LIEBERMAN PAYS PROVOCATIVE VISIT TO JERUSALEM AREA
Al Quds, Jerusalem, 27 Sha’ban 1434/6 July 2013 (MINA) – The head of the Knesset foreign affairs committee, Avigdor Lieberman,made on Friday (5/7) a provocative tour in Wadi Hilwa neighborhood, south of the Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem.
Director of Elad settlement society David Perry accompanied Lieberman during the tour under tight military and police protection, Palestinian sources said, according to Palestinian Information Center reports monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).
The Israeli officials visited during their tour Ir David outpost located at the entrance to the neighborhood and an excavation site in Wadi Hilwa.
The sources affirmed that Lieberman’s visit raised the ire of the Palestinian natives of Wadi Hilwa, which prompted him to end his tour sooner.
Israeli sources, in turn, said that Lieberman carried a message of support from the Knesset right wing to the Jewish settlers in Silwan and gave financial aid to the settlement outposts in the district.
The sources noted that a delegation of wealthy American Jews had paid a visit to Silwan district a week ago and met with the director of Elad society.
They added that the American Jews pledged to increase their financial support for the settlers in Silwan and work on seizing more Palestinian real estate.
Who Is Avigdor Lieberman?
Avigdor Lieberman: A Profile in Ultranationalist Extremism
Hebrew University Professor Yitzhak Brudny said his “model is not very democratic. He doesn’t like balancing government with checks and balances. He wants a kind of imperial presiden(cy), an executive authority. This is why he is dangerous.”
Hebrew University Professor Zeev Sternhell calls him “perhaps the most dangerous politician in the history of the state of Israel.”
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, describes him as “outrageous, abominable, hate-filled, (and) brimming with incitement that, if left unchecked, could lead Israel to the gates of hell.”
David A. Harris, the American Jewish Committee’s Executive Director, says he “define(s) an entire class of Israelis as suspected traitors,” a fifth column.
Der Spiegel’s Christoph Schult called him a “virulent racist,” and for the Guardian’s Daphna Baram an “arch” one.
An unnamed Meretz party member said “If you liked Mussolini, if you were missing Stalin, you’ll love Lieberman.” During the 2009 political campaign, Meretz released an internal memo comparing him to “Jean-Marie Le Pen in France, (Jorg) Haider in Austria, and (Vladimir) Zhirinovsky in Russia.”
Known for racism, bullying and belligerence, Le Pen’s views were hard-right. So were Haider’s for praising Nazism and Zhirinovsky’s ultranationalism.
Even ultra-Zionist peace process critic Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic, called Lieberman “neo-fascist….a certified gangster….the Israeli equivalent of Jorg Haider.”
Others call him offensive to basic ethics and morality, and a threat to the rule of law and democratic freedoms. In a word, he’s bad news for Israel, Palestinians, and the region.
Lieberman’s Roots and Background
Born Evet Lvovich Lieberman in Moldova (a former Soviet Republic) in 1958, he studied at a local agricultural institute, worked as a nightclub bouncer, and later as a Baku, Azerbaijan broadcaster, before moving to Israel with his parents in 1978.
He got a Hebrew University social science degree, served as an IDF corporal, then began a political career. In the 1980s, he helped found the Zionist Forum for Soviet Jewry, and was also a member of the Board of the Jerusalem Economic Corporation and Secretary of the Jerusalem branch of Israel’s “national workers union,” the Histadrut Ovdim Le’umit.
From 1993 – 1997, he was Director General for the Likud party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff during his first term. In 1999, he established the far-right, ultranationalist Israel Beiteinu Party (Israel is Our Home), the same year he became a MK. He’s also held other positions, including Minister of National Infrastructure, Minister of Transportation, and is currently Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.
Across the board, his positions are over the top to put it mildly. On September 5, he called peace with the Palestinians unattainable, “not next year and not for the next generation….Our proposal is: No to unilateral concessions, no to continuing the settlement freeze (a fake moratorium, in fact, never frozen, and), yes to serious negotiations and mutual gestures of good faith,” though he offers none of his own.
“The peace process,” he said “is based on three false basic assumptions. That the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main fact of instability in the Middle East, that the conflict is territorial and not ideological, and that the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders will end the conflict.”
On the contrary, he says. Give up some land and they’ll demand more. Never mind that all of it belongs to them. For over 43 years, Israel has been an illegal occupier, what Lieberman other Israeli politicians omit from their rhetoric, important truths too disturbing to admit.
Deploring peace, he says those for it “should prepare for war and be strong.” He also believes “tensions within the Muslim world are 95 to 98 percent of all the problems of the Middle East, (the) Israeli-Palestinian conflict account(ing) for two percent.”
He, his party, and the Netanyahu government want all valued West Bank and Jerusalem Judaized, confining Palestinians to isolated, resource poor cantons, surrounded by hostile settlers, free to commit violence with impunity.
Conflict for him is “about values and vision, and is part of a world wide collision between the West or the free world, and the radical Islamic world. Israel represents the free world, and the Palestinian Authority and Hamas represent the Islamic radical world.”
His solution – “separation, like in the Balkans. The best model is Cyprus: before 1974, Greeks and Turks lived together and there was friction and terror.” After separation, “we haven’t seen a peace agreement, but there is security. The same we must see in our region.”
His racist extremism is also well known. Besides demanding a “loyalty oath” as a condition of citizenship, he wants a separate Palestinian entity, excluded from majority Jewish areas, what Americans enacted 1960s civil rights legislation to ban. (T/P03/E1)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
