When Lieberman Gets It Right, He Gets It Right!
Firstly, I would declare my political allegiance, which is firmly in the Religious Zionist camp. That said, when Avigdor Lieberman gets it right, he gets it right! After entering the Knesset in 1999, he has served in multiple government roles, including two stints as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2012 and 2013 to 2015. Avigdor Lieberman is a staunch opponent of three basic Holy Cows held by the United States and most European leaders. That the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main stumbling block to a peaceful Middle East, that the burning issue is one of territory and not ideological-religious makeup, thirdly, that a two-state solution based on the 1967 disputed lines will bring an end to hostilities between Israelis and Arab nationalists.
Lieberman resigned as Defence Minister in 2018 over what he saw as weak policies on Hamas and predicted an October 7 type attack in 2016. His warnings were dismissed and not given the attention they deserved. In hindsight, the refusal to take Lieberman’s warnings seriously reflects the same arrogant disregard for intelligence warnings prior to the October 7 catastrophe leading to some 1,300 murdered Israelis and 240 Kidnapped men, women and children, many still held captive after 100 days of conflict, between Israel and Arab nationalists.
Lieberman’s calls for military action on Israel’s northern borders and the total eradication of Hamas in Gaza is once again Lieberman getting it right. For all his faults, his leadership and the capacity to read a situation correctly before it happens are sorely needed today in Israel’s war cabinet. Avigdor Lieberman would bring a wealth of experience as a past Minister of Defence from 2016 to 2018. A Minister who has proven his ability to put the nation before personal ambition when, on November 14, 2018, he resigned as Defence Minister over a ceasefire in Gaza he believed was tantamount to “surrendering to terror.”
In my opinion, Lieberman rejects the childish argument about moral value…Don’t you dare punish the innocent as so much superficial hypocrisy. In war, all innocents and the truth become its first victims. There is no difference between defence and attack. If you choose not to harm the innocent, you will be faced with the dilemma of your mortality. If you don’t want to die, shoot and spare the tears.
October 7 asks the question, is it moral that one side can commit horrendous crimes and murder while the other is forbidden to react? That question is being asked at this very moment in the Hague, Netherlands, of the Jewish State. Israel is in the dock, being stripped of its moral right to defend its people from terror, rape, and murder of the most heinous kind. Meanwhile, the criminals who perpetrated October 7 are being rehabilitated, with their crimes erased from human memory.
This is what Avigdor Lieberman is proposing in response to October 7, a deterrent value that could save Jewish lives. Surely, this is defensible from a Jewish point of view?
