Who's scared of Lieberman?
The real danger is that people may think Lieberman speaks on behalf of Bibi
The hero of the talkbackers and the man who won 15 Knesset seats only because he proved that he knows how to hate Arabs better than anyone else is at best being perceived as an insignificant politician of no influence, and at worse as a clown. Even those who harshly criticize him know that they are using Lieberman as a platform to slam Israel in general and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in particular.
Lieberman is not the issue; he is the excuse.
Lieberman is basically an educated and thinking man. He is even friendly on occasion, a cultured man, and also possesses a real and high-quality sense of humor. The problem is that between his threats to bomb Iran and Egypt’s Aswan dam to talk about toppling Syrian President Assad, Lieberman loses what’s left of the credit he’s been given; he turns into a thug in a suit, an unflattering combination of an overly impassioned Mideastern chatterbox and a delusional leader.
To some extent, Lieberman has turned into the secular equivalent of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Every few weeks, the honorable rabbi also utters statements that slightly shock everyone who hears them and also make them laugh a little. The media report it with great enthusiasm and astonishment, and the rabbi’s loyalists quickly explain to us that the problem lies with us, because we simply did not understand what the rabbi meant.
In Rabbi Yosef’s case, ridiculous statements about women, gays, or leftists are usually received with a forgiving smile. In Lieberman’s case, we’re overcome by horror.
Is Bibi a coward?
We can of course dismiss our foreign minister’s attempts to set the region on fire and ignore them. I am convinced that even Syria’s strange leader, Bashar Assad, is not about to move tanks and call up reserve soldiers when Lieberman threatens to topple him. On the other hand, the real danger inherent in the words uttered by Lieberman is that someone may think that he is speaking on behalf of Netanyahu.
The problem is that Netanyahu, instead of silencing his rogue minister and calling him to order, not to mention firing him, responds by meekly muttering some half-clarification, without showing real signs of objection or resistance.
There are two options here: Either Netanyahu in fact endorses Lieberman’s words and the foreign minister is the person who executes the PM’s policy, or else, Bibi is simply scared; scared of Sara and scared of Avigdor. The prime minister may be a great hero when it comes to the Iranian threat, but he is a little coward when it comes to domestic threats. In any case, the codename here is fear.
A prime minister who dispatches others to voice his own messages is a coward; a person who lacks the courage to tell those people to shut up when they undermine national interests is a coward.
I prefer to think that Netanyahu does not really think that the solution to our problems is to humiliate ambassadors, threaten presidents, and prove that we’ve got a bigger one. And if this is the case, the time has come for him to stand up to Lieberman and issue a last warning before dismissing him.
Yet if, heaven forbid, the prime minister thinks that Lieberman is right and fit for the job, I prefer our foreign minister then. He will at least lead us to oblivion with a little smile and plenty of humor.
