What Can Israel Do With New Friends In Greece And South Sudan?

Re-printed from The Third Way blog

Virtually no one disputes the fact that the Netanyahu government has become the most isolated in Israel’s history. Whether one supports or opposes Bibi’s policies, and whether or not one thinks the global reaction either worthwhile or unavoidable, the question of how to raise Israel’s standing in the world is one that people grapple with across the political spectrum, albeit in different ways.

Today, Israel finds itself with a new opportunity in North Africa, and a renewed relationship with a Mediterranean state in Europe. Only time will tell if Israel will make something of this chance, and it will probably depend even more on Benjamin Netanyahu’s successors than it does on Bibi itself.

The newly-independent South Sudan is building a relationship with Israel. With few friends in the region, that’s something Israel desperately needs.

This is not lost on the Israeli government, and it represents a return on years of investment. While neither side ever admitted it, it is a widely held belief that Israel has been helping to arm the Sudan People’s Liberation Army for years, and the issue of Sudan has been a cause célèbre for the organized Jewish diaspora community for years.

On top of the belief that Israel helped South Sudan gain its independence, Israel also represents, to many South Sudanese, the country that refugees saw as their… refuge. While many progressive Israelis have rightly criticized the treatment Sudanese refugees have gotten in Israel, as Jerusalem Post columnist Larry Derfner points out, “…however grudging or ungenerous the state’s reception of these people had been, Israel had treated them a hundred times better than Egypt had, and a trillion times better than Sudan had.”

All of this is a sound basis for an Israeli-South Sudan friendship, assuming the fledgling state survives and grows into stability.

But long-term, Israel will face the same problems it is facing all over the world.

Right now, South Sudan sees Israel as the country that helped it fight and at least allowed some of its refugees into the country. But at some point, their own history, to which of course, the Israeli occupation of Palestinians cannot and should not be compared, will call into question their support for a country holding millions of people without rights and basic freedoms due to their own historical, ethnic conflict.

On the European side, there is Israel’s revised relationship with Greece.

When the Greek government stepped in to stop the second Gaza flotilla, it came as something of a surprise, but it actually represented the fruits of a year of labor.

This was Netanyahu’s baby. It’s worth noting that he took the task of building a relationship with Greece on personally. It’s a sign of the dysfunctional nature of his government that such diplomacy must be carried on by the Prime Minister’s office, as the Foreign Ministry has made it abundantly clear it is much better at burning bridges than building them.

Netanyahu was a powerful advocate with the International Monetary Fund, pushing for the relief plan that Greece accepted during the flotilla controversy, which sparked major riots in the country. Israel also supplied tear gas to help the Greeks in quelling those riots.

Again, this is a short-term gain with a dubious future. From the Greek side, the occupation is very unpopular there, as it is in most of Europe. The current government is also unpopular, especially now, and the current unrest will not reflect well on Israel for many Greeks.

From the Israeli side, enhancing a friendship with any European country is a plus these days, and turning to Greece was intended to provide Israel with an alternative to Turkey. But Israel knows very well that a relationship with Turkey is much more important than one with Greece, and will be prepared if that relationship warms to take advantage of that. So this is a coin whose value will vary depending on regional politics even in the near future.

In the cases of both South Sudan and Greece, Netanyahu has made significant short-term gains. But in the long run, the overarching problem, the occupation, is not going away and will eventually complicate these relationships as much as it does so many others for Israel.

It seems likely that the Netanyahu government is going to take the wrong lesson from these developments. Specifically, they will conclude that it shows that Israel can revise and create new relationships with other states, and, along with the unswerving support of the United States, and ongoing warm relations with Canada, Germany and a few other countries, is not really heading toward global pariah status.

