The Two Liebermans

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The New York Sun

Although Lieberman is a common enough Jewish name, it is a statistical curiosity to find two politicians named Lieberman in the headlines at the same time. Yet this has been the case these past weeks with Senator Lieberman of Connecticut and Avigdor Lieberman, a Knesset member in Israel. The two contrast starkly, because while both are politicians who take their Jewishness seriously, only one of them is good for the Jews.

Senator Lieberman, who is up for re-election today, has been, to the best of my knowledge, the only religiously observant Jew ever to serve in Congress, let alone the only Jew ever to run on the ticket of major party for the vice presidency of America and to be spoken of as a possible presidential candidate. That it should have been possible to consider such a man a serious contender for America’s highest office is a tribute — one that would have seemed all but unbelievable as little as even a generation ago — to the historically extraordinary acceptance of American Jews in the life of their country.

But Senator Lieberman has been more than just a symbol. He has been a politician of conscience. His refusal to back down from his support for the war in Iraq, though it cost him the Democratic Party’s renomination for the Senate race, was a rare example in American politics of a politician whose principles were more important to him than the polls. That the war in Iraq — although this was hardly its main aim, despite the accusations of some of its opponents — has also been fought to make the Middle East a safer place for a Jewish state ringed by enemies undoubtedly played a role in his thinking.

This is nothing for which Mr. Lieberman or his backers should be ashamed. Understanding the importance of Israel’s struggle to survive in an antidemocratic Arab environment is a litmus test of political decency and political wisdom in today’s world. If the war in Iraq — as it might — continues to go badly and ends in an American defeat, this will be as bad for Israel as it will be for America. But it is not this thought that has motivated the war’s critics, many of whom, especially within the ranks of the Democratic Party, hoped from the start that the war would go badly. This is the wing of the Democratic Party that, although it professes friendship toward Israel, is not the kind of friend Israel needs. Mr. Lieberman deserves the thanks, and votes, of Jews and non-Jews alike for refusing to be part of it.

Avigdor Lieberman has also had a political career made possible by his country’s remarkable openness to immigrants. Twenty-seven years ago he arrived in Israel from the Soviet Union knowing hardly a word of Hebrew. Today he is a Cabinet member, having been newly taken into Ehud Olmert’s coalition government along with his 11-seat Yisrael Beiteinu party, and a man with declared prime-ministerial ambitions. There is no other place in the world in which an immigrant politician could have gone so far so quickly.

But Mr. Lieberman has gone as far as he has by pandering to Israelis’ worst instincts, starting with his days as a university student in Jerusalem, when he belonged to a gang of ultra-nationalist campus thugs who made a habit of beating up Arab students. He has ridden a wave of anti-Arab racism ever since, which has particularly appealed to the Russian immigrant community in Israel that is his main constituency. That community that has taken with it many of the attitudes of the country of its birth, a country with a Slavic majority and a Caucasian and Central Asian minority that has been systematically discriminated against.

Not, of course, that Jewish-Arab tensions in Israel aren’t great in their own right or a serious threat to the country’s future. But Mr. Lieberman’s approach to these tensions — with its hobbyhorse notion of ridding Israel of some or all of its Arab citizens by deporting them, pressuring them to emigrate, or making them an unwilling part of land swaps with a Palestinian state — is both thoroughly impractical and thoroughly unprincipled. It is impractical because it cannot be done. It is unprincipled because encouraging the idea that it can be done simply inflames Arab-Jewish relations and radicalizes both sides — which, needless to say, is all to Mr. Lieberman’s benefit politically.

It isn’t that Mr. Lieberman is entirely wrong. Israel’s Arab minority, which now stands at about 20% of the country’s population, is a potentially explosive element, and the explosion, if nothing is done to forestall it, is sure to come sooner or later. But it cannot be forestalled by making the Arabs go away, which is something Mr. Lieberman wants Israelis to think he can do. What is called for is a package of totally different measures, such as raising the educational and living standards of Israeli Arabs and thereby also lowering their high birthrate (throughout the world these two things go together), integrating them into the nation’s life, and arriving at a fundamental understanding with them whereby Israel will agree to treat them (as they have not been treated until now) as fully equal citizens, and they will agree to regard Israel (as they have not regarded it until now) as a country to which they owe their full allegiance.

Let’s hope that Joe Lieberman wins in Connecticut and that Avigdor doesn’t last long in Israel’s cabinet. One Lieberman is enough — if it’s the right one.

Mr. Halkin is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.


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