Lieberman: Jews, Arabs can never live together

[Scurrilous]

In first interview to foreign press, new deputy PM tells British Telegraph Arab minority in Israel is problem which can best be resolved by separation; offers Cyprus, where Turks and Greeks live separately, as desired model for Jewish state

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3323661,00.html

<snip>

"In his first interview to the foreign press, the newly-appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman told the British Telegraph Sunday that the best means of achieving peace in the Middle East would be for Jews and Arabs to live apart, including those Arabs who now live inside Israel.

Israel Our Home Chairman Lieberman stated that the Arab minority in Israel was a "problem" which required separation from the Jewish state.

"We established Israel as a Jewish country," he told the Telegraph. "I want to provide an Israel that is a Jewish, Zionist country.
It's about what kind of country we want to see in the future. Either it will be an (ethnically mixed) country like any other, or it will continue as a Jewish country."

Lieberman said he believes that minorities are the biggest problem in the world, and asserted that in his opinion, Israel should follow Cyprus' model of national separation: "I think separation between two nations is the best solution. Cyprus is the best model. Before 1974, the Greeks and Turks lived together and there were frictions and bloodshed and terror."

"After 1974, they constituted all Turks on one part of the island, all Greeks on the other part of the island and there is stability and security," he explained."

[cobaindrain]

1. what's wrong with a "mixed country"

so it's ok for America to be mixed, but not Israel? what are you afraid of? assimilation?

[provis99]

2. apartheid works?

anybody gone to New York? Over a million Jews and tens of thousands of Muslim Arabs living together peacefully. Have we broken a rule?

[Fredda Weinberg]

8. We tried assimilation in Germany

and haven't forgotten how that turned out. In my lifetime, there were stores that wouldn't serve Jews - so it's hard to concede that America is truly "mixed".

My Orthodox upbringing gave me spiritual experiences others long for, so while I may not follow the practice anymore, I still appreciate the sense of security it affords others.

[cobaindrain]

10. full assimilation

Like the Irish, Polish, Italian, we marry one another. intermarriage and full assimilation will eventually destroy the antisemitism that has plagued jews forever. it's happening in america right now.

[Fredda Weinberg]

26. Why don't you visit Borough Park, Brooklyn?

You'll see Jewish culture alive and well. That's happening in America too.

[IntiRaymi]

36. I hate to say this....but....

Resources are not scarce at the present. That is the advantage that the USA has, and this wealth has kept things peaceful for as long as they have.
What if that wealth goes away? Who will be a likely target for the first dumbass demagogue to see an oportunity to find a scapegoat?

And no, I have not been to Boro Park, but I am sure it is quite an experience. I myself, when living in Chicago, enjoyed the cultural variety that only large, cosmopolitan cities can provide - you don't have to be one of them, but it is so...interesting, mentally stimulating, etc.
Devon Avenue (Chicago, Roger's Park) was my favorite - about a mile of Halal, Hindu, and pakistani goods, followed by a smattering of judaica. Everyone happy, side by side, no apparent problems. Another amazing place to live in: Uptown, where 100's of languages are spoken, without racial repercusions.

[cali]

18. Are you actually defending this guy?

As for Jews having suffered discrimination in America, so too did the Irish, Italians, Vietnamese, and many other ethnic groups. Not to mention blacks. And yes, America is "mixed".

[Fredda Weinberg]

24. So you say - but I don't buy it

I'm a first generation American, the child of a holocaust survivor. Yes, the Irish suffered a drought, the Vietnamese centuries of invasion and domination by imperial forces. But AFAIK, only the Armenians share our memory of deliberate extinction - the systematic destruction of an entire race. You may not understand the effect, but it's profound.

I don't follow customary practices anymore, but know better than to accept the American myth of a "melting pot." We preserve our culture because the system continues to work to our advantage - as do the Asians, Blacks and Latinos in our ethnic neighborhoods around Brooklyn, NY.