What it really suggests is that Israel still has an opportunity to end the occupation, allow for a real, viable, secure and self-respecting Palestinian state to emerge, and safeguard its own security while allowing a new Palestine to be secure as well. Indeed, these developments should be incentive toward that, and a wise and forward-looking leader would realize that such a thing is worth giving up the settlements, including those in blocs such as Ariel and Ma’ale Adumim, that are situated in such a way as to make a secure and viable Palestinian state impossible.

I’m not convinced that any Israeli party to the right of Meretz would be willing to make the necessary compromises to secure Israel’s future. But we’ve seen more than enough evidence in the past two years to know that this government is not.

While I’m not sure that Israel has not already killed the two-state solution, it is hard to argue that both Israel and the Palestinians are running out of time to make it happen—if that’s what they want.

And that’s a shame. Israel has some new friends, and still could repair much of its image in the world. But until it determines to end the occupation and proves that determination by stopping all settlement activity, taking down the outposts it has committed to eliminating rather than maneuvering in shady ways to “legalize” them, its standing in the world will continue to deteriorate, and the new friendships it builds will always be tenuous.

Bibi Tries To Give Obama His Marching Orders

When writing about President Obama’s speech on Thursday, I got one thing very wrong. I wrote:

“Bibi will not have anything here to fight with Obama about tomorrow.”

Well, that was wrong; but not as much as you might think.

As MJ Rosenberg pointed out in his Friday column, a lot of this anger is contrived, and geared toward attaining a political goal.

We need to understand what that goal is and what Netanyahu’s reprehensible hubris on Friday after meeting with the President of the United States, was meant to achieve.

We can start with a basic fact: this tumult is not really about Obama’s statement regarding the 1967 borders. This is a contrived controversy, based, to begin with, on a willful distortion of what Obama said.

The President did not call for a return to the 1967 borders. He merely stated what is obvious, what has been American de facto policy all along and the fundamental truth of any two-state solution: that negotiations must start with the 1967 borders, and whatever modifications may be agreed to start from there.

So, what was the purpose of this intentional distortion and elaborate theater by Netanyahu, one which was subsequently lauded and backed by the ultra-right wing Israeli cabinet and a drove of Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle?

In fact, it was a bold, albeit clumsy, gambit by Netanyahu to rework the entire framework of what is generally understood to be the framework for negotiations.

Netanyahu is hoping to re-create the change wrought by George W. Bush with his 2004 letter to Ariel Sharon. In that letter, Bush went some distance toward pre-determining the outcome of final status issues by promising Sharon that Israel would not have to go back to the pre-1967 borders and that Palestinian refugees would not be able to return to Israel.

Everyone knew that was going to be the American vision of resolving the conflict, but by stating it publicly, Bush essentially made those the new starting points for any talks, effectively giving away much of what the Palestinian Authority intended to bargain with.

Netanyahu would like Obama to reaffirm those points and take them off the table, and also state unequivocally that there will be no talks with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas.

Netanyahu is well aware what such a statement from Obama would mean: the end of any possibility of peace talks, the end of even the meager American words objecting to settlement growth and a growing division between Israel and the US on one hand and Europe and the rest of the Quartet partners on the other.

That’s why Obama doesn’t want to do these things. So, Netanyahu went on global television and ordered him to do so.

That sounds absurd, but that’s what he did. Consider Bibi’s words:

“…while Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to the 1967 lines, because these lines are indefensible, because they don’t take into account certain changes that have taken place on the ground, demographic changes that have taken place over the last 44 years… So we can’t go back to those indefensible lines, and we’re going to have to have a long-term military presence along the Jordan. I discussed this with the president. I think that we understand that Israel has certain security requirements that will have to come into place in any deal that we make.”

Let’s translate that: Mr. President, I heard every word you said yesterday, and screw you, we are going to keep our settlements and the Jordan Valley. I’ve told you that’s what’s going to happen, so deal with it. Go tell the Palestinians that the land that is called Area A and some of Area B will have to do for their state.”

