Yes, there’s the Avigdor Lieberman who wants to behead bad guys, mandate loyalty oaths and pay Arabs to leave the country — the one who has made fun of the disabled and dodged a fraud charge.
But Israel’s two-time foreign minister and its next defense minister is not quite the cartoon he’s made out to be.
As defense minister, Lieberman will bring to two the number of Cabinet ministers who have seriously considered a two-state outcome: himself and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is more deferential in the U.S.-Israel relationship than Netanyahu. And his posture toward Israel’s Arab neighbors is not all threat.
Lieberman has served as a voice for moderation, but his rhetoric has undercut his apparent restraint.
On the Palestinian front, Lieberman has spoken seriously and extensively about peace and has in fact embraced two states, though he rankled disability advocates a year ago when he called two-state advocates “autistic.”
One of his most radical ideas: negotiate holistically by making peace with the Arab world and the Palestinians simultaneously. It’s a plan that would allow the Palestinians greater leverage, should they coordinate with other Arab nations to extract concessions. That’s one reason Netanyahu insists on direct talks, where Israel holds more cards. But, the thinking goes, it also could lead to a more stable and permanent peace in the region.
“The security advantage means cooperation with moderate nations, exchanging intelligence, joint efforts,” Lieberman told the website Al-Monitor in 2014. “I am convinced that one day, we’ll have embassies in Riyadh, in Kuwait, in the Gulf States and other places. The combination of our initiative, technology and knowledge with their tremendous financial reserves can together change the world.”
His proposal to swap heavily populated areas — Arab-heavy regions of Israel bordering the West Bank with Jewish-heavy portions beyond the Green Line — has stirred controversy. Lieberman tries to make it sound like common sense, but not every Israeli Arab wants to live in a Palestinian state.
Lieberman has also proposed paying Israeli Arabs to leave, a policy that would compromise his desire for Israel not to be an international “punching bag,” as he told Al-Monitor.
Yuli Tamir, a former education minister, wrote in the Israeli daily Haaretz last year that Lieberman’s plan sets dangerous precedents by positing that minorities cannot exist with majorities, and by suggesting that majority Arab areas of Israel should seek sovereignty.
“If Israel consents to discuss a redrawing of its borders based on demographic criteria, it probably won’t be long before the Arabs of the Galilee (where they are currently a majority) and of the Negev (where in certain areas there is an Arab majority) may also question their belonging to Israel,” she wrote.
Regarding relations with the United States, Lieberman is known to be critical of Netanyahu’s at-times confrontational posture, believing the Israeli leader too often seems eager to stand up to Israel’s most powerful and important ally.
Martin Indyk, who led the U.S. team that tried to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace in 2013-2014, said this week on Twitter that Lieberman was easier to work with than the man he is replacing, Moshe Ya’alon, who has been lionized by the left in the current political crisis as a defender of democracy.
“Lieberman says reprehensible things, but I remember that he supported [Secretary of State John] Kerry’s peace efforts when Ya’alon was insulting him,” Indyk said.