World
Silent As Fascists
Join Israel Government
By Ali Abunimah
26 October 2006
The
Electronic Intifada
In
a frightening but long expected move, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert
has brought the Yisrael Beitenu party into his coalition government.
The party's leader, Avigdor Lieberman, is to be vice prime minister
and, as "Minister for Strategic Threats," a key member of
Israel's "security cabinet" in charge of the Iran portfolio.
Yisrael Beitenu is a dangerous
extremist party with fascist tendencies that has openly advocated the
"transfer" of Palestinians, including the transfer of Arab
towns within Israel to a Bantustan-like future Palestinian entity. It
has made clear that a Jewish supremacist state is more important than
a democratic one. The party, whose strongest base is among Russian immigrants
brought to Israel in the 1990s, surged at the Israeli election earlier
this year, taking eleven seats in Israel's 120 seat Knesset.
Last summer, Israel launched
a disastrous war of destruction against Lebanon, and continues its siege
and onslaught against Palestinians in the occupied territories which
has killed nearly three hundred people in three months and left hundreds
of thousands without sufficient food, water and electricity. Lieberman
has advocated even more harsh and criminal measures against the Palestinians
and Israel's neighbors.
It is dismaying that the
European Union, a key international actor, seems set to maintain warm,
normal relations with this extremist government, thus giving it encouragement
and legitimacy.
"You will understand
that we cannot interfere with the setting up of a foreign government.
This is a matter for which the concerned State alone is responsible,"
wrote Cristina Gallach, the official spokesperson for Javier Solana,
the EU High Representative for foreign policy, in an email responding
to a query about whether the EU would impose sanctions on Israel if
Yisrael Beitenu joined the government.
Gallach added that "We
think that both Israel and the Palestinians are aware of the responsibility
they have in creating the favorable conditions for reactivating the
Peace Process with the ultimate goal of having two States living side
by side in peace and security." Other than such bland and cynical
platitudes, Solana's spokesperson offered no hint of EU concern about
the horrifying political developments within Israel that are certain
to bring about further violence, escalation and needless suffering.
In an interview with an Israeli
newspaper in September, Yisrael Beitenu leader Lieberman said: "The
vision I would like to see here is the entrenching of the Jewish and
the Zionist state...I very much favour democracy, but when there is
a contradiction between democratic and Jewish values, the Jewish and
Zionist values are more important." (Scotsman, October 23, 2006)
In addition to espousing
ethnic cleansing, Lieberman has a long history of inciting discrimination,
hatred and violence against Palestinians within the Jewish state and
living under Israeli military occupation in East Jerusalem, the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. When he served as minister of transport in a previous
government, Lieberman called for all Palestinian prisoners held by the
Israeli occupation authorities to be drowned in the Dead Sea and offered
to provide the buses ("Lieberman blasted for suggesting drowning
Palestinian prisoners," Ha'aretz, July 11, 2002). He has proposed
to strip the citizenship of, and expel any Palestinian citizen of Israel
who refuses to sign a loyalty oath to the Jewish Zionist state ("A
Jewish demographic state," Ha'aretz, June 28, 2002).
In 2002, Lieberman declared,
"I would not hesitate to send the Israeli army into all of Area
A [the area of the West Bank ostensibly under Palestinian Authority
control] for 48 hours. Destroy the foundation of all the authority's
military infrastructure, all of the police buildings, the arsenals,
all the posts of the security forces... not leave one stone on another.
Destroy everything." He also suggested to the Israeli cabinet that
the air force systematically bomb all the commercial centers, gas stations
and banks in the occupied territories (The Independent, March 7, 2002).
And, he has proposed bombing Egypt's Aswan Dam, despite that country's
peace treaty with Israel since 1979. What will he propose to do to Iran?
Hebrew University professor
Ze'ev Sternhell, a leading Israeli academic specialist on fascism and
totalitarianism, was quoted by the Scotsman newspaper as terming Lieberman
"perhaps the most dangerous politician in the history of the state
of Israel."
I would not hesitate to send the Israeli army into all of Area A for
48 hours. Destroy the foundation of all the [Palestinian] authority's
military infrastructure, all of the police buildings, the arsenals,
all the posts of the security forces... not leave one stone on another.
Destroy everything.
Urgent action is needed to
stem the growing threat to international peace and security that Israel
presents. Rather than do anything of the kind, the office of the EU
High Representative has set a new low standard, offering only appeasement
and accommodation for Israeli extremism and apartheid. The claim that
the EU does not interfere in the internal affairs of foreign governments
is just a fig leaf for political cowardice and unwillingness to stand
up to Israel or its backers; it is not remotely consistent with past
or present practice in other cases.
Most glaringly, since Palestinians
under occupation elected Hamas to lead the Palestinian Authority last
January, in the Arab world's most free election ever, the EU has interfered
in their affairs in the most irresponsible manner, imposing a total
siege and cut off of aid that has directly penalized the Palestinian
population, causing widespread hunger and deprivation. This siege is
explicitly intended to force the Hamas-led authority to abandon the
platform on which it was elected, or to force it out of office completely.
(The EU claims it wants Hamas to recognize Israel and end violence,
even though Hamas has observed a 22-month one-sided truce, halting attacks
on Israel, and its leaders have issued repeated statements in favor
of reaching a long-term agreement with Israel on the basis of equality
and mutual, not one-sided, recognition.) The European Union, under Solana's
personal stewardship, orchestrated this gross interference in the development
of Palestinian democracy and punishment of those who tried to practice
it.
And in 2000, EU countries
took the unprecedented measure of imposing diplomatic sanctions on one
of their own member states, Austria, after the far-right Freedom Party
joined the government following elections. Although many voices criticized
the EU for meddling in the internal affairs of a democratic country,
one of the most vocal supporters of the sanctions was none other than
Javier Solana, who on that occasion declared "I think Europe has
given a very good example of how in important things -- things that
have to go with principles, with values -- there's no possibility of
compromise." ("Sanctions hit Austria," Reuters, February
4, 2000).
But when it comes to EU member
states discharging their responsibilities to hold Israel accountable
for its escalating violations of the EU-Israel Association Agreement,
the Fourth Geneva Convention, numerous UN Security Council Resolutions,
and basic human decency, the principles that Solana and many powerful
others are so proud to boast of are nowhere to be found.
In this moral and political
vacuum, it is ever more urgent to heed the call of Palestinian civil
society to join the growing global campaign of boycott, divestment and
sanctions.
Ali Abunimah
is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of "One
Country - A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse"
(Metropolitan Books, 2006)
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