Posted on 03/26/2006 7:13:04 AM PST by avile
Lieberman, calling for removal of "Arab triangle" from Israel, climbs in polls By Associated Press March 26, 2006
Avigdor Lieberman wants to swap Arabs for Jews in drawing Israel's final borders.
His promise of a quick-fix solution of the intractable conflict with the Palestinians and his appeal among Russian immigrants like himself are poised to make him the up-and-comer of this week's election in Israel.
Polls indicate that his Israeli Beitenu (Israel Is Our Home) Party will increase its representation in the 120-member parliament from two to 11 seats, transforming it from a marginal group into a major political force.
Lieberman's rise is mainly due to the Russian immigrants' search for a strong leader in place of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who lapsed into a coma Jan. 4, said pollster Rafi Smith.
The Moldovan-born Lieberman - who once worked as a bar-bouncer and became former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's top aide in the late 1990s - has campaigned in Russian and Hebrew. His TV campaign ads have familiarized the country with at least two Russian words, nyet (no) and da (yes).
Lieberman, 48, promises employment and security, addressing two chief concerns among Israel's 1 million Russian immigrants.
The candidate said he wants to redraw Israel's map by transferring many Israeli Arab towns to Palestinian jurisdiction and annexing large Jewish settlements in the West Bank to Israel. Some 1.4 million of Israel's 7 million citizens are Arabs.
"Our target is to create a Jewish state and provide security," Lieberman said in an interview Friday at his Jerusalem campaign office, decorated with photographs of himself lifting weights and dressed as a Roman gladiator.
"With so big a minority, more than 20 percent of Israeli Arabs, it's impossible to continue as a Jewish state," he said.
Lieberman is the first leader of a high-profile party to espouse a population swap, though a Labor Party legislator and a former Netanyahu security adviser have raised the idea in the past. Israeli human rights activists and Arab politicians denounced Lieberman's agenda as racist.
"Mr. Lieberman, who just came from Russia, and the people behind him who don't know Hebrew as well as I do, cannot suddenly dictate to us our citizenship and the solution of the Palestinian issue according to their racist mood," said Azmi Bishara, an Israeli Arab legislator who holds a doctorate in philosophy.
The expected winner of Tuesday's election, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, has said he would only govern with parties that accept his "consolidation" plan - withdrawing from much of the West Bank, dismantling dozens of small Jewish settlements there, annexing the larger ones and drawing final borders in the next four years.
Lieberman, who lives in the Nokdim settlement likely marked for removal under Olmert's plan, has not ruled out joining an Olmert-led government, but has said he would not agree to further unilateral pullbacks.
In 2004, Sharon fired Lieberman from his Cabinet because he opposed Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. The pullout went ahead, as planned, the following year.
About 40 percent of Israelis of Russian origin are expected to vote for Lieberman, said Smith, the pollster. That would mean Lieberman's party is drawing at least 75 percent of its support from Russian immigrants.
"He is one of theirs," said Yitzhak Brudny, a Slavic Studies professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"The Russian community didn't produce ... many credible leaders. He is one of the few," Brudny said.
The centrist Kadima Party, formed by Sharon two months before his stroke and now led by Olmert, would win 30 percent of the Russian vote, and Netanyahu's hardline Likud would net 20 percent, said Brudny, citing polls.
Lieberman immigrated to Israel in 1979 and first rose to prominence as the engineer of Netanyahu's razor-thin 1996 election victory over elder statesman Shimon Peres, and later as Netanyahu's chief of staff. Lieberman was dubbed "the nation's CEO" because of his central role in most key affairs of government.
Lieberman quit in 1997 over an internal dispute in Likud. He was elected to Israel's parliament in 1999 on the Israel Beitenu slate, and later joined Sharon's Cabinet.
Marina Solodkin, a former immigrant who is running on the Kadima parliament slate, said it's misleading to see Lieberman's party as representing Russians in Israel.
"It's a right-wing party that uses Russian voters for its own purposes." Solodkin said.
"Racist"...but of course they think it's just fine to ban any and all Jews from Arab-controlled land.
If arabs and jews are both from Abraham, how can it be racist?
Is it just the Israeli left? I think it is reflexive for any leftist to utter the "R" word when encountering policies providing for the self defense of the prevailing functioning culture.
This fetish is inherent to individuals afflicted with the thought disorder behind the leftist political persuasion. Emotionally, they feel like a victims and thereby identify with so called oppressed victim groups ignoring the often causative link between their societal status and their relative cultura1 dysfunction. Basically, in a psychological sense, it is way of blaming others for your own problems.
The plan is to keep throwing inflamatory invectives until
one sticks...
"Racist" is the one the Marxists of the west love to use
it worked well in America to change the social structure..
Still works well to this day...though backlash is forming among...some
Racists...;)
What makes Lieberman think the Arabs would be agreeable to any large scale population swap? And any such transfer implemented by force would be unacceptable to the U.S.
That is not the point. The point is the disgusting hypocrisy that it's ok for 1.4 million Arabs to live in Jewish-controled parts of Israel, but "illegal" for a single Jew to live in Arab-controlled parts of Israel. And moreover...that the few Jews who do live there deserve whatever happens to them.
it would not be expusion, but border shifting.
Then how is this any different than what Sharon proposed and was trying to accomplish? I had assumed that this was essentially to be the game plan anyway.
maybe i missed it b butI don't recall Sharon calling for giving away the arab ares of pre-67 Israel.
Oh, ok, I get you now, I must have missed that part about the Arab towns in question being part of pre '67 Israel. Hmm, not sure of the specifics he has in mind, but as long as giving up the land in question doesn't pose a significant threat to Israel's security, it might not be a bad idea in the long run to divest themselves of this population.
Is there a significant difference in outlook between Israeli Arabs who are Christian and those who are Muslim? From what I've read, both groups complain about how they are treated by Israel, but the Christians at least may prefer their current status to being part of a Muslim-dominated Palestinian statelet ruled by the sort of people who are likely to be in charge for the foreseeable future. Better the frying pan than the fire.
But labor party types always say they are "loyal Citizens"
I wonder why they don't have them serve in the army or as security guards?
another issue is that it would bring back the Aushwitz borders-only worse, otherwise there is merits in the plan
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