If the US had accepted the refugees on the St Louis, perhaps there wouldn't be a Jewish homeland - and Arabs wouldn't have to accept the nation state of Israel. But that's how the UN voted - and it was the Arabs who wouldn't accept the result.

Like many others, I'd hoped the withdrawal from Gaza and the Palestinian elections would stop the shelling and the suicide bombings. But it hasn't worked out that way - which only encourages our extremists to propose outrageous "final solutions". I haven't defended Lieberman - and your insinuation that I have demonstrates the hostility that increases our isolation.

Many Japanese in the '30's thought they were good Americans ... then they were herded into camps. No, America is not "mixed" - it's not even well blended.

[bemildred]

27. That's very ignorant.

Genocide, mass killings, and ethnic extermination campaigns are plentiful in human history, and continue to occur all the time. I can assure you that the Cherokee and the Tutsis have not forgotten. The list is very long, and the two you mention not the largest by any means, and in many cases these campaigns are quite successful.

http://www.genocidewatch.org/8stages.htm

[Fredda Weinberg]

28. Watch out for that charge of ignorance

The Hutu had long-standing grievances against the Tutsis - and the Trail of Tears was an attempt to get gold found under their tribal lands ... not a deliberate attempt at extermination.

But again, your attitude speaks volumes - I'll just stick to accurate history and ignore the attempted personal insult.

[bemildred]

29. LOL. So it's OK if they had a "reason" for it?

It's only when the killing was done for no "reason" that it's really bad?

http://www.genocidewatch.org/genocidetable2006.htm

[Fredda Weinberg]

30. No, it's the difference between genocide and ethnic strife

The Germans tried to exterminate Jews in every nation they conquered; the civil war in Rwanda never rose to that level of ethnic hatred.

Oddly enough, for those DUers who think assimilation ends racial tensions, both the Tutsis and Cherokees tried intermarriage and cultural adaptation. History records the results.

[bemildred]

31. De Nile is not just a river, is it?

"the civil war in Rwanda never rose to that level of ethnic hatred"

Just a business deal gone bad, eh?

I mean Hitler was certainly nuts, but that doesn't mean he was an exceptional type. This fellow Lieberman looks much the same type. With his accession to high power in the Israeli government, I'd say it is time to start worrying, and I don't just mean about the safety of the Palestinians.

Vicious, simple-minded, ignorant and self-assured types like Lieberman are dangerous to everybody. Consider the case of pResident Bush, who is cast much in the same mold.

Hitler did not merely commit genocide against the Jews, he caused a war that killed tens of millions world wide, and he got Germany completely destroyed, bombed flat, and then, at the end, he decided the German people were not worthy of his ambition.

Then there are Stalin and Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Slobo, the situation in Tibet, an almost infinite list. You are an intelligent person, does it make sense to you as a rational being that Jews are really different in any fundamental way from other people? That the hatred of Jews is different in kind from other hatreds? That their history was really not the same thing at all as what anybody else went through? Do you really believe that the USA is an exceptional nation, different in kind from all that went before or will come after it? Or is it all just the same old shit that has been going on as long as history records?

There is a rather long list on that second link I gave you, why not take a look at it?

[Fredda Weinberg]

33. More hyperbole. Avigdor Lieberman is calling for a Cyprus solution

Not extermination. What he's suggesting isn't that far from the idea of evacuating Gaza and the West Bank to keep the majority of Israel Jewish.

Intelligence has its limits; my father could never overcome his animosity toward Germans - though he conceded that this generation bore no collective guilt. Yisrael Beiteinu learned their fear from centuries of pogroms and purges in Russia - I may not think we're exceptional in our suffering, but they do.

By and large, Americans think the USA is exceptional - that we're not an imperial power and that we invaded Iraq to spread democracy and liberty throughout the middle east. If we suffer the fate of Great Britian, we should count ourselves lucky.

[bemildred]

42. "Intelligence has its limits".

So does fear.

