When a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party says that the country is being taken over by “dangerous and extremist elements”, it would seem the outside world ought to sit up and take notice.
Moshe Yaalon resigned as defense minister when his boss Netanyahu cut a deal with far-right Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is our home) party, giving him six extra seats in the Knesset and bolstering his five-party coalition. The leader of Yisrael Beiteinu is Avigdor Lieberman, a notorious hawk who in his two past incarnations as foreign minister, took especial care to ensure that the Palestinian peace process continued to go absolutely nowhere.
Yaalon’s apparently-principled resignation allowed Netanyahu to immediately give the defense portfolio to Lieberman. The Israeli military could wish for no better political leader at a time when there is a pushback, albeit feeble, against the impunity with which soldiers have been murdering Palestinians. Lieberman, who makes a point of living in an illegal West Bank settlement, has openly backed the destruction of the Palestinian Authority and is clearly in favor of the physical expulsion of Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship. In a gross imitation of the Nazis’ “Judenfrei” (free of Jews) campaign, Lieberman’s far-right supporters want an Arab-free Israel.
Netanyahu has become a fixture in Israeli politics where he is now leading his fourth coalition government. His inoffensive-sounding nickname “Bibi” belies his unerring hawkishness. He has come to epitomize Israel’s long-successful campaign to hoodwink the international community over the core Zionist aims of a greater, “Eretz” Israel. The deception rested on two key ideas. The first was that Israel was a small, vulnerable state surrounded by implacable Arab enemies who desired its destruction. This pretense paid off handsomely with Washington. Urged on by the American Zionist lobby, for approaching 70 years America has poured money and arms into poor defenseless Israel.
The second idea was that the Israeli state was absolutely dedicated to peace and was committed specifically to a settlement for the Palestinians. This latter has worn threadbare as successive Israeli governments of all political hues have sabotaged the efforts of the international community to advance the peace process. Netanyahu has been to the fore in protesting that he wants a settlement, while doing everything within his power to sabotage any prospects of agreement.
But with Lieberman’s appointment as defense minister, has the last piece of sheep’s wool fallen off the disguise the Israeli wolf has worn for so long?
Israeli is a military state. It came into existence in conflict and its subsequent existence has been underpinned by conflict. It knows nothing else. Thus peace, real lasting peace with its Arab neighbors, including Palestinians, actually represents an existential threat to Israel. Any genuine settlement will unsettle Israel and will terminate the meme of conflict on which the Zionists have thrived since 1948.
The controversial Lieberman is prepared to say out loud what most Israelis once sought to hide from world opinion. The fact that this man has now been given control of the laughably-termed “Israeli Defense Forces” suggests that Netanyahu is ready to abandon all further pretense. Israel is coming out as an aggressive, nuclear-armed state fully prepared to defy its Washington paymasters and anyone else who condemns it for its brutal occupation of Palestine.
