The New Israeli Foreign Minister: Is the Devil That Horrible?

The devil is not as horrible, as it is drawn, claims a famous Russian proverb. This may well be the case for Avigdor Liberman, the new Israeli Foreign Minister, which is by chance a native Russian speaker. Since the new Israeli government has taken the duty, about three weeks ago, he is definitely the one who sets the tone about what this government is doing and thinking. His image, as of a brute-force politician, a hardcore nationalist with harsh manners and rigid speech has not changed much after the elections. Both worldwide media, and central-leftist media at home have consistently presented him as the worst nightmare of the Israeli foreign politics in this sensitive time of artificial respirations attempts to the peace process. Is the devil that horrible?

Indeed, since his appontment to the post Liberman has not fallen over backwards to change the image. He consistently releases harsh announcements on the necessity of the bilateral steps to revive the peace process, the unacceptance by Israel of the return right for the Palestinians and other traditional hawkish positions of the Israeli right wings. A devil, indeed.

But under the surface the things might well be a bit more sophisticated. The Egyptian Intelligence Service Minister, Omar Suleiman, has out of the sudden agreed to meet Liberman during his visit to Israel. The reluctance to do it, as well as general threatening tone coming from Egypt on Liberman's account, were due to the unrefined, almost rude, language Liberman afforded to himself when criticizing Egyptian President few weeks ago. Knowing the weight of the verbal assault in the Middle East, Suleiman had probably a very good reason to change his mind and meet Liberman at the end of the day. Moreoever, the meeting is reported to be in a positive spirit, and Liberman himself as a very moderate and well-tempered counterpart. The coup de grace to the scepticim regarding the future of Liberman-Egypt relationship was the official invitation of the Foreign Minister to Egypt that followed the meeting.

Another major spot of the activity of the new minister was the anti-racist UN conference Derben 2, held in Geneva last week. Viewing the event as an arena of international collisions on question of classification of Israel as a racist state, last year the Israeli officials have done their best to persuade the influencing members of the worldwide community to ignore. The success was varying, when the bravest ones agreed to ignore the whole event, whereas others who felt solidarity but to a lower degree, were satisfied with leaving the room during anti-Israeli speeches. The event this year was a perfect chance and in the perfect timing to show the disgrace of western leaders towards the agressive rhetorics of the new Israeli Foreign Minister. This chance was not taken, US and Germany cancelled their participation whereas the majoirity of European delegations have boycotted the speech of Iran President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The media reported intensive correspondence between the Israeli Foreign Minister office and his European counterparts before the conference. These probably contained more than only political reverands.

History teaches us that in the Middle East what is said is often weakly unrelated to what is done. My bet is that we should wait with the judgements on what is said by Liberman until a clearer picture of what is going to be done by him. A new hawkish Foreign Minister leveraging by agressive rhetorics his starting positions before a round of the crucial for the state negotiatons can hardly be a surprise. Maybe at the end the devil will show up to be not that horrible, as he was drawn.