On Hamas, Obama has not changed his stance; he repeated that he expects Hamas to renounce violence, recognize Israel and abide by past agreements. Obama, recognizing what many Israeli right-wingers have said – that a deal with half the Palestinians would never hold anyway – left a door open to the Palestinians by saying “…the Palestinians are going to have to answer some very difficult questions about this agreement that’s been made between Fatah and Hamas.”

That’s not good enough for Bibi.

“…[This] echoes something the president just said, and that is that Israel cannot negotiate with a Palestinian government that is backed by Hamas… And Hamas has just attacked you, Mr. President, and the United States for ridding the world of bin Laden. So Israel obviously cannot be asked to negotiate with a government that is backed by the Palestinian version of al-Qaida…I think President Abbas has a simple choice. He has to decide if he negotiates or keeps his pact with Hamas, or makes peace with Israel. And I — I can only express what I said to you just now: that I hope he makes the choice, the right choice, of choosing peace with Israel.”

Translation: “The door you left open will be slammed shut. If you try to open it again, you will be painted as an appeaser of terrorism, and it will be no problem to deceive Americans about the great differences between Hamas and al-Qaeda. Don’t think for a minute that your killing bin Laden is going to change this. I will give the Palestinians a choice—either engage in a peace process that excludes a major portion of the Palestinian polity, thus rendering it insubstantial, or don’t have one at all.”

This, of course, frees Netanyahu from ever being threatened with real peace.

And then the real topper, the refugees. Bibi said:

“…the Palestinian refugee problem will have to be resolved in the context of a Palestinian state but certainly not in the borders of Israel…the Palestinians come to us and they say to Israel: accept the grandchildren, really, and the great-grandchildren of these refugees, thereby wiping out Israel’s future as a Jewish state. So that’s not going to happen. Everybody knows it’s not going to happen. And I think it’s time to tell the Palestinians forthrightly, it’s not going to happen.”

Translation: “Barack, be a good boy and tell the Palestinians that this is no longer a final status issue and it has already been pre-determined. After all, if refugees will not come back to Israel and this is determined before talks, there’s nothing to talk about. We will not have to compensate them for something that is not negotiable anyway, and what they do with their refugees is not our concern if they’re not going to come back to Israel. Now go tell them that.”

Obama changed nothing in his statement. He simply put forth a point more clearly than has been done in the past that is fundamental to a two-state solution. Here’s what George W. Bush said in 2005:

“Any final status agreement must be reached between the two parties, and changes to the 1949 Armistice lines must be mutually agreed to. A viable two-state solution must ensure contiguity of the West Bank, and a state of scattered territories will not work. There must also be meaningful linkages between the West Bank and Gaza. This is the position of the United States today, it will be the position of the United States at the time of final status negotiations.”

Obama said nothing different in substance. Indeed, he said substantially less than this on Thursday.

So, with a foreign leader sitting in the Oval Office and publicly telling the President of the United States what to do, being condescending and arrogant toward him, naturally, Congressional leaders would express their outrage, right?

Hell, no, not on the best day, and certainly not on the eve of their annual hajj to the AIPAC conference.

But they will blast their own President and support that foreign leader against not only the President, but against clear US interests that have been repeatedly articulated by diplomats and military leaders who, unlike Congress members, actually have some familiarity with Israel, the Palestinians and the tactical and diplomatic situation on the ground.

The Republicans started, and this is no surprise. The party that once held to realist, albeit selfish and imperialistic, views of foreign policy now cares nothing about its own country if by betraying it they can score political points for themselves.

But then came the Democrats as well, falling over themselves to blast the most prominent member of their own party.

So, in closing, here is a selection of some comments by these sycophantic and clueless members of Congress, and other notable figures on the American political scene.

Mitt Romney: “President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus,” Romney said. “He has disrespected Israel and undermined its ability to negotiate peace. He has also violated a first principle of American foreign policy, which is to stand firm by our friends.”