[Englander]

43. Kinda like the 'silent majority'?

By and large, Americans think the USA is exceptional - that we're not an imperial power and that we invaded Iraq to spread democracy and liberty throughout the middle east. If we suffer the fate of Great Britian, we should count ourselves lucky.

?click

[grassfed]

41. how dare you

dismiss the Irish famine as a drought? very stupid and very revealing on many levels.

[IntiRaymi]

47. Here, read a few things on the Irish Famine:

Interesting to note that, in the midst of a famine that ultimate killed over 1/4 of the irish population, Ireland was exporting food to England (!!!!!!).

The Great Irish Famine

http://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/irish_pf.html

"A nationwide system of ousting the peasantry began to set in, with absentee landlords, and some resident landlords as well, more determined than ever to rid Ireland of its 'surplus' Irish."
....
In 1841 the population of Ireland was given as 8,175,124. "It is almost certain that, owing to geographical difficulties and the unwillingness of the people to be registered, the census of 1841 gave a total smaller than the population in fact was. Officers engaged in relief work put the population as much as 25 per cent higher; land lords distributing relief were horrified when providing, as they imagined, food for 60 persons, to find more than 400." By 1851, after the famine, the population had dropped to 6,552,385. "The census commissioners calculated that, at the normal rate of increase, the total should have been 9,018,799 so the loss of at least 2.5 million persons had taken place."(34.)
....
In 1848 Sir Charles Wood, the English Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote to an Irish landlord: "I am not at all appalled by your tenantry going. That seems to be a necessary part of the process...We must not complain of what we really want to obtain."
....
James Wilson, the Editor of the British publication, The Economist, responded to Irish pleas for assistance during the famine by saying, "It is no man's business to provide for another."

.............

And you thought the germans invented the process?

[IntiRaymi]

21. That mindset is retrograde.

The insulation of jews from society at large will result in problems. Nothing like an Us vs. Them mentality to get things going.

[Fredda Weinberg]

25. We've heard that for centuries

The English tried it, so did the Spaniards ... intolerance is just a cover for hostility that's your problem - not mine.

"society at large" ... what a crap myth. I live in New York City, where we have houses of worship for every ethnicity, signs in dozens of languages and neighborhoods where identity is solidly homogenous.

Lieberman is wrong - but so are you.

[IntiRaymi]

32. Oh, it isn't my problem, at least not in this case.

I have no issues with judaism, or jews, for who knows what my background has in store. But what anyone can do is observe, and compare. One should be able to make obvious statements without getting accused (again, and again) of being an antisemite.
Humanity is tribal, perhaps almost evolutionarily so. And there are precious few successes in this realm (New York being a shining example - Chicago as well, and I am sure elsewhere).

Exceptio probat regulam? Not in this case.

Jews have been persecuted for centuries. They have endured particularly heinious atrocities in Spain, Russia, and especially at the hands of Germany. However, the roots of these problems is tribalism, and what use you can get out of it, if you are a despicable politician, out to divide and conquer.
No, it is not a defect that judaism is a milenarian culture, but let's not be dumb, and pretend that water flows uphill, ok?

[cali]

37. You just stumbled

into my area of study- Millenarianism. And boy, are you wrong. Judaism is not a Millenarian culture. Does it have some fringe Millenarian tendencies? Sure, but it absolutely is not a fundamental part of the religion or the culture.

Here's a primer for you:

Millenarian sects are:

a) collective in the sense that is is to be enjoyed by the faithful as a collectivity;

b) terrestrial, in the sense that it is to be realized on this earth and not in some other worldly heaven;

c) imminent, in the sense that it is to come both soon and suddenly;

d) total, in the sense that it is utterly to transform life on earth so that the new dispensation will be no mere improvement on the present, but perfection itself;

e) miraculous, in the sense that it is to be accomplished by, or with the help of supernatural agencies.

