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November
2, 2006
The Lovable Man?
Lieberman
and the Decline of Israeli Democracy
By URI AVNERY
In its original German form - Liebermann
- the name means "lovable man". It is hard to imagine
a name less appropriate for the new Deputy Prime Minister of
Israel.
He is not lovable, neither
in his personality nor in his views - and that is the understatement
of the year.
His personal lovability can
be judged by the fact that he was once arrested for beating up
a boy who had quarreled with his son.
This week, the arrival of Liberman
at the center of the political system marks the start of a new
chapter in the annals of the State of Israel.
* *
*
The time is not accidental.
In all the 56 years of its existence, Israeli democracy has never
been at such a low point as it is today.
In the elections half a year
ago, almost 40% of the electorate did not vote at all - double
the usual percentage.
Since then, corruption affairs
have followed each other. The President of the State is awaiting
indictment on several charges of rape and sexual misconduct.
The Prime Minister is the subject of a whole series of investigations
for corruption, in collusion with an assortment of local and
foreign billionaires. Two ministers are already standing trial.
Over Ariel Sharon and his family, a dark cloud of corruption
affairs was hovering when he suffered his stroke. There is a
general feeling that the ruling group in Israel is cynical and
corrupt.
The corruption and cynicism
of this group expresses itself also in its public behavior. Politicians
in Israel - and around the world - have never been notable for
their fulfillment of election promises. But here this has reached
a new low - everything is being betrayed quite openly, in full
view of the public.
Ehud Olmert campaigned on the
basis of a specific and detailed plan - the "Convergence".
Now, without batting an eyelid, he announces that it has been
abandoned. He has only one plan left: to stay in power, whatever
it takes.
Amir Peretz collected votes
as the leader who was about to carry out a real "social"
revolution, to put an end to the oppression of the weak and the
underprivileged - the elderly, the sick, the unemployed and all
the rest. The gap between rich and poor in Israel is one of the
widest in the industrialized world. Peretz also promised to work
towards peace with the Palestinians.
On the morrow of the elections,
Peretz betrayed his promises openly, shamelessly and with Chutzpa.
In order to further his personal career, he did not claim any
social ministry, accepting the Ministry of Defense instead. Since
then, he has been demanding the expansion of the military budget
at the expense of social outlays. Instead of peace, he made war.
This week he also violated his undertaking not to sit in a government
that includes Avigdor Liberman. Almost all the Labor Party ministers
are partners to this blatant betrayal, with the honorable exception
Ofir Pines-Paz, who has resigned. (Four of his colleagues in
the Labor Party, including Ehud Barak, are competing to take
his place.)
The first noteworthy act of
the Olmert-Peretz team was to get Israel into a superfluous and
hopeless war. The irresponsibility of this decision to start
a difficult and complex war compares only with the irresponsibility
with which the war itself was conducted in all its phases. To
add insult to injury, they blocked the appointment of an independent
Judicial Commission of Inquiry.
The war has left the public
with a profound sense of distress, on top of the disgust aroused
by the political betrayals and the corruption affairs. Our democracy
now appears completely rotten, corrupt and incompetent. A Hebrew
proverb says that "the breach in the wall calls for the
thief". The present situation calls for fascist forces.
Enter Liberman.
* *
*
THE SPIN managers of Olmert
and Peretz try to calm us down. What's so special about Liberman,
they ask us.
So he advocates Transfer, the
expulsion of the Arab citizens from Israel. He threatened to
destroy Egypt by blowing up the Aswan Dam. He demanded the execution
of the Israeli Arab Knesset members for meeting with Syrian and
Hamas leaders. So what? Rehavam Ze'evi, whose memory was honored
this week by a special commemoration session of the Knesset,
proposed ethnic cleansing, and General Effi Eytam, the chief
of the National Union party, uses similar language.
Such a person should not be
allowed to enter the government? Why not? After all, Liberman
has already been a member of the government, and so had Ze'evi
and Eytam.
