Lieberman, Meet Lieberman By now you know that Avigdor Lieberman, head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, did in fact play king-maker in the Israeli election and, after much maneuvering, threw his support to Netanyahu which resulted in Bibi being asked to form the Israeli government. (Livni's Kadima courted Lieberman as well and in doing so, lost the support of Labor and Meretz. )
So what's Avigdor's next move? Campaigning for Minister of Foreign Affairs. Step one in that campaign is what Ha'aretz calls a "global charm offensive." This PR effort is aimed at convincing us that, in the words of Daniel Ayalon, Yisrael Beiteinu member and former ambassador to the US, "Lieberman is not a monster."
And guess who is the first US politician to help out this new rebranding effort? None other than our very own Joe Lieberman!
SNIP
Oh boy, we have 2 scumbag Liebermans to deal with now!
Juan Cole thinks that Netanyahu's election could spell the beginning of the end for Israel, if it keeps listing to the right...
Netanyahu has vowed to abandon negotiations with the Palestinians, and says he will expand the program of Israeli colonization of the Palestinian West Bank.
Netanyahu is a train wreck for the Middle East. He is willing to ally with Avigdor Lieberman, an open racist who is gunning for the 20 percent of Israel's citizen population that is Palestinian. Netanyahu wants a war with Iran, and when the Israeli Right wants a war nowadays, they usually want our children to fight and die in it for them. The 1996 "Clean Break" Neoconservative policy paper advocating a war on Iraq was written for Netanyahu. (They are not satisfied with picking our pockets for their weapons and colonization projects). Netanyahu will further oppress and brutalize the Palestinians, which he will keep in a slave-like condition of statelessness, and from whom he will steal what little property they have left. Last time he was in office he went around poisoning his enemies, for all the world like the Bulgarian KGB in the old days.
Netanyahu is the devil's gift to international terrorism, which his policies will provoke. Fifty years from now, the turn of Israel to the hard right will be looked back upon as the beginning of the end of Israel, the time when the crucial decisions were made that rendered it impossible for the Israelis to stay in the Middle East in the face of the increasing popular anger Netanyahu will have provoked in 1.5 billion Muslims. No, Israel cannot be defeated on the battleground. But the French colons in Algeria were never really defeated on the battleground, either, nor were the thousands of Britons who had ruled India.
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