ON THE first day of the new Israeli government, the fog cleared: it’s a Lieberman government.

The day started with a celebration at the President’s office. All the members of this bloated government – 30 ministers and 8 deputy ministers – were dressed up in their best finery and posed for a group photo. Binyamin Netanyahu read an uninspired speech, which included the worn-out cliches that are necessary to set the world at ease: the government is committed to peace, it will negotiate with the Palestinian Authority, bla-bla-bla.

Avigdor Lieberman hurried from there to the foreign Office, for the ceremonial change of ministers. He, too, made a speech – but it was not a routine speech at all.

“Si vis pacem, para bellum – if you want peace, prepare for war,” declared the new Foreign Minister. When a diplomat quotes this ancient Roman saying, the world pays no attention to the first part, but only to the second. Coming from the mouth of the already infamous Lieberman, it was a clear threat: the new government is entering upon a path of war, not of peace.

With this sentence, Lieberman negated Netanyahu’s speech and made headlines around the world. He confirmed the worst apprehensions connected with the creation of this government.

Not content with quoting the Romans, he explained specifically why he
used this motto. Concessions, he said, do not bring peace, but quite
the reverse. The world respected and admired Israel when it won the
Six-day war.

Two fallacies in one sentence. Returning occupied territory is not a
“concession”. When a thief is compelled to return stolen property, or
when a squatter vacates an apartment that does not belong to him, that
is not a “concession”. And the admiration for Israel in 1967 came from
a world that saw us as a little, valiant country that had stood up to
mighty armies out to destroy us. But today’s Israel looks like a brutal
Goliath, while the occupied Palestinians are now viewed as a David with
his slingshot, fighting for his life.

With this speech, Lieberman succeeded in stirring the world, but even
more in humiliating Netanyahu. He exposed the peace declarations of the
new Prime Minister as nothing but soap bubbles.

However, the world (as I wrote last week) wants to be deceived. A White
House spokesman announced that as far as the American administration is
concerned, it is Netanyahu’s bla-bla-bla that counts, not Lieberman’s
straight talking. And Hillary Clinton was not ashamed to call Lieberman
and congratulate him on assuming office.

THAT WAS the first test of strength inside the
Netanyahu-Lieberman-Barak triangle. Lieberman has demonstrated his
contempt for both Netanyahu and Barak.

His political base is secure, because he is the only person who can
topple the government at any moment. After the Knesset debate on the
new government, only 69 members voted for it. If one adds the five
Labor members who “were present but did not participate in the vote” (a
voting device that is less negative than abstaining), the government
has 74 votes. Meaning: without Lieberman’s 15 members, the government
does not command a majority.

His speech was intended to underline this political reality. He as much
as told Netanyahu: If you intend to shut me up, forget it. In fact, he
held a pistol to Netanyahu’s head – in this case, it could be a German
Luger Parabellum, a pistol whose name derives from the Roman saying.

The full extent of Lieberman’s Chutzpah came to the fore only an hour
later. From the Foreign Office ceremony he hurried to another ritual
ministerial handover, this time at the Ministry for Internal Security
(formerly called the Ministry of Police).

What business did he have there? None. It is highly unusual for a
minister to attend such a ceremony in another ministry. True, the new
Internal Security minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, belongs to
Lieberman’s party, but that is not relevant. After all, he did not
attend the similar ceremony at the Immigration Absorption ministry,
where another member of his party was installed.   

The riddle was solved the next day, when the freshly installed Foreign
Minister spent seven hours in a police interrogation room, answering
questions about suspected bribery, money laundering and such, in
connection with huge sums that were transferred from abroad to a
company that belongs to his 23 year old daughter.

That explains his presence at the police ministry ceremony. He was
photographed standing next to the chiefs of the criminal investigation
department. It would be hard to see his appearance there as anything
other than a crude and shameless threat against those who were to
interrogate him on the morrow.

His presence at the ceremony declared: I am the man who appointed the
minister who is now in charge of each of your careers, for promotion or
termination. And the same message went out to the judges: I have
appointed the new Justice Minister, and I shall decide upon the
promotion of all of you.

IT ALL reminds me of a diplomatic reception at the Egyptian embassy
exactly 10 years ago. There I met most of the members of the new
government which had just been formed by Ehud Barak. All of them were
depressed.

Barak had done something that bordered on sadism: he had appointed
every minister to the post most unsuitable for them. The gentle and
polite Professor Shlomo Ben-Ami was appointed Minister of Internal
Security (where he failed miserably during the October 2000
disturbances, when he failed to prevent his police from killing a dozen
Arab citizens.) Yossi Beilin, a diplomat with a very fertile mind, a
natural candidate for the Foreign Office, was appointed Justice
Minister. And so on. In private conversations, all of them vented their
bitterness against Barak.

