Israeli Arab On Lieberman: We Got What We Deserved

Ali Zahalka, the principal of an elementary school in Kfar Kara, has an op-ed on YnetNews.com:

Ali Zahalka slams Israeli-Arab leadership for radicalism that boosted Avigdor Lieberman

The Arab-Israeli leadership is increasing pushing us into anti-Israel radicalism. This extremism climaxed with the “Death to the Jews” chants during Operation Cast Lead. Here is what I have to say to those leaders: Look at what you’ve done.

We did not cry out in the face of rocket attacks on southern residents that went on for years. We did not cry out in the face of the suffering of our brethren, Gaza residents, who have been brutally repressed by Hamas. Yet we cried out, of all things, in the face of an onslaught against the most radical element in the Arab world.

The Arab-Israeli leadership won’t connect, heaven forbid, to the moderate Arab elements such as Egypt, Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, or Jordan. These are of no interest to it. We saw Azmi Bishara, who left, and we saw where he went to.

I don’t need to explain what Hamas is all about. The Egyptians and Palestinian Authority officials are doing it better than me. They ask Hamas how it can talk about victory when the war against Israel – which it sought and advanced – was managed on the backs and blood of thousands of Palestinians that were killed, wounded, or lost their property, while Hamas’ leadership stayed at fortified bunkers or in Damascus.

Read the whole thing.

This topic, Lieberman vs. Israel's Arabs is one that Daniel Pipes wrote about:

Lieberman has introduced a new issue into Israeli domestic politics—the place of the country’s Arab citizens. Noting their increasingly public disloyalty to the state, he has argued that they should lose their citizenship and their right to live in Israel unless they declare their loyalty to the Jewish state.

This topic has clearly struck a nerve among the Israeli Jewish electorate and prompted responsible Arab voices to acknowledge that Israeli Arabs have “managed to make the Jewish public hate us.” As I wrote in 2006, Israel's “final enemy” may finally be joining the battle. The consequences of this for the Arab-Israeli conflict as a whole could well be profound.

In that 2006 article, Pipes addressed the issue of the not-so-responsible Arab voices within Israel, causing him to conclude:

The diametrically opposed proposals of Future Vision and Mr. Lieberman are opening bids in a long negotiating process that usefully focus attention on a topic too long sidelined. Three brutally simple choices face Israelis: either Jewish Israelis give up Zionism; or Muslim Israelis accept Zionism; or Muslim Israelis don't remain Israeli for long.** The sooner Israelis resolve this matter, the better.

** Some readers have interpreted this phrase incorrectly. By proposing that Muslim Israelis won't "remain Israeli for long," I was referring to the possible withdrawal of their citizenship, such as proposed by Avigdor Lieberman, not their physical removal from the State of Israel.

Read the whole thing.

In trying to woo Lieberman into her coalition, Livni seems to think that Lieberman is not absolutely dedicated to his stand on Israeli Arabs. Be that as it may--if his statements on the issue are not just talk and political opportunism, it will at the very least bring an important issue (not that Israel doesn't have enough of them) to the forefront.

Note: I just noticed on Memeorandum that Israel Matzav has a post that The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Bibi and Livni will join together to form a coalition government--effectively freezing Lieberman out.

Check out Israel Matzav's analysis.

Arutz7 is also reporting about the Likud - Kadima coaltion and notes:

The two parties comprise 55 Knesset seats, leaving the Likud the option of completing the government with religious and strongly nationalist parties or Israel Is Our Home (Yisrael Beiteinu).

Zahalka writes about Lieberman's Israel Beitenu in his op-ed:

If a party was similarly inciting against Jews overseas, those same Lieberman supporters would probably cry out “anti-Semitism.”

Maybe Netanyahu and Livni in the end decided that Lieberman was more of a liability than a kingmaker.

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