The Comment Factory

Avigdor Lieberman: the new Israeli foreign minister

When Hamas won the legislative elections in Palestine in 2006 the West reneged on their stated commitment to democracy and freedom. Even though an 80-strong delegation from the highly-regarded NDI and Carter Center followed the electoral process for two years and called them “open and competitive elections” that “compared favorably to international standards” the Palestinian people were regardless treated to a US/Israeli dual strategy of anti-democratic subversion and economic strangulation.

The Palestinians had shamefully voted the wrong way. Fed-up with the capitulation and corruption of the hitherto one-party rule of Fatah, they turned to Hamas, who won 45% of their votes. As soon as Hamas were voted in, the US and EU punished the Palestinians by withdrawing their official aid programs. To overturn the election results they co-opted Mahmoud Abbas, who, with heavy Israeli backing, eventually managed to cheat Hamas out of a coalition government in the West Bank. In Gaza it wasn’t so easy although the same coalition did try. For Gaza they enlisted the services of agent provocateur Muhammed Dahlan to launch an anti-democratic coup against the Hamas government, which failed but with a considerable death toll.

Unable to overturn the will of the Palestinian people in Gaza by violent subversion, the Quartet and Israel turned to Plan B: strangle Gaza until it couldn’t breath. Dov Weiglass put the plan most eloquently when he said, “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” The continuing blockade of Gaza has achieved its goal in this respect. “Chronic malnutrition is on a steadily rising trend and micronutrient deficiencies are of great concern,” said a recent Red Cross report on the state of Gaza.

The reasons for the cutting of aid by the US and EU, and their backing for Israel’s blockade are quite simple. Javier Solano, the EU’s foreign policy chief, told the Palestinians before the election that it would be impossible to support a party that fails to recognize Israel and renounce violence. Putting aside the not-incidental facts that Hamas has accepted the existence of Israel along the 1967-borders, and the ceasefire they had abided by before Israel broke it on November 4th 2008 by killing a family of six in Gaza, this is a strange precedent to set.

But let’s try to untangle it and take it seriously. Essentially it says: the US and EU are in favor of democratic elections, unless the people vote the wrong way and elect leaders who have a proclivity for violence and take impractical political positions. If this happens we will attempt a military coup and if that fails withdraw all aid and blockade the population. This is a strange precedent to set, one I wouldn’t like to generalize as an international relations norm, but it might be interesting if applied consistently.

If it was, all aid and business ties with Israel would be stopped this week, because this week a new Israeli coalition government sees the ascension to Foreign Minister of the far-right Avigdor Lieberman. Lieberman founded the ultra nationalist Yisrael Betanyu party which hopes to repatriate a third of Israel’s Arab population by excising three villages from Israel proper while entrenching and expanding settlement building in the West Bank, making a viable Palestinian state impossible. Lieberman most definitely does not believe in “Palestine’s right to exist”, and his platform is based on unashamed bigotry. He has proposed that every Israeli citizen take an oath of loyalty to the Jewish State or leave, a barb aimed at the “dual-loyalty” Arab population, and most recently tried to get Arab parties banned from the election while calling Arab-Israeli politicians “terrorists” and “like Hamas”.

His record on violence is not much better. He has proposed bombing three different countries — which beats Hamas, who only target one so far. Israel’s new foreign minister has Tehran, Iran; Beirut, Lebanon; and even the Aswan Dam in Egypt within his sights.

To be fair Lieberman has had two cabinet positions in the Israeli government previously so calling for a blockade of Israel could be a bit late. But these positions (one when he was still in Likud) did not give him the powers to enact his Hamas-esque policies — he was Transport Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs, so we’ll give the US and EU the benefit of the doubt for missing it. His ultra nationalist party also had nothing like the mandate they were given by the Israeli population in the last election, which put them ahead of even Labour. Now the US and EU have no excuse, they must punish the Israeli population for voting the wrong way in the same way they did the Palestinians.

Lieberman is the embodiment of everything Hamas are accused of: bigoted, against a peace settlement, and for unrestrained violence. For all those who defended the withdrawal of aid from Hamas and the blockade of Gaza it is time to be consistent and support the same for Israel. At the moment the blockade of Gaza has been a massive failure, but unless the US and EU act soon to isolate Israel it will be not only a massive failure but a huge hypocrisy.