This argument misses the point.
The Liberman who joined Sharon's government five years ago represented
a marginal group of new immigrants, which was not taken seriously.
Sharon was a strong leader, and his ministers were unimportant.
But the Liberman that has joined the Olmert government is something
else: the leader of a strong party that is getting stronger,
under a Prime Minister who is a small party functionary, with
whom most of the public is fed up.
The Liberman party is quite
different from the fictitious Kadima Party and the decomposing
Labor Party. It is organized on military lines, with Liberman
as its one, unquestioned leader. It has organized most of the
immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and is expanding into
other communities, too. It appeals to the poor and downtrodden.
It resembles the Bolshevik party that Liberman knew as a young
man in the Soviet Union. (To coin a formula: Bolshevism minus
Marxism equals Fascism.)
When the democratic system
arouses public contempt, and when the view that "all politicians
are crooks" and "the system is rotten to the core"
is gaining ground, such a person is a real danger to democracy.
* *
*
AN OLD maxim says that Israel
can fulfill only two of its three desires: to be a Jewish state,
to be a democratic state and to hold on to all of the territory
between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. It can hold on to the
whole territory and be democratic - but then it will not be a
Jewish state. It can hold on to the territory and be Jewish -
but than it will not be a democratic state. It can be a Jewish
and democratic state - but then it cannot hold on to all the
territory.
This has been the basis of
Israeli policy from the very beginning. The main argument for
Sharon's "Separation" and Olmert's "Convergence"
was exactly this: that in order for Israel to remain Jewish and
democratic, it must give up those parts of the occupied Palestinian
territories with a dense Arab population.
The extreme Right has an answer
that resembles the egg of Columbus: all three aims can indeed
be attained. The solution is ethnic cleansing - the expulsion
of the whole of the Arab population.
That is difficult to carry
out in a democratic system. Therefore, this aim almost automatically
means that there must be a "strong leader". Meaning:
an overt or disguised dictatorship.
Mostly this is not said openly,
but by hints accompanied with a wink. Liberman, too, does not
say so openly. But if one listens closely to what he says, one
can draw the conclusions oneself.
* *
*
THE MOST depressing phenomenon
at this moment is the lack of public reaction.
The betrayal of the Labor Party
could have been expected. Amir Peretz did indeed swear that he
would never sit in a government with Liberman, but in order to
remain a minister he is quite prepared to sell his principles.
No great outcry could be expected from Meretz either, after Yossi
Beilin had his well publicized breakfast with Liberman and heaped
praise on him and his herrings.
But the general public does
not seem shocked, either. Here and there some articles did appear,
but they did not point out the existential danger threatening
the Israeli republic. Even the Arab public in Israel, whose very
existence is menaced by Liberman, has not set in motion a real
protest. On the 1976 "Land Day", when the Arab citizens
protested against the expropriation of their land, it looked
different. As it did in October 2000, when the Israeli Arab public
protested against a suspected threat to the al Aqsa mosque.
What is the reason for this
weak reaction, which is so like the last days of the Weimar republic?
There is a growing disdain
for the democratic system. There is a general fatigue after the
shocks of the last year. There is a withdrawal into private cares.
For the "persons in the street", it is difficult to
imagine the dangers. He and she are so used to democracy, that
they cannot imagine what it means to live without it. They are
sure that "It Can't Happen Here".
Perhaps they are right?
At the end of the 19th century,
there was a French general called Georges Boulanger. Everybody
expected him to carry out a military coup d'etat at any moment.
But the general hesitated, postponed the much talked-about coup
again and again, until somebody threw in his face: "General,
at your age Napoleon was already dead!" It is said that
this broke the spell, the authorities started to take action
and the general fled abroad.
Perhaps Liberman will also
turn out to be a scarecrow. But I would not bet on it, if the
Israeli public does not wake up in time.
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