Politically Incorrect
That bluntness has earned Lieberman the devotion of Israeli hawks and the disdain of liberals,
The Foreign Minister is an unlikely firebrand. In person, he can be reserved to the point of shyness. When we met him at his office on June 24, we asked Lieberman whether Obama needed to take a tougher stand against Iran's crackdown on those protesting the results of the June 12 election. "This is a really fanatic, extremist regime that is still in power, and the young people ... are not getting any real support from the West," he said. "It shows the bad guys are winners." And he reiterated his resistance to any U.S. attempt to stop settlement growth. "We have our opinions, and the Americans have theirs," he said. "We can't suffocate our people." (Watch a video about Israel's lonesome doves.)
Lieberman's hard line is the product of his past. His family moved to Israel in 1978 from the
Around the time he settled in Nokdim, Lieberman met Netanyahu, then a rising Likud star. He ran Netanyahu's first, successful campaign for Prime Minister, in 1996, and became his chief of staff. "Netanyahu trusted him," says Tzahi Hanegbi, who served as the Justice Minister at the time. "He was quiet, discreet and loyal." In 1999, Lieberman split from Netanyahu and Likud, forming Yisrael Beitenu, an unapologetically nationalist party that drew its support from Israel's Russian-immigrant community. The party's most explosive position is the call for all citizens to pledge allegiance to the Jewish state as a condition of the right to vote — a barely veiled challenge to the loyalty of Israeli Arabs. "It's unacceptable that on
There's little chance the loyalty pledge will become law. Lieberman knows this. But by pressing the issue, he taps a growing impatience among Israelis with the country's Arab citizens, some of whom openly sided with Hamas during Israel's offensive against the militant group last winter. "His views have a constituency," says Hanegbi. "People want someone who will represent their fears and frustrations." Lieberman insists he supports an independent Palestinian state and says Israel is "ready to start negotiations without preconditions." But in Lieberman's view, peace doesn't mean cohabitation. "His governing idea is, Jews on one side, Arabs on the other," says a senior official.
It's an appealingly simple vision, but also a cynical one. Any final agreement between Arabs and Israelis will require them to share some territory — in Jerusalem, for instance — to which both can make rightful claims. Insisting on physical separation as a prerequisite for a peace deal is a safe way to ensure that one is never struck. Lieberman's views may be finding acceptance in the Israeli mainstream. But they are not the way to forge a lasting peace in the Middle East.