The above is from Norman Cohn's introduction to "In Pursuit of the Millennium". Cohn is a renowned British Historian, and the book is an examination of medieval millenarianism, though Cohn's expertise extends far beyond medieval millenarianism. Millenarianism springs from Christian eschatology, though anyone who's done any serious examination of millenarian movements, would be quick to note that use of the word has expanded beyond Christianity. As Cohn says: "In recent years it has become customary amongst anthropologists and sociologists, and to some extent among historians too, to use 'millenarianism' in more liberal sense."

Claiming that Judaism is a millenarian culture is simply inaccurate. You won't find credible experts in theology, history, sociology or anthropology, agreeing with you on that claim.

[IntiRaymi]

39. Wrong translation from Spanish.

In spanish, the word 'cultura milenaria' refers to a culture that's been around for thousands of years - precisely what judaism is. But me, being a fool, decided to translate it directly, and ended up 'stumbling' into your field of study.
:D

[breakaleg]

3. He's certainly starting out with a bang.

[davidinalameda]

4. wonder if he was in favor of the old South Africa as well

[Phredicles]

5. Well, if you assume everyone is as odious and disagreeable as

Liebertoad, sure it's hard to imagine people living together peacably...

[jaysunb]

6. Are he and Joe related ?

n/t

[Scurrilous]

7. No, I don't think so...

...I've read nothing about them being related.

[angry_chuck]

9. More misdirection is all we need

The Turks and Greeks share one island, the same island. The jews will kick the palestinians out of Jerusalem in a heartbeat and 'seperate' them to no avail. They each want the same land for different reasons. Could you share a house with someone who you believe hates you and all you stand for?

[Freedom_from_Chains]

11. That seems to ignore the history of Jews and Muslims living

together very well during most of the middle ages. Certainly better than how the Jews and Christians faired.

[oblivious]

12. "Lieberman said he believes that minorities are the biggest problem in the world"

Let's just call him a raving lunatic and leave it at that.

[cali]

17. I'm not sure we can leave it at that

If he wasn't part of the Israeli government, sure. But he is, and he's a vile racist.

[bemildred]

19. Clearly, he has no sense of irony. nt

[oblivious]

22. LOL. Exactly.

[IntiRaymi]

34. Aren't jews a minority in the USA?

Avigdor Lieberman sounds like a Nazi!

[w4rma]

13. Lieberman is a racist. (nt)

[Peace Patriot]

14. What hateful, militaristic, dead end talk! Israel needs to do just the

opposite, fully integrate into its region and become a positive force within it. This medieval fortress, bristling with armaments, surrounded by hostile neighbors, that the rightwing has created, is untenable. The rightwing always dreams of separation, exclusion, limiting care to me and mine, hostility between peoples and cultures, because those that have wealth and power always benefit from these things. White badges, yellow badges, pink badges--mark out the differences, dole out the privileges, control, contain, build walls. No Arabs allowed here. No Jews allowed there.

Dream, Israel. Dream of something better than differences and walls.

[Scurrilous]

15. Link to Telegraph article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/wmid05.xml

[oblivious]

16. "former bouncer - proposed to bus thousands of Palestinians to the Dead Sea and drown them there"

And he's in charge of Iranian policy.

Madmen with nukes. The world is doomed.

[Scurrilous]

20. Olmert: Lieberman's opinions do not reflect mine

Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman stirred up a storm when he called for Israel to adopt Cyprus model of separating populations when it comes to Israel's Arabs. Olmert: 'That is not the position of the government and Avigdor knows that'

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3323915,00.html

<snip>

"Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, speaking at Sunday's cabinet meeting, addressed Minister Avigdor Lieberman's statements regarding the separation of Jewish and Arab populations: "Lieberman's opinions do not reflect mine. That's not the government's position and Avigdor knows that. I am in favor of Arab citizens having equal rights and I never hid that. So long I am prime minister this will be the policy of the State of Israel," Olmert said.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz slammed Lieberman's comments about Israel's Arab citizens, saying they cause unnecessary unrest. Peretz also said that the government should condemn his statements.