Michele Bachmann: “Today President Barack Obama has again indicated that his policy towards Israel is to blame Israel first. In a shocking display of betrayal towards our ally, President Obama is now calling on Israel to give up yet more land and return to its 1967 borders. If there is anything that has been proven, the policy of land-for-peace has meant that Israel has continually had to give away increasing amounts of its land and decrease its size. In exchange, it still has not known security. President Obama wants to further this policy by putting Israel in a very vulnerable position with borders that would be extremely difficult to defend. “

Orrin Hatch: “Rather than stand by Israel against consistent unprovoked aggression by longtime supporters of terrorism, President Obama is rewarding those who threaten Israel’s very right to exist.”

Newt Gingrich: “Congress in the next week should pass resolutions in the House and Senate condemning the president setting the 1967 lines.”

Tim Pawlenty: “President Obama’s insistence on a return to the 1967 borders is a mistaken and very dangerous demand. To send a signal to the Palestinians that America will increase its demands on our ally Israel, on the heels of the Palestinian Authority’s agreement with the Hamas terrorist organization, is a disaster waiting to happen”

One prominent Democrat, Howard Berman, the leading minority member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs did defend the President.

Howard Berman: “It has been my expectation for many years, dating to the end of the Clinton Administration, that the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would involve a border that is close to that of 1967 but with agreed upon land swaps. That is fully consistent with Israel’s right to have defensible borders and to retain its settlement blocs, positions for which there is overwhelming support in Washington.”

But Berman was in the minority.

Joe Lieberman (not a Democrat, but an Independent generally counted as part of the Democratic bloc in the Senate, but a major hawk on Israel): “In particular, the President’s remarks have revived and exacerbated fears in Israel about the commitment and understanding of this Administration with regard to their unique security situation. The fact is, while the exciting and hopeful new reality in the Arab world is the Arab spring, the newest reality in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is not hopeful. It is the threatening new unity government between the leadership of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, a group which the U.S. government has long designated as terrorist because it is committed to violence and the destruction of Israel.”

Steve Rothman, usually a staunch Obama backer: “It is important to remember that a full return to the 1967 borders will be indefensible for Israel and that talking with terrorists who want to destroy Israel is a non-starter.”

Eliot Engel: “The 1967 armistice lines were simply not defensible, and Israel must not be made to return to them.”

Ted Deutsch: Israel cannot be expected to make any territorial concessions that do not acknowledge the reality on the ground. The 1967 borders are indefensible. References to ‘land swaps’ must mean that major Israeli population areas in the post-Six Day War territory, including the Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem, will forever continue to be a part of the Jewish state of Israel.”

Shelly Berkley (a Democrat, but possibly the most hawkish one in the House on Israel, and certainly among the most ignorant): “”I am also deeply concerned by any calls for Israel to return to the armistice line that existed before 1967. That line left Israel far too vulnerable to outside attack, and without access to many of the Jewish holy sites on the other side of the line. Past experience demonstrates that when the Arabs have controlled the Jewish holy sites they have not permitted access to Jews. “

And, it should be noted, that these statements have come in the wake of praise for Obama’s speech from the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee.

The downside of Hamas-Fatah reconciliation

The Hamas reaction to the death of Osama bin Laden almost says it all.  Hamas condemned the US action and extolled this monster as a "holy warrior." This is actually a surprise since Hamas has not advocated global jihad and it has violently suppressed al Qaeda-linked groups in Gaza. 

Although it has some potential to be for the good, I fear that this reconciliation agreement is not a step forward.  On the bright side, it permits the possibility for Hamas to indirectly endorse a two-state solution with Israel, by acknowledging that the PLO remains authorized to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinian people (a holdover provision of the Oslo Accords) and implies that Hamas would not oppose peace with Israel if such an agreement were ratified in a referendum.  But if Hamas continues to insist that all Palestinian exiles in their diaspora—or at least those designated as refugees—should vote in this referendum (not just Palestinians in the territories), any peace agreement would be that much harder to sell; this is because such an agreement would of necessity affirm a right to compensation but not a wholesale right of return to what is now Israel.

