Matt Yglesias

Israel Project Leader Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi Analogizes Barack Obama to Avigdor Lieberman

J Street did a video attacking neo-fascist Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and those American Jewish groups who’ve decided to sell their principles out and become Lieberman apologists. James Besser has a worthwhile article touching on this incident and the entire Lieberman issue that includes this bizarre argument:

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder and president of The Israel Project, conceded that Lieberman, dramatically different from the suave, Americanized Netanyahu, is a lightning rod for many American Jews.

“Different can be scary,” said Laszlo Mizrahi, whose group works with media to present Israel favorably. “There were people who thought Barack Hussein Obama was scary because of his middle name.”

This is true. There were people who thought Barack Hussein Obama was scary because of his middle name. And there are also people who think Lieberman is scary because of his repudiation of the Annapolis process, his hostility to equal rights for minority populations in Israel, for his racist campaign tactics, and for his apparent criminal conduct. It’s not entirely clear, however, what the analogy between the two situations is.

Netanyahu’s Egypt Problem

The new Netanyahu-Lieberman government in Israel is going to have some problems in its relationship with the United States. But the bigger immediate problem is going to relate to Israel’s strategically important relationships with other countries in the region. For example, Egypt:

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s diplomatic bombshell Wednesday that Israel was no longer obligated by the Annapolis process, but was committed to the road map, was followed by silence on Thursday as neither Lieberman nor Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office issued directives to Israeli diplomats about how to explain the new policy abroad. [...] Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit said he would not shake Lieberman’s hand until he retracted previous statements such as the threat to blow up the Aswan Dam and the remark that Mubarak could “go to hell” if he didn’t want to visit Israel. [...] He continued, “I have met with more than one Israeli foreign minister, and I have welcomed them in Egypt. But never before has any of them said anything like what [Lieberman] said against Egypt.”

The United States has recently emerged from an extended period of inept diplomacy. The good news, for us, is that as the world’s largest economy and mightiest military power, we had the luxury of a pretty big margin of error. Israel doesn’t have that luxury. And Lieberman’s rhetorical excesses aside, the fundamental problem of relations with Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey will remain as long as Israel is committed to Bibi Netanyahu’s determination to avoid even contemplating an independent Palestine.

Pipes Hails Avigdor Lieberman’s Rejectionism

Daniel Pipes, head of the Middle East Forum outfit that recently took a victory lap over its role in spiking Chas Freeman’s nomination, is also psyched about Avigdor Lieberman as Foreign Minister:

Avigdor Lieberman became foreign minister of Israel yesterday. He celebrated his inauguration with a maiden speech that news reports indicate left his listeners grimacing, squirming, and aghast. The BBC, for example, informs us that his words prompted “his predecessor Tzipi Livni to interrupt and diplomats to shift uncomfortably.”

Too bad for them – the speech leaves me elated.

Pipes is more right-wing than the bulk of the “pro-Israel” establishment. But it’s telling that that establishment regards Pipes as a perfectly acceptable comrade-in-arms, while seeking every opportunity to trash the pro-peace J Street. It’s a telling indication of where things really stand, and a welcome pretext to link to J Street’s rather different take on Lieberman.

Israel’s New Team, Already Unpopular, Indicates That Palestinians Have No Credible Negotiating Partner

To be fair, though Avigdor Lieberman often gets compared to neo-fascists like Jorg Haider, this is basically how Bill Kristol and most of the American right sees the world too:

Israel’s new hard-line foreign minister has said he opposes his predecessor’s peace talks with the Palestinians over the past year and warns that making concessions will only invite war. Avigdor Lieberman delivered his criticism during a handover ceremony at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. It was his first speech since taking office. Lieberman’s predecessor Tzipi Livni interrupted the speech to disagree with him, and Israeli diplomats shifted uncomfortably in the room as he spoke.

Ilan Goldenberg observes that “Combined with Netanyahu’s disturbing comments about Iran, the early noises out of the Israeli government are unfortunate across the board.” The flipside is that according to the latest polling “Less than a third of those surveyed said they are satisfied with Netanyahu’s government. More than half, 54 percent, are dissatisfied with the new government.”

Israelis, in other words, are not on the whole nearly this nutty. Which I think makes the case that it’s important for Western governments, most of all the United States of America, to not pretend that this Israeli government is anything other than what it is. A government headed by a Prime Minister who wants to bomb Iran, who thinks he can dictate regional strategy to the President of the United States, and who opposes the creation of an independent Palestinian state backed up by a main coalition partner who rejects the concept of land-of-peace and the basic precepts of liberal democracy is just not a government you can work with as an ally. People keep saying that Netanyahu is more pragmatic than his rhetoric but if so he needs to demonstrate that pragmatism fast, or else the world will just have to hope his coalition collapse sooner rather than later.

Quote of the Day

Jeff Barak in The Jerusalem Post: “Ehud Barak’s shameless determination to stay on at the Defense Ministry, even at the expense of destroying the Labor Party and making a mockery of the election results, is diverting attention from a more problematic ministerial appointment: the choice of Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister.”