Labor ministers announced that they categorically denounce Lieberman's statements. "His statements are unacceptable and completely insubmissible. I hope the prime minister conducts a thorough inquiry into this matter," said Tourism Minister Isaac Herzog."

[oblivious]

23. But the fact is Olmert did invite him into the Knesset, so you gotta wonder...

[IntiRaymi]

35. Such silliness.

And why, then, did he add this moron to his cabinet?

Is political expediency that important to this fool, Olmert?
By adding Lieberman to his cabinet, he opened himself up to this sort of monkey business.

[Lurking Dem]

38. To keep Nuttyyahoo out?

Likud wanted in the coalition and Olmert wanted Labor.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/778803.html

[IntiRaymi]

40. I am not too interested in internal Israeli politics.

But, I am sure you are right.

[Englander]

44. Elon on Lieberman;

And 'explanation' of their respective racist views;

'Let them move to Bulgaria. They're wanted there
By Gideon Alon

There is a huge gap between MK Benny Elon's pleasant personality and his extremist political views. Elon, the son of former of Supreme Court vice president Menahem Elon, is not belligerent, nor does he coarsely attack his political rivals. He speaks softly, even when he is spelling out his somewhat delusionary plan for the voluntary transfer of the Palestinians in the territories.

>snip

Were you surprised by Avigdor Lieberman's decision to join the government?

Elon: "No. Lieberman is moving toward the center. Lieberman is ready for the establishment of a Palestinian state. In my opinion, his proposal that the border be drawn at Karkur and that Umm al-Fahm be part of the Palestinian state is populist and irresponsible. But his moving toward the center is not ideological. In the past as well, on genuine issues, he did not demonstrate consistency. On the eve of the elections he said he was willing to leave his home in Nokdim."

Will he remain in the government for only a short period of time?

"Lieberman joined the government under the assumption that by the force of his personality, he will be able to effect change. He mistakenly thinks that the job the government offered him is an executive one. He will soon discover his mistake, because he will not be able to operate in the strategic arena. His membership in the government will not last long."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/784097.html

[bemildred]

45. That one on Benny was a pretty interesting read. nt

[bemildred]

46. Gays, Arabs and all the rest

It seems like there is no connection between the issues: the minister for strategic affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, who shared his racist fantasies with an important British newspaper, and the ultra-Orthodox threatening violence in Jerusalem and causing the police to be ready to capitulate. Indeed, the multicultural fashion dictates that every group with its own characteristics is a "sector" (and thus gays and lesbians are also a "sector"), and so it seems that these are two separate sectarian problems.

In effect, the two phenomena - Lieberman's uncontrollable comments and the rampaging of the ultra-Orthodox - are the tip of the same iceberg. Not only because of the brutal and boorish common denominator linking the two, but also primarily because the agitators involved are suddenly accumulating enormous power. Lieberman is transparent, methodical and precise; he has never hidden his views or tried to glamorize them. Even his Cyprus dream is nothing new. In addition, similar comments and even more drastic ones have already been heard from ministers and leaders of political movements in Israel.

What is the difference between what the late minister Rehavam Ze'evi said and wrote, and Lieberman's Cyprus proposal? Only the context. Ze'evi, an unimportant minister, was active in an environment not prepared to get swept away by such hallucinations. Lieberman, who is now a senior representative of the State of Israel, is active in a supportive environment that is thirsty for his innovations and ideas. Since he excels in understanding the situation in the field, he sets off another bombshell each time - not just to shock, and certainly not just to get more votes (the voters throng to him anyway as long as the despair from Israel and Iran intensifies), but to change the discourse and insert his principles into it.

From the depths of the fear and confusion of the Israeli public, Lieberman brings to light the yearning for a strong man (a presidential system), the fear of becoming refugees again (the Iranian threat), and the exilic longing for ethnic purity (the Cyprus model). These ideas have rapidly acquired a solid base. One can assume that in the next elections, Lieberman will reap the fruits of a strengthened position.

Haaretz