Who is Avigdor Lieberman?

 Check out link and sources below to learn more about who Avigdor Lieberman really is:

•  Lieberman is out of touch with Jewish experience. He has said “minorities are the biggest problem in the world.”

• He has already sparked an international incident, telling Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak to "go to hell," and forcing the Israeli government to apologize to one of its only friends in the region.    He’s also called for Israel to bomb Egypt’s Aswan Dam.

• Lieberman has repeatedly argued that, “All negotiations based on land for peace are a fatal mistake.”

• Lieberman’s “loyalty oath” proposal would strip away citizens’ civil rights. Need a historic comparison? Think Red Scare of the 1920s or the McCarthy Communist Witch Hunts of the 1950s.

• Lieberman led the effort in Israel’s Central Election Committee to have Israel’s Arab political parties banned from February’s elections; the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the ban.  At the Supreme Court, he told an Arab Knesset Member, “We’ll take care of you the way Hamas took care of you.  That’s how we’ll deal with you. You’re a terrorist.

• During a plenary debate, Lieberman told Arab Knesset Member Wassel Taha, “too bad the Hamas is not in charge of taking care of you…. You are the representative of the terrorists in this House.”  He has also said, “The fate of the collaborators in the Knesset should be similar to that of Nazi collaborators…. At the end of World War II, not only the criminals were executed in the Nuremberg trials, but their collaborators too.  I hope that to be the fate of the collaborators in [the Knesset].”  

• Lieberman supports a form of ethnic cleansing, advocating the transfer of Israeli Arab citizens out of Israel.  (Population transfer is known under international law as a form of “ethnic cleansing.”) He’s argued, “The idea of land for peace is false… the guiding principle has to be exchange of populations and territories…. We will never agree to a definition of ‘two states for two peoples’.”  Lieberman has also been quoted as saying, “Arabs have all their rights in Israel, but they have no right to Eretz Yisrael."

• Referring to “those Israelis and Jews acting against the State abroad,” Lieberman argued that “they can be compared to the Kappos in the concentration camps”.  He has also referred to the pro-peace camp as “Hellenists".

• Lieberman has few friends in the American Jewish community. Prominent American Rabbi Eric Yoffie wrote that Lieberman ran “an outrageous, abominable, hate-filled campaign, brimming with incitement that if left unchecked could lead Israel to the gates of hell.” The head of the American Jewish Committee, David Harris, has said Lieberman’s proposals are "deeply irresponsible at best," and could "chill" Israeli democracy.

• His platform could threaten the historic US-Israel relationship.  For decades, American Jews and other friends of Israel have supported a strong US-Israel relationship because of our shared democratic values and national interests. What happens when a pillar – shared democratic values – is threaten or destroyed?