Taybeh: Lieberman doesn't surprise

Lieberman's idea to separate Jews and Arabs did not shake people of Taybeh. They are convinced that his views reflect what many think, but are convinced that it is unrealistic: Jews have a brain

Eyal Ben|Published: 11.10.06 , 16:30

In the week when Avigdor Lieberman revealed his plans to separate between Jews and Arabs similar to the way it was done in Cyprus, we went to Taybeh to meet the people that the new minister wants to expel to the Palestinian Authority. The feelings towards Lieberman range from contempt to ridicule. Israel is their home, they say, is more than Lieberman's.

With the strategic upgrade given to Lieberman lately, Israeli Arabs are afraid that the threat against them has been upgraded as well and has landed in the heart of the Israeli consensus. When a deputy prime minister wants to transfer the Israeli Arabs of the "triangle" to the hands of the Palestinian Authority under the name of "exchange of land," it causes them to change colors.

It's true that Labor has condemned the "Cyprus Plan," and even Olmer has made some faint noise about the issue, for them it is too little. The political reality, to their eyes, has already taken a turn to the worse.

There are, however, those who see the advantage in the new situation. "Lieberman only does the Arabs good," said Fakhim Haj Yihya, a resident of Taybeh and explains the logic behind his words: "He turn the hidden issues and turns it public. It's good that the Arab population knows what the state and the government are fighting against them."

One of the street parliament members we met, Khaled Haj Yihya does not imagine divorcing the Jews like they did in Cyprus. After all he has been married for 26 years to a Jewish woman with daughters named Merav and Dana.

There is no doubt that Lieberman would have been encouraged from the complete excommunication his wife's parents have imposed on their daughter. Even when the third brother Amir stood recently in front of their grandmother and told her he was the grandson she had never seen, she did not speak to him.

-If the Cypriote scenario will materialize, your family will be split in half.

Haj Yihya: "The Jewish People have brains and I don't believe that they will let Lieberman split my family. Nobody can take me out of here. I was born here and I will die here."

At the street parliament, in front of the huge potholes in the dilapidated street, Lieberman's name continued to fly all over: "Lat him study Hebrew first," "He was a gang member," "we got over the Turks, and we will get over him as well."

Only Ahmad Haj Yihya prophesizes a different future: "In five years there will be another prime minister who came from Russia – his name is Gaydamak. Maybe he will be good to the Arabs.