Is the Jewish World Ready for Itamar Ben-Gvir?

In 2009, Marty Peretz called Avigdor Lieberman a fascist.

My how the world turns.

Today, of course, Lieberman is effectively a centrist figure in Israeli politics, who seems more inclined to form coalitions with the left-of-center bloc than the right-wing. 

Some of that reflects changes in Lieberman -- he has moderated somewhat from where he started and moved towards the center since bursting onto the Israeli political scene. But a lot of it is attributable to changes in Israel's political center of gravity, which has been lurching to the right for decades. Opinions and beliefs which were outlandish and outrageous in 2009 don't even qualify as right-wing in 2022. In 2018, Batya Ungar-Sargon could hold Naftali Bennett's feet to the fire over his open opposition to democratic rights for Palestinians. Fast forward just a few years, and Bennett is the savior figure who managed to oust the even more odiously anti-Palestinian Bibi Netanyahu out of office. What was once the extreme right in Israel now is the "moderate" bulwark against an ascendant and even further-extreme right. The world keeps turning.

And so we get to the present day, and the rise of a new extremist powerbroker in Israel: Itamar Ben-Gvir. Ben-Gvir is more than a terrorist-sympathizer, he actually was convicted of providing support to a terrorist organization. He wants to expel Arabs, he had a shrine to Baruch Goldstein, he's a disciple of Kahanism. His political character has been described as a "pyromaniac", given his lust to take combustible situations and pour gasoline on them. He's been described as a "David Duke"-like figure in Israeli politics, except unlike Duke he's actually winning office. He makes even the original flavor of Bennett or Lieberman look positively moderate. And in the very plausible event that the right-wing bloc wins the next Israeli election, Itamar Ben-Gvir is likely to receive a very prominent ministry position in the Israeli government.

The establishment of the Jewish diaspora isn't ready for this. In 2019, when Netanyahu first entered into a deal with Ben-Gvir, it received widespread condemnation from American Jewish groups (even AIPAC!). They characterized his party "racist and reprehensible". Three years later, Ben-Gvir's influence has only grown. If he does enter into government at a high level, does anyone believe groups like AIPAC are going to hold the line? That they'll follow their own logic and concede that Israel's governing coalition is seeded with the racist and the reprehensible? Or will the world turn once more, and Ben-Gvir become accommodated?

By and large, the American Jewish community has been covering its eyes regarding the surging ascendency of far-right extremism amongst the Israeli Jewish community. The tendency has been to dismiss this sort of extremism as marginal, as outliers, as the province of fringe cranks that one might find in any pluralistic political community. There is a terrified refusal to acknowledge the larger pattern, which is that folks like Ben-Gvir are not outliers, and things are getting worse, not better. "A little patience," they say "and we shall see the reign of witches pass." But it isn't passing. The cavalry isn't coming. It can happen (t)here.

The American Jewish community does not want to see Israel descend into far-right fascism. It wants, desperately, that folks like Ben-Gvir are outliers and are repudiated and can be rendered into fringe irrelevancies. But that's not happening. So what next? Unfortunately, the problem with not wanting to see something is that there's always the option to cover your eyes. Squeeze them shut and pretend the problem isn't there. Start whatabouting on Hamas or Iran or this or that. Figure out a way to accommodate and appease the new normal, in the hopes that after this, we won't go any further. Soon the reign of the witches has to pass. That is, more or less, what the global Jewish community has done for the past few decades -- it has just pretended not to see the rise of Israel's extreme right in the hopes that if it is ignored long enough, it will go away.

It's not going away. It is getting worse. And sooner or later, we have to starting thinking about what steps we need to take to arrest and reverse its momentum, rather than vainly hoping it will correct itself. I am not convinced that the American Jewish community is ready to have that conversation. But if we don't have it, folks will start having it without us.

You Don't Need Hyperbole When The Truth Works Fine

International Law Professor Yuval Shany has an outstanding post working through the legal use-of-force issues surrounding the Gaza protests at the Israel/Palestine border. The reason that it's outstanding is that it takes seriously the fact that some of the protesters may be violent and may be trying to breach the border -- it isn't just people randomly waving flags. Many pro-Israel commentators have made this observation and acted as if that were that -- a dismissal made easier when pro-Palestinian voices have acted as if there was no component of armed violence in the equation at all.

Yet my instinct was that, even if there were actual attempts to cross the border or even some use of violent force (e.g., stone throwing), this wouldn't necessarily suffice to justify the use of lethal force by IDF. Shany's post explains why in detail, fully attentive to the actual security concerns faced by Israel, and that makes it far more powerful as a critique of the IDF's conduct -- conduct that seems very likely to have violated international law -- than the median post which treats those concerns as non-existent.

