Lovable Man
By Uri Avnery, 3.11.06
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 TIMING 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.