In the public eye, he has crafted a double image, neither Bibi's buddy Yvet nor a Rasputin who controls the prime minister. On the one hand he is a force strengthening the Likud, and on the other hand he is virtually the only statesman with a sober, long-range view. He approaches the Palestinian problem not with aspiration for a Greater Israel but with a desire to resolve the Israeli-Arab conflict in a way that leaves as few Arabs as possible under Israeli control.I certainly didn't vote for him, but the fact of the matter is that while his form is often inappropriate, the essence of his positions often is, or at least, his positions are well-informed and plausible.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Yvet the Sober
Yoel Markus, an old-time center-left journalist at Haaretz, has a surprising evaluation of Avigdor Liebermann:
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6 comments:
I agree with Liebermann to an extent, that Israel's future at a Jewish State rests on having the maximum number of Jews and fewest number of Arabs under its jurisdiction.
What I disagree with is the potential for making Israeli Arabs, or Palestinian Israelis whatever you prefer, into Palestinians. Most really do not want to be Palestinian citizens and stripping Israeli Arabs of their Israeli citizenship is unjust. Just because the Arabs stripped their Jews of their citizenship doesn't mean Jews get to do likewise.
Israeli Arabs should be given the choice of choosing Israeli or Palestinian citizenship but they should not be given citizenship that they do not want. The only Arabs that Israel can really let go of are the ones in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel no longer exercises jurisdiction over the Palestinians in Gaza. The next step is no longer exercising jurisdiction over the Palestinians in the West Bank.
If Israel is worried about the birthrate of Israeli Arabs than they can decrease the birthrate by raising the socio-economic level of Israeli Arabs. In other Arab countries the birth rate is decreasing as the socio-economic level rises. In Tunisia and few other North African states, its already bellow replacement level. The same will be true among Israeli Arabs.
You wonder why the Israeli Left and the world loathes him. Avigdor Lieberman has ideas about resolving the conflict that are worth listening to and not just dismissed out of hand. No one has that kind of attitude to the Palestinians even though today, they are far from ready to accept a two state solution.
Lee,
Arabs in pre-1967 Israel want to remain Israeli citizens so that they can better undermine the Jewish state, while at the same time enjoying the superior health care and quality of life that those hated Jews provide.
Although their long-term aims are inconsistent--as so often is the case with Muslims--the Arabs in Israel are happy to have their cake and eat it too, and eat it too.
And please Lee, don't take the above statements and twist them to say that I want to "drive them all out" or "kill them all" as you like to do.
As for Tunisia, you--as expected--always overlook the Islamic angle. Tunisia has pushed Islam into a lesser role in that country and thus the drive to have so many children is also less likely to be publicly promoted as a religious duty.
As for Israeli Arabs, especially of the Muslim variety, women are taught that their holiest purpose in this world is to produce children so that they can defeat the Jews demographically. Why would this change with economics? Osama bin Laden's father is one of the wealthiest men in the world, and he had something like 50 (or is it 80?) children. Meanwhile Israeli Arab Christians have fewer children than Israeli Muslims, due in part to different cultural behaviors, such as Christian women working outside the home, which may explain why Arab Christians in Israel have a per capita income on par with, or perhaps greater than, that of Israeli Jews.
Lieberman is indeed a problematic character on several levels.
And yet, on the issue of Israel-Palestine, he, for the most part, speaks truth.
Which makes him outrageously problematic for certain other characters.
when talking about birth rates in all of the area, is there any reliable information relating birth rates to Kindergeld (money per child) paid by Germany, the EU, the US, the UN whatever?
As Gunnar Heinsohn claims there is considerable income to be gained from every extra child brought into being http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123171179743471961.html - Ending the West's Proxy War Against Israel
but to date I have nothing heard or read by him that mentions anything that there might be areas that could be compared where one could pin down the difference the child birth premium makes.
To the best of my knowledge Tunisia doesn't receive "Kindergeld" from the int'l for any child, extra or not ;-)
I think Lieberman's telling Israeli Arabs that land swaps might affect them is an argument very suitable and with lots of get-through power to alert them that it might be wise for them to become Israelis with a capital I.
Silke
I really dislike him, but in a strange way he has the most rational views on certain issue - separation of "church" and state, cutting of gaza and letting the EU handle it, etc. of any Israeli politician.
I feel that he brings a certain Russian brutality to bear that is more in tune with the realities of the Middle East than the softer line most of us have tried to take in vain for so many years that may be more realistic.
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