Netanyahu Gains as Lieberman Makes Him Appear ‘Less Hawkish’
By Gwen Ackerman
Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Israeli Arabs committed treason by protesting the country’s offensive in the Gaza Strip last month. Hamas should be dealt with the way the U.S. handled Japan in the last days of World War II. Egypt, at peace with Israel since 1979, actually plans to attack.
These are just some of the recent comments made by Avigdor Lieberman, whose party could become the third-largest bloc in parliament following Israel’s Feb. 10 elections, polls show.
Lieberman’s jump in popularity may boost the coalition- building efforts of front-runner Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, while undermining prospects for peace with the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s lead over Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s ruling Kadima party has grown as Israel’s war in Gaza raised voter concern about security.
“With Lieberman in the wings, Netanyahu looks less hawkish,” said Uri Dromi, a political analyst who was a spokesman for former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. “He can say, look, the Likud is not so right-wing. It is about security.”
The Moldovan-born Lieberman, 50, is competing for votes with Netanyahu, a former prime minister who opposes withdrawal from Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Netanyahu, 59, also may siphon votes from Kadima if Lieberman makes him appear more centrist, said Avraham Diskin, a political scientist at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.
Israel goes to the polls three weeks after its 22-day offensive against the Islamic militant group Hamas in Gaza ended in a cease-fire on Jan. 18. About 30 rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel from Gaza since then, the army says, while Israel has carried out air strikes in retaliation.
Security First
In such an environment, security takes precedence over the global recession, said Gideon Doron, a professor of political science at Tel Aviv University. He is the head of a party called The Israelis, which advocates changing how legislators are elected.
Netanyahu’s lead over Kadima doubled from three seats to six in January for a projected total of 29, while his rival’s seats dropped to 23 from 27 in the 120-member parliament, according to surveys by Panels Ltd. published by Channel Two on Jan. 29. Labor, led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, was at 13 seats. Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu is projected to win 16.
“Gaza has captured the campaign agenda,” Doron said.
A strong Yisrael Beitenu showing could position Lieberman to be Netanyahu’s coalition partner in the Knesset, or parliament. Or it could help Netanyahu woo such parties as Labor that would want to keep Yisrael Beitenu out of government.
‘Serious Partnership’
Should he enter government, Lieberman’s uncompromising stance may come back to haunt the new prime minister, who will face U.S. and European pressure to make concessions to Palestinians. President Barack Obama told Al-Arabiya television on Jan. 27 that he believes there are Israelis “willing to make sacrifices” for peace “if the time is appropriate and if there is serious partnership on the other side.”
“Lieberman will be strong enough to block any serious progress in peace talks,” Dromi said. “And if he ends up in the opposition, he might topple the government at any time,”
Yisrael Beitenu’s platform calls for cutting off all supplies to Gaza, including electricity and fuel, requiring national service from Israel’s Arab minority and opposing any land-for-peace deals with Syria or the Palestinians.
‘Black and White’
“Lieberman’s messages are black-and-white, short and directed at the gut,” said Yariv Ben-Eliezer, a professor of media studies at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. “Many people want the security problem to be over with, and Lieberman is promising to do that in one fell swoop.”
Israel has fought two wars in two years, the first against the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah in south Lebanon in 2006. Peace talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, begun in November 2007 under U.S. auspices with the goal of agreeing to a Palestinian state, have stalled. So have indirect negotiations with Syria that were brokered by Turkey last year.
“Everyone is realizing that the process of taking terrorists and making them peace partners is not going to work and not going to bring further security to the country,” said Danny Hershtal, a Toronto-born member of Yisrael Beitenu.
A former Likud Party member who ran Netanyahu’s office when he was premier, Lieberman quit then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s cabinet in 2004 over Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. In 2007, he left Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government, where he was minister of strategic affairs, to protest concessions being negotiated with the Palestinians.
Russians’ Support
The bearded Lieberman, a bouncer at Hebrew University’s nightclub in the 1980s, speaks Hebrew with a heavy Russian accent. He rose to power with the support of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, about 14 percent of the total population, and lives in the West Bank settlement of Nokdim.
Even a police investigation over allegations that he transferred money illegally, which led to the arrests of his daughter and six party members on Jan. 25, has failed to undercut Lieberman’s appeal among followers.
“The investigation has been going on for years and this is just a little too coincidental,” Hershtal said.
Lieberman’s party, whose name in Hebrew means “Israel Is Our Home,” endorses a Palestinian state that would draw borders to include many Israeli Arab towns. Israeli Arabs who demonstrated against the Gaza conflict weren’t holding “a legitimate protest but committing an act of treason,” Lieberman said in remarks posted on the party Web site.
‘Real Victory’
As for Hamas, Lieberman advocates its destruction, by violence if necessary. “A real victory can be achieved only by breaking the will and motivation of Hamas to fight us, as was done to the Japanese in the last days of World War II,” he said on Jan. 13.
In November, Lieberman accused Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak of “waiting for the right moment” to attack Israel, saying he could “go to hell” if he refused to visit Jerusalem.
As Israelis’ feelings of insecurity grow, Lieberman is saying out loud what everyone else is thinking, said Danny Ayalon, a former ambassador to the U.S. and a candidate for Lieberman’s party.
“It is not a time for political correctness,” he said.
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