Ministry of strategic threats

Avigdor Lieberman's arrival in the Israeli cabinet is symptomatic of the degradation of the country's political system

By Azmi Bishara
Al-Ahram Weekly

"The desire for a strong man, proposed by parties and the elite as a political solution to instability, does not lead to presidential or parliamentary democracy but to dictatorship. This is more of a danger in presidential systems than parliamentary democracies.

In recent years Israel has been placed in the lowest ranks among parliamentary democracies, its score approaching that of presidential democracies in the Third World. In Israel the parliamentary system is experiencing a real crisis. Governments stay in office for shorter times, parties sprout like wild mushrooms and the mentality of the European vanguard elite that established Israel's democracy has gone to never return. Lieberman's arrival in government is a symptom of the crisis, not a solution.

Lieberman is a militant, ideological rightist, and his project is similar to that of the neo-conservatives in its explicitness and reassessment of values. He is secular to the point of atheism. He is trying to change the balance between religion and the state not to make it more liberal or democratic but more communal and sectarian, though without distinguishing between the two. For Lieberman a Russian need only serve in the army to be treated as a converted Jew. This nationalistic, rather than religious, dimension of conversion is close to the Zionist left -- for example, to Yossi Beilin -- and it constitutes the basis of dialogue between them, but it is not the only common ground. He also shares with the left a concern with "the demographic issue" and the need to get rid of the Palestinians in the framework of an agreement in which they give up all their historic demands with the exception of a political entity, which just happens to be an Israeli demand as well.Like the neo-cons he encourages Israel to come to terms with its power, to be open about it in the region and ready to use it. In Lieberman we have a secular, European militant right-winger who is uninterested in quoting the Torah. He wants to see Israel with a strong capitalist system that imitates the US, and he does not fear the use of naked force.

Lieberman's language is crudely simplistic. Lieberman's constituency of Russian immigrants come from a country in which the resettlement of millions of individuals and the extinction of entire peoples were common in the Stalin era. They are shocked to find Arabs in this country -- no one told them they were there.

It is difficult to listen to a Russian immigrant without intelligence or culture, who still does not speak acceptable Hebrew after 30 years in Israel informing you of the conditions of citizenship in your own country. It is hard to take seriously someone I saw with my own eyes, in the days when we were building the Arab student movement in Israeli universities, as a cowardly student who, immediately upon his arrival from Russia joined the militant, violent right led by Tzachi Hanegbi and began to threaten and take part in the right's violence against us, although we knew of his cowardice from experience. The problem is that he knows that we know; this is the root of his complex.

The far right enters the den of opportunists and appears principled. It enters the Sodom and Gomorrah of politics and deal-making and comes out pious and righteous. Just by entering the circle Lieberman has felled two birds with one stone. First of all he has earned legitimacy; he is no longer merely a foolish immigrant who wants a strong-arm regime. He has set himself up as a national siren, warning people of the Iranian threat, but he has no strategic mind. Of all the targets in the world, in the past he threatened to blow up the Aswan Dam. Secondly, he did not demand ministerial posts for practical purposes, but asked for one tailor-made ministry that embodies the principle he upholds. In so doing he looks like the one person who has come to implement a political platform. The ministry made to order for him is the Ministry of Strategic Threats.

Only in Israel could such a thing be created. This is a country that has not yet appointed a minister of social affairs, but after coalition negotiations now has a Ministry of Strategic Threats. Perhaps in the future we will see the Security Fears Ministry, the Demographic Threat Ministry, the Non-Recognition of Israel Ministry, the World Is Against Us Ministry, the Chosen People Ministry, or the Ministry of Greater Israel. This is a ministry that embodies an ideological position; it says that the gravest danger facing Israel today is the Iranian threat and the Syrian-Iranian alliance with Hizbullah and Hamas. Fine, but standing up to this threat has always been the job of the Foreign Ministry, the Defence Ministry and the intelligence establishment. What need is there for a new ministry run by a man who has no experience in security affairs, unless you count his rumoured links to the Russian mafia, and is not distinguished by his penetrating strategic thought? This is a ministry for incitement, mobilization and conspiracy-mongering. It is a ministry made to win popularity in the Israeli street by beating the war drums against "the enemy.""