Moreover, one would have to trust Hamas to be true to its word (a tall order), and for Hamas and Fatah to coexist peacefully—as they have not in the past.  The issue all of us should address is whether Hamas will ever deal diplomatically and non-violently with Israel.  If the Israeli government were wiser than it is, it would pose exactly this in response to the Fatah-Hamas agreement, rather than rejecting it outright.  The prevailing international view is that Israel refuses to recognize and negotiate with Hamas, but the opposite (that Hamas refuses to recognize Israel) is more relevant. 

My thoughts return to the unfortunate results of the Palestinian election in
January 2006.  After Israel withdrew its soldiers and its 8,000 settlers from Gaza in the summer of 2005, the Bush administration decided to bring “democracy” to the Palestinians.  It insisted on running a parliamentary election and allowing Hamas to participate. 

None other than Yossi Beilin, a principle negotiator of Oslo, has pointed out that Hamas was not legally qualified to run without meeting the requirements of the Oslo agreements still in effect from the 1990s: primarily to renounce violence and accept Israel’s existence.  Qualifying for elections in this way might have been a lever to get Hamas to change its spots, but the Bush State Department insisted on allowing Hamas to run as it was, cynically assuming that it would not win. Hamas won a plurality of votes with 44 percent to Fatah’s 42 percent and took power early in 2006.  Hamas earned a golden opportunity to prove itself a responsible party that could advance legitimate Palestinian aspirations for independence, yet it failed abysmally.

Soon after its election, Hamas declared a truce, but it was still allowing other factions to fire at Israel. Hamas even lauded as “resistance” two successful suicide bombings—one in Tel Aviv and another in Ashdod. A coalition of groups, including Hamas, captured Gilad Shalit while killing two other Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid in June of 2006. As we know, things only went downhill from there.

So there's plenty of reason to be skeptical of this agreement, but the Netanyahu government's entirely predictable response also gives rise to skepticism.  Netanyahu's statement to the Palestinian Authority that it's either peace with Israel or peace with Hamas, but that it can't have both, is a perfect excuse for not negotiating with the Palestinians.  Israel can only lose in thereby attempting to maintain a status quo that is increasingly untenable.  

The PA's apparent embrace of Hamas reflects its loss of faith in the possibility of negotiating a reasonable deal with Israel under its current leadership.  This also fits hand in glove with the Palestinian threat to go to the United Nations General Assembly in September for international recognition of a Palestinian state.  The only way for Israel to head off this strategy is to return to the kind of deal that Olmert attempted with Abbas back in 2008, a negotiating process that was aborted by Olmert's legal difficulties and the Gaza war of Dec. '08-Jan. '09.  But we can't expect Netanyahu to do that.

Goldstone: "If I had known then what I know now..."

*cross-posted from Assoluta Tranquillita*

In 2009, Richard Goldstone led a fact-finding mission created by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate international human rights and humanitarian law violations related to the Gaza War. The mission's findings that Israel and Hamas had both committed serious violations of the laws of war led to a major controversy. You can find the whole report here on the UN site.

Today, it appears that Mr Goldstone is tempering that initial report. Last Friday, April 1, the Washington Post published an op/ed with Mr Goldstone's byline:

Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes

By Richard Goldstone, Friday, April 1,

We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.

The final report by the U.N. committee of independent experts — chaired by former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis — that followed up on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report has found that “Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza” while “the de facto authorities (i.e., Hamas) have not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel.”

Our report found evidence of potential war crimes and “possibly crimes against humanity” by both Israel and Hamas. That the crimes allegedly committed by Hamas were intentional goes without saying — its rockets were purposefully and indiscriminately aimed at civilian targets.

The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.

[...]