In J Street’s new poll of American Jewish opinion, they found that “When told about Lieberman’s campaign slogan requiring Arab citizens of Israel to sign loyalty oaths and his threats against Arab Members of Knesset, American Jews opposed these positions by a 69 to 31 margin. One in three believe their own connection to Israel will be diminished, if Lieberman assumes a senior position in the Israeli cabinet.” And Lieberman needs to represent Israel’s interests not just to American Jews, but to Americans of all kinds. And, for that matter, to Egyptians and Jordanians and Turks. It’s extremely difficult to imagine him doing that effectively.

Lieberman and Netanyahu Sign Coalition Agreement

Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu have forged a coalition agreement under which Avigdor Lieberman will become foreign minister. It’s impossible to imagine that Lieberman, known primarily as an Arab-bashing racist, will be able to represent Israeli interests effectively in Europe much less in Cairo, Istanbul, and Amman. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of reception he gets in the United States. Historically, even quite hawkish Jewish American leaders have been extremely (and rightly!) disparaging of Lieberman. I’ve noted Martin Peretz’s objections (”neo-fascist” and “certified gangster” come up) to the man in the past. But it’s hard to imagine Lieberman’s critics actually breaking with Israeli foreign policy in a substantive way and Joe Lieberman, at least, has already begun sucking up to the Lieberman across the pond.

And of course beyond this battle of personalities, the question of Iran keeps looming in the background. One detects very little appetite in the United States for a bombing campaign against Iran, and rightly so. But there are a lot of indications that Israeli officials are very hot-to-trot to start bombing. The Obama administration presumably would not support any such endeavors. But how far would it go in declining to support an Israeli attack? Would there be actual consequences, or will this be like Israeli settlement-building where official U.S. policy is that it should stop, but it never does stop and Israel never stops receiving American support?

Lieberman & Lieberman: Together at Last

Fresh from trying, and failing, to convince American Jews that Sarah Palin and John Hagee should be our guiding lights, Joe Lieberman’s decided to hop across the pond for a photo op with Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Lieberman, who seems to be auditioning for the role of Foreign Minister. Who’s Lieberman? I still don’t think there’s any better way to make the point than to quote Martin Peretz who deems him a “certified bigot and and apparent crook”. Or, in an earlier post “the Israeli equivalent of Jorg Haider of Austria (now dead) and Jean-Marie LePen . . . no better than Haider and no worse, except that he is a Jew which makes him more repulsive . . . team of non-entities . . . Arab-baiting.”

Obviously, given those kind of sentiments from even very hawkish and anti-Arab American Jews, sensible Israelis are going to wonder about the possible impact of the Liebermanification of their national security posture on U.S. public opinion. And rightly so. But here’s Joe Lieberman going out of his way to pre-empt those fears. And why? Coalition negotiations are ongoing in Israel. There’s some debate as to whether or not the U.S. ought to intervene behind the scenes to try to nudge things in a more centrist direction. I can see the arguments on both sides of that, but why on earth would a U.S. politician intervene to nudge things in a less centrist direction? It’s ludicrous.

Martin Pertez on Avigdor Lieberman

The striking news out of the Israeli election has been the meteoric rise of Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu* party. The good news about Lieberman is that he kind of looks like a lot of lot of bearded liberal bloggers and columnists I know**. The bad news is that he’s actually a far-right madman. How far right? How mad? Don’t ask me, ask Marty Peretz:

This year, alas, it is likely to be the Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) Party, a neo-fascist list headed by a Russian immigrant and certified gangster, Avigdor Lieberman, who is the Israeli equivalent of Jorg Haider of Austria (now dead) and Jean-Marie LePen [...] Yisrael Beiteinu will collect more votes this time, and might–just might–decide who will be asked to form the government. When Haider was seated in the Vienna government, Israel made a big fuss and, as I remember, recalled its ambassador. Lieberman is no better than Haider and no worse, except that he is a Jew which makes him more repulsive, not only personally repulsive but politically repulsive. [...] But Israel is not suicidal and it needs friends. Lieberman will leave it with none, and with no self-respect either.

And yet what we’ve got right now is probably a scenario in which Bibi Netanyahu forms a government with Lieberman as his major junior partner. The alternative is that Kadima seems eager to form a government with Lieberman as his major junior partner. The natural thing faced with the rise of this kind of extremist party would be a cordon sanitaire grand coalition of Likud and Kadima plus Shas or Labor, but the parties of the mainstream right don’t seem to be mainstream enough to recognize that nobody outside Israel sees Lieberman as an acceptable national leader.

* I’m always confused as to why some Israeli parties’ names merit translation (”Labor,” “United Torah Judaism”) whereas others (”Shas,” “Yisrael Beiteinu”) are left in Hebrew. Suffice it to say that the party’s name means something like “Israel: Our Home” or “Our Home is Israel.”

** Because bearded liberal writers in the U.S. are all Jewish, I guess.