Lieberman. 'Going down slippery slope of dark racism'
Photo: Eli Mandelbaum
Yigal Sarna
Let's swap Lieberman and keep Wadi Ara
Op-ed: Foreign minister's proposal to transfer Arab communities to a new Palestinian state is just aimed at inflaming tensions
There is a wonderful Hebrew term - "a quarrelsome person." A. Lieberman
is such a person. As long as it's within the community, who cares? When it turns into a nationwide problem, it's serious trouble.
This time Lieberman is again bringing up a stale proposal for swapping land
filled with people. I am in favor of land exchanges – sand for sand, something based on reciprocity. But Lieberman, as always, has to leave a poisonous sting in the tail of every proposal. He is suggesting transferring Wadi Ara, with all its populated villages and small towns, to the Palestinian Authority. That wadi that Israel
insisted upon so much in its agreements with the Jordanians more than 60 years ago, so that it would not be left with a waist that is too narrow and a belly that is too soft.
Once in a while, this angry-faced person, who claims to be living in paradise, comes up with proposals meant to turn life into hell on earth. Violent proposals made by a person who has no interest in peace for anyone but himself in his many comfortable travels beyond what was once called the Iron Curtain. His proposals are always aimed at inflaming tensions, as if they were rage, hatred and anxiety – the stuff A. Lieberman is fed in his eternal paradise.
Israeli by Choice
Israel Moskowitz
Residents of predominantly Arab 'Triangle' see Lieberman land swap plan as unrealistic, say most would move to stay in Israel: 'The population won't agree to give up their citizenship'
If that is the case, Lieberman is also proposing to harm a security interest.
By the way, comments similar to his made us drive American immigrant Meir Kahane out of the Knesset running. Now the foreign minister is making them. This is enough to show just how far we have gone down the slippery slope of dark racism.
So if it were in my hands, I would be glad to carry out a much less dramatic and inflammatory population exchange. A. Lieberman, who immigrated at the age of 20 from Kishinev in Moldova, could remain in his home in the settlement of Nokdim as a Jewish enclave under the PA's control beyond the West Bank fence, while my friend, lawyer and human rights activist Hussein Abu Hussein, whose great-grandfather was born in Wadi Ara, would stay put as an Israeli citizen working frequently in the PA territories. Thus everyone's problems would be solved.
