Avigdor and Netanyahu: an Evil Marriage
'The ascension of Lieberman is an expression of the suicidal irrationalism infecting Israel.' By Mohamed El Mokhtar Sidi Haiba
Taking office as Israel's new leader Tuesday, Benjamin Netanyahu promised to supposedly seek 'full peace' with the Arab and Muslim world while deliberately avoiding to even mention the only word that really matters here. The word that matters the most to the Arab and Muslim world .The word without which Israel will never, ever, live in peace. The word whose continuous negations will ultimately be dearly costly to Israel's very existence: “Palestinian state."
"Under the permanent status agreement, the Palestinians will have all the authority to rule themselves, “Netanyahu said in comments echoing an old mantra of negationism and deep-seated racism at the core of the Likud political philosophy: There is no such thing as Palestine or Palestinian people.
Netanyahu's hysterical obsession to carry on his father’s racist fascisto-zionist phantasms could put him at odds with his indispensable benefactor and much of the rest of the world. His refusal to embrace the idea of Palestinian statehood and decision to appoint ultranationalist politician Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister don’t bode well for a hopeful time for peace in the Middle-East or the world for that matter.
From the outset, he announced the true nature of his colors when he painted a grim picture of the future in the region by putting the onus exclusively on radical Islam and Iran which he describes in his acceptance speech as “the gravest threat to our existence since the war of independence.” A danger therefore that needs to be dealt with, swiftly and militarily, before it is too late for a nuclear weapon is a critical threshold.
That will be the focal point of his agenda. Not peace. In other words a settlement with the Palestinians based on the two-state solution which, not so long ago, he compared to a danger akin to the Nazis will be the last preoccupation of Bibi.
But Netanyahu’s "basic" extremism is somewhat overshadowed these days by the Nazi-like fascism of his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberma, the leader of the ultranationalist party, Yisrael Beiteinu.
The political ascension of this hawkish racist, ex-nightclub bouncer from Russia and former member of the party Kach who espoused overtly the idea of forced mass expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel and has even recently suggested, as final solution, that Gaza be nuked, constitutes an eloquent expression of the moral decay and suicidal irrationalism infecting the Israeli society at large. It is a wake-up call, a warning sign. It is an invitation for reflection on the reality of Israel and the pervasive nature of Zionism. Better, a clear indication of the direction the country is hurriedly taking. A trend so visible in the upwardly shift toward the right of Israel entire political spectrum.
After all, what could be a greater lesson of existential philosophy for mankind to contemplate than this abject spectacle of moral decadence: the miraculous descendents of the so-called Immaculate Victims, the iconic survivors of the Holocaust, sinking fast and deep, after just a little bit more than a half century of their near-extermination, in the abysses of moral insanity, exuding the same venom of hysterical racism, blind arrogance and illusionary superiority that once galvanized, to the point of madness, their Nazi butchers and enticed them to seek their total annihilation.
The sight of Tsahal’s young sharpshooters targeting to death, and with an almost lewd amusement, children and women in the streets of Gaza, their crude laughter at check-points when holding medications or humiliating women and elderly people is a tragic rehearsal of history, an ironic reminder of another setting where a similar, albeit more graphic, process of dehumanization was taking place: The Nazi camps of death where their grand-parents were mercilessly packed like vulgar cattle, spat at and trampled upon continuously, without regard for their dignity, frozen with fear, unable to defend their honor, and slowly stripped naked of their humanity before being savagely gazed or baked alive. That was only some 60 years ago and yet no lesson is being drawn from that most dreadful history.
Unlike their ancestors, the cultured and wise Hebrews, the heirs of Zionism seem not only morally short-sighted but forgetful as well. They appear to naively assume that the American support is never-ending, that the Muslim brothers will never conquer power in Egypt, that Turkey’s friendly Generals will hold sway forever in their country and that Arab’s disunity is an everlasting reality.
Another sign that the new government is a bad omen: both Avigdor and Netanyahu quarreled in 2005 with Ariel Sharon over his disengagement plan. Netanyahu had even resigned in protest of the unilateral "withdrawal" and subsequently called for the elimination of Gaza’s Hamas-led elected government.
The accession to power of these two dangerous extremists is by all means a bad news for they are the main political beneficiary of an election profoundly tainted by the innocent blood of Palestinian women and children held in the gloomy shadow of 23-day blitzkrieg against the largest open prison in the entire world, Gaza, where 1,300 human beings perished.
- Mohamed El Mokhtar Sidi Haiba political analyst. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.