Now Netanyahu has trumped Barak. The appointment of Lieberman as
Foreign Minister borders on the insane. The appointment of Yuval
Steinitz, a professor of philosophy and a personal friend of
Netanyahu’s wife, Sarah, a man devoid of any economic experience
whatsoever, as Minister of the Treasury, at the height of the world
financial crises, crosses the border of the absurd. The appointment of
the No. 2 Likud leader, Silvan Shalom, to two junior ministries has
made him into a deadly enemy. The creation of a long list of new and
hollow ministries, just to provide jobs to his cronies, has turned the
government into a popular joke (“a Minister for Incoming Mail and a
Minister for Outgoing Mail”).

BUT A government is no joke. And Lieberman is no joke. Far from it.

Already on his first day he made clear that he – he and not Netanyahu
or Barak – will set the style of the new government, both because of
his strong political position and his massive personal presence and
provocative character.

He will maintain this government as long as it suits him and overthrow
it the moment he feels that new elections will give him supreme power.

His rude and violent style is both natural and calculated. It is
intended to threaten, to appeal to the most primitive types in society,
to draw public attention and to assure media coverage. All these are
reminiscent of other countries and other regimes. The first one to
congratulate him was – not by chance – the ex-fascist Foreign Minister
of Italy.

This week, earlier statements by Lieberman were quoted again and again.
He once proposed bombing the huge Aswan dam, an act that would have
caused a terrible Tsunami-like deluge and killed many millions of
Egyptians. Another time he proposed delivering an ultimatum to the
Palestinians: At 8 am we shall bomb your commercial centers, at noon
your gas stations, at 2 pm your banks, and so on.

He has proposed drowning thousands of Palestinian prisoners, offering
to provide the necessary buses to take them to the coast. Another time
he proposed deporting 90% of the 1.2 million Arab citizens of Israel.
Recently he told the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, one of the
staunchest allies of the Israeli leadership, to “go to hell”.

In the recent election campaign his official program included the
demand to annul the citizenship of any Arab who did not prove his
loyalty to Israel. That was also his main slogan. This, too, is
reminiscent of the programs of certain parties in history.

This is coupled with an open hostility to the Israeli “elites” and
everything connected with the founders of the State of Israel.

SOME PEOPLE believe that Lieberman is really not a new phenomenon at
all and that he simply brings to the surface traits that were there all
the time but were buried beneath a thick layer of sanctimonious
hypocrisy.

What is his solution to the historic Israeli-Arab conflict? In the
past, he spoke about a regime of cantons for the Palestinians. They
will live in several enclaves in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
which will be disconnected from each other and dominated by Israel. No
Palestinian State, of course, no Arab East Jerusalem. He even proposed
adding to these cantons some areas of Israel inhabited by a dense
Palestinian population, whose Israeli citizenship would be revoked.

This is not so far from the ideas of Sharon, nor from those of
Netanyahu, who declares that the Palestinians will “govern themselves”
– of course without a state, without a currency, without control of the
border crossings, without harbors and airports.

At the Foreign Office ceremony, Lieberman declared that the Annapolis
agreement, which was dictated by President Bush, is invalid, and that
only the “Road Map” counts. The Foreign Ministry spokesmen hurried to
explain that the “Road Map” also speaks about “two states”. They forgot
to remind the world that the Israeli government had “accepted” the Road
Map only with 14 provisos that rob it of any content. For example: that
Palestinians must “destroy the terrorist infrastructure” (What is that?
Who decides?) before Israel shall make any move, including the freeze
of the settlements.

(That may remind one of the rich Jew in the Shtetl, who dictated his
Last Will and Testament, dividing his wealth between his relatives and
friends and adding: “In case of my death, this Will shall be null and
void.”)

As far as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is concerned, the
controversy between Olmert and Livni on the one side and Netanyahu and
Lieberman on the other is about tactics rather than strategy. The
strategy of all of them is to prevent the creation of a normal, free
and viable Palestinian state. Tzipi Livni was for a tactic of endless
negotiations, decorated with pronouncement about peace and “two
nation-states”. Not for nothing did Netanyahu mock her: You had several
years to achieve agreement with the Palestinians. So why didn’t you?
 
This debate is not about peace, but about a “peace process”.

But in the meantime Tzipi Livni settles into her new job as the Leader
of the Opposition. Her first speeches were vigorous and hard-hitting.
We shall soon know if she can fill this job with content. If having to
speak about peace will convince her of its value and turn her into a
real alternative to the government of Lieberman and Liebermania.