Of course, it may seem silly to go into a fine-grained, nuanced explanation of why IDF use-of-force practices on the Gaza border have been unlawful when Avigdor Liberman is explicitly saying that every single human being in Gaza is a valid target for lethal force.

"It has to be understood that there are no innocent [naive] people in Gaza," Liberman added. "Everyone is affiliated with Hamas, they are all paid by Hamas, and all the activists trying to challenge us and breach the border are operatives of its military wing."

The strike-out is there because Liberman claims he's been mistranslated in the use of the word tamim. But I don't think it materially alters the point he was making, which more-or-less explicitly labels the entire Gaza population as members of a hostile military force who are therefore valid targets for lethal force.

More and more, it seems that the IDF prefers calling itself "the most moral army in the world" to actually acting like "the most moral army in the world." The way you become and then stay a "moral" army is via discipline, and discipline means actually investigating and punishing potential violations of the rules of armed conflict. But Liberman refuses to even countenance an investigation -- well, unless it's of human rights groups asking that soldiers not shoot unarmed civilians across the border. A culture of impunity will yield a culture of violation -- there is nothing in the Israeli or Jewish soul that renders us immune from the general rules of human behavior.

Out With Livni, In With Mofaz

The Kadima Party held its leadership "primary" the other day, and current leader Tzipi Livni has been ousted in favor of Iranian-born Shaul Mofaz. Mofaz thus becomes the first Sephardic Jew to lead Israel's main opposition party.

I'm a strong Livni booster, so obviously I'm disappointed to see her defeat. Mofaz's views are somewhat of a mystery -- 972Mag has a good takeaway of the fallout we can expect to see from his ascension -- but I'm hopeful that he is at least close to the same mold as Livni; particularly, in urging that Israel take a more proactive and aggressive approach towards securing a peace deal. It is also at least possible that Mofaz will be willing to join a coalition with Netanyahu, which Livni refused to do. This would clearly be superior to the current right/far-right coalition which can barely stand up to settler terrorists, much less forge a deal -- bringing in Kadima would relieve pressure on Netanyahu's right flank and at least open up some space for maneuvering. And for the love of God, anything that gets Avigdor Lieberman out of the foreign ministry is a good thing by me.

But all of this is predicated on a lot of unknowns -- not the least of which how well Kadima even does the next election. So I guess we'll see -- both what the Israeli electorate wants, and what Shaul Mofaz does.

The Parallels are Astounding

It's amazing how much the internal dynamics of Israel and the Palestinian Authority remind me of each other right now.

For example, one constant refrain about the PA is that it isn't a "partner for peace." Though there are Palestinian leaders who talk the talk, and may even be willing to walk the walk. the PA is internally divided, and many key members of Fatah and other constituent PA elements have no interest in pursuing a peace deal with Israel.

Now compare that to this article where Israeli FM Avigdor Lieberman declares that "now isn't the time" for negotiations with the Palestinian, versus this article from the same day where Netanyahu says he's willing to negotiate with Abbas "anytime, anywhere". Obviously, on one level this is yet another example of Lieberman being a massively destructive loose cannon. But on another, it's a symbol that the Israeli government, like its Palestinian counterparts, may be too fractured to be able to make a credible commitment to any serious peace agreement.

Meanwhile, in the Lieberman article he talks about how Israel doesn't need any lectures on how to deal with violent "price tag" settlers. And while I'm not sure I think they need a "lecture", again, Israel and Palestine seem to have a remarkable similarities in terms of how they deal with their homegrown terrorists. In both cases they'll capture them, sometimes, and hold them, sometimes, but not consistently or reliably, and their hearts don't really seem into it. And, surprise, surprise, that breeds mistrust amongst their counterparts.

Unfortunately, matching dysfunctions don't lead to a happy, productive relationship, so I don't expect any progress in the near-future.

A Spoonful of Sugar

Seriously, what is wrong with these people?

Aside from debating whether or not to vote for a prisoner exchange deal that would set Gilad Shalit free, several members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet offered several lines of action Israel could take following the deal's execution.

Standing head and shoulders above most were Interior Minister Eli Yishai of Shas and his party member Meshulam Nahari, who said Israel should consider releasing Jewish terrorists who carried out attacks against Palestinians.

"It's the right thing to do as part of the balances in Israel's society," Yishai said, adding that such a move would not "undo the releasing of hundreds of [Palestinian] prisoners, but it may sweeten the bitter pill."