The purpose of the Goldstone Report was never to prove a foregone conclusion against Israel. I insisted on changing the original mandate adopted by the Human Rights Council, which was skewed against Israel. I have always been clear that Israel, like any other sovereign nation, has the right and obligation to defend itself and its citizens against attacks from abroad and within. Something that has not been recognized often enough is the fact that our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations. I had hoped that our inquiry into all aspects of the Gaza conflict would begin a new era of evenhandedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted....

There is much more, and it IS worth the read here.

I have written many times about Israel. For some of those columns go here, here, or here.

I found a YouTube video put out by the IDF on the historical background of what brought Israel to Operation Cast Lead. Go here to watch that and many other videos documenting the terrorist acts that Israel contends with every.single.day.

In response to Goldstone's op/ed, Israel National News had this to say:

Goldstone Recants: No Deliberate Targeting of Civillians by IDF

by Chana Ya'ar and Gavriel Queenann

"If I had known then what I know now," Judge Richard Goldstone wrote on Friday in The Washington Post. "The Goldstone Report would have been a different document."

"While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy," Goldstone wrote.

The comment marks the recanting by Goldstone, who chaired the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, of charges that Israel deliberately targeted civilians during Operation Cast Lead. The operation, which commenced on 27 December 2008 and concluded on 18 January 2009, was aimed at stopping terrorist rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli civilians in southern Israel. Most military observers regard the operation as having had only limited, short-term success.

[...]

...our main recommendation was for each party to investigate, transparently and in good faith, the incidents referred to in our report. McGowan Davis has found that Israel has done this to a significant degree; Hamas has done nothing."...

[...]

Netanyahu Responds

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has called on the United Nations to cancel the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead following an op-ed piece written by the author of the report, retired South African Judge Richard Goldstone.

“Everything we said was proven to be true,” said Netanyahu. “Israel did not willfully harm civilians. Israel's investigating institutions are trustworthy, while Hamas investigated nothing.

“The fact that Goldstone withdrew his conclusions must lead to the cancellation of the report once and for all. We expect this farce to be rectified immediately."

Defense Minister Ehud Barak added that in order to repair the damage done by the report, the judge should present his current conclusions to all the international bodies to whom he presented the original report – and not merely give his opinion in an op-ed piece.

The IDF is “a moral army that operated according to international law,” Barak said.

( Read the rest here at IsraelNationalNews.com)

“The fact that Goldstone withdrew his conclusions must lead to the cancellation of the report once and for all. We expect this farce to be rectified immediately."

As noted above by Barak, enormous damage was inflicted on Israel because of this report, and it is NOW (long overdue) for the UN to reverse their rubber stamping of the ongoing antisemitism that is rampant - on a daily basis - not only in Gaza, but around the world. Of course, would be only fitting for the msm to also admit what lemmings they were, and ARE, in their rush to condemn Israel at every turn. Front page story, anyone?

Waiting...waiting.

The Lieberman We Need To Worry About

Israeli Minister of Minority Affairs Avishai Braverman (Labor) thinks Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman should be fired from his ministry for saying that an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “…is not achievable in the next year or in the next generation.”

One understands Braverman’s point. Lieberman was, after all, not just offering an analysis. He himself is one of the main reasons that the pessimism he expresses exists. Lieberman is not merely a bystander offering a judgment, but an actor working against the sorts of resolutions that have, for more than 15 years, made up the foundation of a two-state solution.

But Braverman’s solution wouldn’t really change much. Lieberman’s “role” as Foreign Minister has been thoroughly curtailed. Indeed, every now and then, Lieberman, who is well aware of his marginalization in the Netanyahu government, bristles and has a public spat with his boss, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bibi might toss Lieberman some kind of bone, but he has made it clear that Lieberman is not part of the inner circle. His opinion, in and of itself, carries no weight, and Bibi’s only concern (and it is a serious one) is what Lieberman can do domestically to rally people against the Likud leader.

