Lieberman doesn't get it
Rightist minister fails to grasp that leftist protest stems from a sense of moral responsibility, not hostility
Avigdor Lieberman last week broke records of vulgarity and rudeness in his article 'Silence of the hypocrites.' The minister's conclusion is somewhat vague, yet it is hard to mistake the threatening tone emanating from the following statement: "Democracy must not permit its tolerance to be used to eliminate it, and must not accept that rights it grants will be used for self-destruction. We must not resign ourselves to the attempts to erode us from within, and we can only wonder over the hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness displayed by the Left and Arab Knesset members."
Why does the learned minister attribute to the Left, both Arabs and Jews, the aspiration to eliminate the State? The answer appears in the article's headline: "Hypocrisy." It's a fact: The Left protests when the IDF hurts Palestinians but remains silent when Palestinians hurt other Palestinians. The first conclusion: The Left is hypocritical. It protests only (or mostly) against Israel.
The question this raises is "why"? What is the origin of this hypocrisy? This question leads Lieberman to a second conclusion: The Left is hostile to the State. For him, this is the only explanation to the Left's silence when Palestinians hurt other Palestinians. In other words, they don't care about Palestinians. Their only objective is to "erode us from within."
Guilt and shame
What's amazing in Lieberman's argument is not the barrage of insults he chose in order to present it, but rather, his (genuine?) inability to grasp why Israeli citizens cry out, first and foremost, against the injustices committed by Israel, on Israel's behalf, or as a direct result of Israel's policies. We call this moral responsibility, Mr Lieberman.
Hurting a Palestinian is no worse than hurting a resident of Tibet. The assassination of a Palestinian by an IDF soldier is no worse than his assassination by a Hamas man. Yet the Left's protest is not (only) directed at injustice anywhere. It is directed, first and foremost, at the injustices we are responsible for.
Minister Lieberman has lost something very important if he cannot grasp the sense of responsibility, guilt, anger and shame felt by people when their State, army, friends or relatives cause an injustice. As he fails to understand this, all that is left for him is to scream "hypocrisy."
If the Left indeed protests only (or mostly) against Israel, this is no hypocrisy, but rather, an expression of the sense of moral responsibility. Moreover, moral responsibility is not a symptom of hostility to the State. Perhaps in Lieberman's mind a loyal citizen is a cheerleader. Yet the opposite is true.
Lieberman's shtetl
This sense of responsibility and protest stem from a sense of belonging or civic duty. Those who feel belonging (in one sense or another) feel responsible. And those who feel responsible feel shame and objection. And at times, those who feel shame and objection choose to protest.
What does Minister Lieberman want Israeli citizens, both Arabs and Jews, to protest against? Things that happen across the ocean? What other countries or government do or fail to do?
Minister Lieberman does not get this not only because he does not understand what moral responsibility is, but rather, because he fails to understand the meaning of civic duty. For him, the question of responsibility is not even raised.
In Lieberman's shtetl we only care about "who's against each other," "who belongs to whose tribe" and "who's loyal to each other." A good person and a good citizen are nothing more than a loyal subject. Moral responsibility? Civics? Criticism? Alienation? Guilt and shame? All those things apparently undermine democracy. Indeed, Lieberman's democracy is very odd.
Dr Yuval Eylon is a lecturer at the Hebrew University's History and Jewish Studies department