Jewish terrorists pose a threat to Israeli security as much as they do to Palestine's. It's cutting off your nose to spite someone else's face. And the idea that releasing terrorists makes the pill "sweeter" -- ugh. It's pathological. Jewish Hamasniks.

Thankfully, the proposal appeared to get no traction, because even amongst the Keystone Kops that comprise the current Israeli government, there are indeed depths of idiocy they won't sink to. Still, Shas, what do we do with you?

Meanwhile, FM Avigdor Lieberman did something useful at the meeting -- he walked out (after voting no). I highly approve of this act, and hope he continues to absent himself from cabinet deliberations.

One Week Out Roundup

I'm one week away from the bar exam. My strongest area is constitutional law. My weakest area is everything else.

* * *

Soccer clubs often break along broader cultural and national faultlines, and certain clubs are typically identified with various political movements. In Israel, for example, Hapoel Tel Aviv is identified with the Israeli left, and Beitar Jerusalem representing the nationalist right. Two liberal American Jews have now bought the team; hopefully, they'll help clean up its act (an interesting fact for folks not privy to how Israeli society divides -- Beitar supporters hail overwhelmingly from Israel's large Mizrachi [Arab] Jewish population).

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called Yesh Din a "terrorist organization". Board member Shlomo Gazit notes it's a label he's borne before.

That far-right Iowa "marriage" petition also calls for "robust childbearing". How exactly does one birth "robustly"?

Good post by Ta-Nehisi Coates on people feeling a connection to where they're from, even it is a place that is considered a "problem".

A Columbia professor writes a book on how to resolve (or at least ameliorate) intractable conflicts. One notes that his advice could succinctly be summarized as "the opposite of what anti-Israel BDS campaigners propose".

Hussein Ibish underestimates the proportion of the BDS movement which targets Israel as a whole (the UCU academic boycott being perhaps the most prominent case), but he's absolutely right that the Israeli anti-boycott law itself is not designed to protect Israel but protect its settlements.

Rep. Allen West (R-FL) flips out at fellow Floridian Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D). Lest we forget, West is a war criminal.

Two Wrongs....

It is fortunate that Israel's worst foreign minister in recent memory is also likely a criminal, since, amazingly, the current government is too weak to get rid of him merely because of his rank incompetence. Of course, rather than seizing the gift placed in front of him, PM Netanyahu has instead declared his belief in Lieberman's innocence. But if Lieberman is actually formally charged (money laundering and bribery, among other alleged misdeeds), it might not matter.

How tragic is it that I think the best thing that could happen to Israel right now would be for its Foreign Minister to get indicted?

Lieberman Tirade Shows Weakness of Israeli Government

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman unleashed a shocking string of vitriol at a recent Foreign Ministry meeting, attacking, among others, the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority for its stated goal of reaching an agreement before the end of 2011, the state of Turkey, and South American nations which have announced their recognition of the state of Palestine. In the course of the speech, Lieberman declared that there is no foreign policy Israel could pursue which would garner the approval of all coalition members.

Criticism of Lieberman has poured in from all sides, with PM Netanyahu stating that only he gets to set Israeli policy. But it was the opposition-leading Kadima Party which raised the most salient point, stating: "Lieberman said what every citizen in Israel knows: Israel has a government with no real policies, a government without direction and a government without leadership." It's a governing equivalent of a headless chicken -- it just wanders aimlessly from one crisis to another, half of them the result of the government's own incompetence.

Avigdor Lieberman has been an unmitigated disaster as foreign minister -- which is what happens when a state takes a Russian Sarah Palin and put him in charge of international relations. And the inability of the rest of the Israeli government, most notably Netanyahu, to effectively rein him in demonstrates the fundamental inability of the Israeli government to function at the level it needs to in order to solve the dire problems it faces today. One wonders how long this government can even last at this point. I just hope that the Israeli populace is beginning to recognize that its government can't govern. Say what you will about Kadima -- and they have their faults -- but they're a serious party in a country whose political class is rapidly devolving into farce.

Sack Him Sack Him Sack Him!!!!

Every day that Avigdor Lieberman remains Foreign Minister is a day I'm embarrassed for Israel. Even aside from the basic point that he's little more than a fascist thug, his tenure as FM can basically be characterized as one diplomatic catastrophe after another. In a world where Israel is verging on becoming a pariah state, the last thing it needs is a wretched incompetent like Lieberman as its public face.