This was evidenced once again at the Washington launch of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians last week. Surely, any country’s foreign minister should be present at such a momentous event. But Lieberman couldn’t make it as he had a very important job in bringing his diplomatic powers to bear on the sensitive and crucial relationship between Israel and … Cyprus.

Bibi and Ehud Barak function as Israel’s Foreign Minister; this is well known. When one considers how much damage Lieberman’s Ministry has done to Israeli diplomacy (greatly magnifying the problems which are caused by some very misguided Israeli policies and actions) one can only imagine how bad a position Israel would be in as far as international standing goes if Bibi really let Lieberman be a foreign minister.

That’s not say that Lieberman is not a major threat, to peace, to the Palestinians, to Israeli security and democracy. It’s just that removing him from the foreign ministry, as Braverman calls for, won’t actually affect Lieberman’s ability to cause such problems.

Lieberman’s real strength is in his leadership of Yisrael Beiteinu, the second biggest party in the governing coalition Bibi leads, and his position as Israel’s most influential right-wing demagogue. The sad fact is that Lieberman, whose fanatical anti-Arab racism has drawn rebuke from a range of pundits that stretches from MJ Rosenberg all the way too Marty Peretz, has a sizable following in Israel.

This must be taken very seriously, and Lieberman can manipulate that popularity whether he is Foreign Minister or not, which is why Braverman’s remedy is insufficient.

Israel is still a democracy, albeit a democracy whose democratic structure is under increasing attack, as evidenced by the activities not only of leaders like Lieberman, but of groups like Im Tirtzu. And as such, political views of all types must be given their airspace. But for a democracy to function, forces like Lieberman’s which threaten that very democracy, as well as Israel’s security by opposing and trying to undermine peace with the Palestinians must be forcefully opposed.

It is not enough to oppose Lieberman’s presence in the Cabinet. Lieberman’s attempts to rid Israel of its non-Jewish inhabitants is an assault on the very essence of the Zionist dream, which sought to create a Jewish homeland that was also capable of governing a diverse community of people with reasonable equanimity. Israel has fallen very short of that goal already, but Lieberman’s drive to actually rid Israel of its Arab citizens directly contradicts the ideals of Zionism, right and left wings.

Lieberman’s marginalization in the government has had the unhappy side effect of letting Israelis treat him as a kind of embarrassing joke. Everyone in Israel knows he has no pull in the government, so they’d rather, quite understandably, try to ignore him.

But this means missing an opportunity to take back the notion of a Jewish homeland from those who understand that to mean Jewish domination of non-Jews. Ongoing support for Israel, from liberal Diaspora Jews as well as many other groups, depends on Israel becoming the state it can be, but has never been since its birth: a state that is the Jewish homeland, but which gives full equal rights, both on the books and in practice, to everyone.

That’s a lot to ask. Certainly we, in the United States, however much we may have progressed from slavery, and later, the Jim Crow days, still struggle with racism, disenfranchisement, and bigotry. The current wave of hate against Muslims as embodied in one church’s “Burn-a-Qu’ran Day” and the Park 51, or Ground Zero Mosque debate, demonstrates this amply.

But Israel is not the United States. It’s a much smaller country, much more of a community/country, and, due to the manner of its birth and the permanent conflict it has always lived with, its democracy is a much more fragile thing. And its dependence on escaping its own increasing pariah status is much more important to its future survival.

One cannot expect Israel to suddenly become an egalitarian utopia, but it must start t reverse the course it is on; that is, the course that led to the last election, where right-wing groups garnered so much support and an open racist like Lieberman can hold the keys to forming a new government as he did in 2009.

That is accomplished through public discourse and debate. It happens by the silent majority of Israelis who find such views abhorrent convincing some of Lieberman’s supporters to change their minds and marginalizing the rest. We’ve seen that process take place in many countries.

Lieberman is an embarrassment, but he is also a danger, one that needs to be confronted. It’s up to Israelis to do it, but it’s certainly a process that we in the Diaspora can contribute to and encourage. It’s time we do so.