Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman is trying to show himself as the champion of the fringe by calling for a boycott of the Joint Arab List, formed by the merger of three Arab and Arab-Jewish parties.
It was Lieberman who can take “credit” for the higher number of Arab MKs in the new Knesset. Last session, he succeeded in passing into law a bill that raised to 3.25 percent the number of votes a party needs to enter the Knesset. That would have eliminated two of the Arab parties, but their leaders are not as dumb as Lieberman thinks.
They duplicated Yitzchak Herzog and Tzipi Livni’s tricky by simply merging in order to come up with a large number, and they now have 13 MKs, two more in the last Knesset.
Now Lieberman has a new way to get rid of the Arab MKs. He told Army Radio Tuesday they should be boycotted by government ministries and Knesset committees.
Lumping all Arab MKs together, Lieberman alleged “they” slander and undermine Israel and take orders from Qatar. Legal moves could be used to put the traitors into jail, but why retort to the legal system, which is biased to the left, when you can simply fall off the right-end of the Earth and brand all of them as enemies?
Several Arab MKs have been chastised and even banned by the Knesset for outrageous remarks, such as calling IDF and Israel a racist and Nazi-like.
Lieberman argues he is strengthened the hand of moderate Arabs by trying to ban all the Arab MKs.
This is the same Lieberman who said in the beginning of the election campaign, when polls showed his popularity was as low as his attitude, who tried to regain support from the center by suggesting Israel needs to re-think its opposition to a Palestinian Authority state.
That didn’t work, so he crawled back to the right end of the right wing and managed to win enough votes to remain in the Knesset.
No one really takes him seriously anymore, but he is still quotable, especially by the American anti-Netanyahu media and government, which will likely pounce on his latest rant to libel Netanyahu’s proposed coalition, which will include Lieberman’s party.