In the Israeli parliamentary elections, to be held Tuesday, he is running on a vow to require Arab citizens to sign a loyalty oath. As his campaign slogan asserts with a sly wink at Jewish voters, Avigdor Lieberman “knows how to speak Arabic.”
Mr. Lieberman does not know Arabic and will not, by all polls and predictions, become the next prime minister. But his popularity has been climbing so steeply that his party is now expected to come in third, making him a likely power broker with an explosive and apparently resonant political message: Israel is at risk not only from outside but also from its own Arab population.
“It no longer matters whether Lieberman will get 19 seats, as some polls indicate, or merely 15,” noted the political commentator Sima Kadmon in Friday’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper. “He is the story of this election campaign.”
This guy made his Yisrael Beitenu party because Israel's far right, militarist Likud party wasn't right wing enough for him. He made a dehumanizing threat of violence against Arab Israeli citizens his campaign slogan. A central part of his "peace" plan is revoking their citizenship. And he may soon become one of the most powerful men in Israel.
Just what kind of high government official would he make? Here's a nugget of Lieberman's diplomatic wisdom for ya, in response to a volley of suicide bomb attacks:
"if it were up to me I would notify the Palestinian Authority that tomorrow at ten in the morning we would bomb all their places of business in Ramallah, for example."
Speaking of more right than right, if his party proves as successful in the election as polls indicate, Israel will have elected as its 3 main choices a right wing party, a centrist party, and an uber-right wing party. And we are committed to defending them no matter what.
What could possibly go wrong?
