Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: cosa significa il successo di Lieberman

http://www.slate.com/id/2210633/pagenum/all/
Israel Has Already Decided
It doesn't like any of the candidates.
By Shmuel Rosner
Posted Friday, Feb. 6, 2009, at 7:14 AM ET
In the 2003 Israeli election, a party with the promising name Shinui
(the Hebrew word for change) surged in the polls and ended up with 15
seats—out of 120—in the Knesset, Israel's parliament. It was a huge
success for a party with no real grass-roots organization, especially
one with a simplistic message and no clear position on the most
important issues of the day—war and peace, security and settlements,
Palestine and Iran. Shinui rode a wave of anti-religious sentiment
among the Israeli middle class. A vote for Shinui was a vote of
protest against the ruling powers' tendency to pay a heavy political
price for votes from ultra-Orthodox parties. It didn't last very long.
In the next election, Shinui practically disappeared. Israeli voters—
impatient, restless, disillusioned—had moved on to the next trendy
cause.
It's a familiar phenomenon in the messy world of Israeli politics. The
chaotic nature of the parliamentary system, compounded by
complications related to Israel's state of affairs, multiplied by
Israel's leadership crisis of recent years, all have contributed to
the rise of these one-hit-wonder parties.
In the run-up to the Feb. 10 election, the party that everybody's
talking about is Israel Beitenu (Israel Is Our Home), headed by
Russian-born strongman Avigdor Lieberman. The party mostly emphasizes
a secular nationalist vision and demands that all citizens must
demonstrate their loyalty to the principle of a "Jewish and democratic
state" before they can enjoy the benefits of citizenship. Israel
Beitenu's TV commercials boast that "only Lieberman speaks Arabic"—
that is, he is the only candidate who understands how to deal with the
problem of disloyalty he attributes to many members of the Israeli
Arab minority.
But there's an even more significant group—albeit a quieter one—and
that's the party of the undecided. According to polls, Israel Beitenu
is predicted to get 16-19 mandates, that is, around 15 percent of the
vote. The undecideds have made a more impressive showing. On
Wednesday, professor Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University, one of
Israel's leading pollsters, told me that less than a week before
election day, 20 percent of Israelis haven't yet decided who they are
going to vote for. About one-quarter of them can be pushed into
indicating a preference, but the rest will not budge: They just don't
know. For a country like Israel—with its high voter turnout and
tradition of strong political views—this is an unusually high rate of
undecideds.
So, there are two apparently different groups: those who know exactly
what they want—a strong leader ready to pick a fight with the world
and especially with those he considers to be Israel's "enemy within,"
namely Israeli Arabs; a man of bluntness and toughness. And then there
are those whom don't know what they want: Do they want a woman known
for originality, honesty, and freedom from corruption (Foreign
Minister Tzipi Livni of Kadima) or a man known for being a great
speaker—a bright, if contrarian, thinker with an irresistible habit of
making himself the enemy of all elites (Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu)?
Fuchs told me that the largest group of undecideds is the segment of
people who do not yet know if they'll vote for right-of-center Likud
or centrist Kadima.
In fact, however, these seemingly different groups are really one and
the same: They are all disillusioned voters. Just days before election
day, Israelis have already made one decision: They don't like the
candidates. That's why so many would vote for "something
else" (Lieberman); that's why so many don't yet know who to vote for;
that's why those who do know split their votes not between two main
parties, as normal countries do, but among four or even five major
parties. Likud, Kadima, Labor, Israel Beitenu, and possibly Shas, the
Sephardic religious party, will be in the range of 15-25 Knesset
seats. (The polls currently show Shas with 10 or 11 mandates, but the
party traditionally performs better in elections than in polls.)
Of course, on election night the focus will not be on the undecided;
all eyes will be on Lieberman. He is successful for many of the same
reasons the other candidates aren't. Yes, his message of "no loyalty,
no citizenship" has troubling undertones of racism, alienation, and
the despair of people who no longer believe that Jews and Muslims can
live together peacefully on the same piece of land. But it's also
possible to find some encouraging signs in Lieberman's apparent
popularity.
Israeli voters' political choices are very complicated, and Israel's
strategic challenges can seem overwhelming. Lieberman's message is
straightforward and unapologetic. On Monday, I watched him speak at a
conference. He sarcastically mocked the British for criticizing Israel—
they traveled thousands of miles to fight for the goats in the
Falkland Islands and have the chutzpah to question our battles!
Lieberman's clear message and combative tone are an appealing contrast
to the murky propositions of the three contenders for the prime
ministership—Netanyahu, Livni, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak of the
Labor Party. Lieberman has the appeal of the candidate willing to cut
the Gordian knot.
Still, while Lieberman's rise is testimony to Israel's leadership
shortage, it is also the best possible proof that the traditional
Israeli right wing has been dismantled. Those people and parties who
still believe in "greater Israel" and in "safeguarding the
settlements" and in opposing the future Palestinian state are almost
gone. There's still the National Union—which mostly represents
settlers, classic right-wing voters, and religious Zionists—and some
members of Likud and Shas still believe in the old slogans. But
generally speaking, Lieberman is killing them politically. They are
the past; he is the future.
That's because Lieberman realized that sentiments have changed.
Israelis are still hawkish, skeptical, and suspicious of "the Arabs."
But they are also realistic. They know that Israel will not be able to
keep up the occupation forever; in fact, they long ago gave up on most
of the settlements, and they couldn't care less if and when
Palestinians have their own state, just as long as it is peaceful and
minds its own business. Understanding all this, Lieberman founded the
right-wing party for the post-occupation debate.
His message isn't about keeping the land—because most Israelis
understand that game is over. Lieberman focuses on keeping a Jewish
majority and a cohesive society after the land is gone. He wants Arabs
(and radical ultra-Orthodox Jews) to demonstrate their loyalty or lose
their citizenship. He wants Arab towns to be part of the Palestinian
territory, and he hopes to exchange their territory for land with no
people or for land mostly occupied by Jews.
The rise of this far-right, annoyingly in-your-face politician can be
seen as a disastrously racist—some have even uttered the word fascist—
turn in Israel's political life. But as ironic as it might seem, it's
also possible to see Lieberman's message as a sign of maturity in
Israeli politics: The right's causes have been updated. They no longer
include holding onto occupied land.
---
"E certo che sono un crimine di guerra"  (Luca Logi / rodewalder /
Golda Meir, febbraio 2008)
http://raionim.blogspot.com/2009/01/certo-che-i-qassam-sono-pericolosi_05.html

 Israeli politics
eh, è proprio da persone mature votare fascista...