. That’s how this kind of behavior stops-people need to be told when they mess up.
Israel=Is real..it’s TOO real world. I’ve seen some of the best behavior-better than the USA-in the “Territories.” Some people simply have a grudge against Jews.
Admittedly, I’m not a former bouncer fr. Moldova & don’t use my fists to resolve arguments. But I resolve such issues differently.
I’ve heard of some splendid behavior in the Territories…12 yr old settler girls spitting on elderly Palestinian women. Border Police forcing Palestinian shepherds to rape their donkeys (yes, this actually happened–I couldn’t make it up if I tried). Teenage girls shot in the head at point blank range by Border Police. Splendid behavior I tell you.
@Richard
I absolutely agree with Amos. He was just protecting his own son, well, perhaps… a little rough way. But that worked! And by the way, he paid a fine because of that, which I’m sure sutisfied “the other side”.
By, anyway, the reason you make such a big deal of this minor incident is because you hate Lieberman as a politian- it’s clear for me!
I think he is a great politian, because he is a real patriot of Israel, and because in the real world very often you have to apply tough and rough solutions of some of the problems, not because those solutions are good(they might be bad sometimes!), but because those solutions are only ones that work!- in the private life and in the politics…
There is little diff. bet. Lieberman the politician & Lieberman the man. He’s a bulvan in both modes.
What “solution” of Lieberman’s has ever “worked?” Name a single one.
Apparently the kids who beat up Lieberman’s younger kid didn’t have alternative ways to solve the problem. Furthermore, one’s profession doesn’t necessarily dictate one’s capability. A good case in point: Christopher Langan, with an I.Q. of between 195 and 210, who is a bouncer himself! Or, more locally, Prof. Avraham Trakhtman, a 63-year-old mathematics professor at Bar-Ilan University, who worked as a guard for about five years after his aliya from the former Soviet Union in 1990, who solved an abstract math problem that has befuddled experts for the last 38 years. Obviously being a professional fundraiser doesn’t prevent some from writing well-written articles either!
@Richard:
The Border Police are officially part of the Israeli government and are not “settlers.”
HHistory can remind us how germans stood up cheering for Hitlar and after that became so regretful for backing up such a dictatorate who used a very national slogans that cheated people up and then it turns out that he drove them to the way of destruction, Israelis should be so smart in not allowing Liberman to practice his extreme inclanations on a whole nation.
Lieberman decided during the lockdown of payments for unemployed people up to 45 years old. Until the age of 45, there are practically no Russians and those who vote for the anti-Semite Lieberman. Lieberman’s main goal is to prove to his voters that he managed to repress Jewish youth once again. Sell direct or indirect hate propaganda against Jews.
Soviet hatred of Jews clearly helps them to live by choosing Lieberman as tsar.
I hope that this government will soon collapse, although the return to power of the BB is even worse.
Israel helps old people more than enough. It is impossible to add money to them to vote for Lieberman.
The government has no plans to stop the lockdown.
Unemployed people, students, children, families with children and low-paid people throughout the Western world receive help from the states where they live.
Soviet economic refugees arrived in Israel under the Haredi religious laws. What an irony!