Syrian Envoy Prefers Lieberman

Syria's ambassador to the US, Imad Moustapha, not only wants to press forward on regional peace talks, but says he prefers Avigdor Lieberman as a partner to Tzipi Livni:

"At least Lieberman is candid. He exactly says what he believes in. Tzipi Livni and her colleagues were talking all the time about their desire to make peace while committing the atrocity in Gaza or doing other similar things in the Palestinian territories."

I have three, contradictory, reactions to this. The first is to take it at face value: Lieberman can be a Nixon in China, and Israel's neighbors recognize this. The second is the cynical approach: Syria prefers Lieberman because Syria knows that it can play the good guy without actually taking the risks necessary for peace: no matter how intransigent they are in any negotiations, Lieberman makes for a better bad guy on the world stage.

And the third reaction is to simply not care about motives: anything that keeps parties talking is a good thing to hear.

As If We Didn't Know Already

John J. Mearsheimer, guest-blogging at Stephen Walt's place (good to see the old gang back together), has a post up which demonstrates quite clearly that he really doesn't understand the dynamics of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. It's not that his predictive analysis is wrong -- he is quite right that if Israel pursues a "Greater Israel" policy unchecked, it will mean the eventual demise of the state. But beyond that, he ... how to put this gently? He doesn't know what he's talking about.

First, neither Ehud Barak nor Avigdor Lieberman "are committed to creating a Greater Israel." Barak proved his two-state bona fides at Camp David and Taba, and his Labor Party has been the primary mover in making the two-state solution official Israeli policy for nearly two decades. We can debate whether Barak should have brought Labor into government absent a commitment by Netanyahu to a two-state solution (one he wouldn't get), but there is no reason to believe that Barak will affirmatively use his position to try and create a "Greater Israel" that he has spent his entire political career trying to undermine.

Lieberman may be a racist, fascist thug, but Mearsheimer clearly doesn't know anything about his specific and peculiar brand of politics. Lieberman is most certainly not an advocate of "transferring" Palestinian Israelis (Israeli Arabs) out of the country -- a term which has a very specific meaning (essentially, expelling them). Lieberman wishes to redraw the borders of Israel so that predominantly Israeli Arab villages are incorporated into a new Palestinian state (and, in exchange, primarily Jewish settlement blocs are kept by Israel). This policy is inherently impossible to achieve without creating a Palestinian state. It is true that Lieberman doesn't see the creation of Palestine to be the immediate item on the agenda, but that's not because he's pursuing a "transfer" policy domestically.

Finally, Mearsheimer also doesn't understand the politics of the American pro-Israel community. He asks why "Israel's Jewish backers" think "Greater Israel is good for the Jews." Well, there's a simple answer to that: We don't. The settlements and the idea of Greater Israel are not particularly popular amongst American Jews. And even many (not all) of the more conservative Jewish organizations are not affirmatively in favor of Greater Israel or pro-settlement. They just either don't see the settlements as that big a deal, or think of them as a distraction from the "real" issue of Palestinian terrorism and Israel's security.

What American Jews tend to battle over is the degree to which settlements should be a primary item on the agenda. There are many Jews who will say that the settlements are a bad thing, but we have to deal with the problem of terrorism first. I think that's short-sighted -- I think the settlements are a major issue that has to be dealt with now, because they are continually aggravating the conflict, don't make Israel safer, represent an injustice to the Palestinians, and constitute a ticking time bomb on Israel's ability to maintain itself as Jewish and democratic. But that's the axis where the debate is.

I think the resistance many Jews have to putting the settlements front and center is the degree to which this conflict has been moralized into a game of "who is the worse evildoer." In the discursive climate we have, where there is nothing stupid, only something evil, saying the settlements need to be one of the primary items on the agenda table is read as saying that they are equally morally wrongful to, say, a Palestinian rocket attack on Sderot. Whether they are or not, though, is immaterial to Mearsheimer's completely correct observation that they still are a "remarkably foolish" policy. But until we can talk about Israel that way -- until not everything about the conflict is collapsed into this moral gamesmanship -- I think this debate will still be live.

But that's neither here nor there. At least in my lifetime, it hasn't been Greater Israel versus two-state solution. On that question, Greater Israel is in the definitive minority. The big debate is whether the degrees to which we should direct our energies towards pressuring Israel over the settlements versus pressuring Palestinians on terrorism and extremism. It's a debate I'm committed to winning, because like Mearsheimer and former PM Olmert I think the path Israel is going down with the settlements is suicidal. But Mearsheimer doesn't help his case when he fundamentally misunderstands the mindsets of the relevant players.