'Our man in Tel Aviv'

Ten years ago, the eloquent Arab Israeli politician Azmi Bishara sent a chill down Israel's spine and a cautious thrill in the Arab world by announcing his candidacy for prime minister of the Jewish state.

Bishara's making of history as the first Arab to run for prime minister of Israel was cut short when he decided to withdraw early. Running against the more likely candidates for the position, Labour's Ehud Barak and Likud's then incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu, Bishara was under no illusion of winning.

But the demographic reality of Israel that would favour a Jewish candidate was seemingly not what deterred him. It was in fact said that pressure from Israel's Arab neighbours forced Bishara to withdraw. Arabs and the Israeli left were jointly concerned that Bishara's candidacy would hinder efforts to oust the right-wing Netanyahu.

It is unclear how significant a role the unintended alliance between the Israeli left and Arabs had in Barak's eventual win, but the event was an unprecedented expression of Arab preferences in Israeli politics.

Ten years later, after one leftist, one rightist and two centrist governments ruled the country, the population of Jewish colonists in the West Bank has grown by 100,000, an Israeli barrier has de facto annexed 9.8 per cent of the West Bank, and thousands of Arabs have been killed at the hands of the Jewish state.

Ten years later, Azmi Bishara has been declared a fugitive traitor.

And now Netanyahu has made a grand comeback with what is perhaps the most right-wing government in Israel's history.

The Likud leader's prize to his right-wing voters is Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. The Moldovian-born former member of the banned radical Jewish group Kach has called for Arab citizens of Israel to sign an oath of loyalty to a Zionist Israel to retain their citizenship, as well as their eventual 'transfer' out of Israel.

Lieberman has rightly been compared to the late Austrian politician Joerg Haider, an anti-immigration xenophobe who was boycotted by the European Union after his party joined a coalition government in 2000.

The difference between Lieberman and Nazi sympathiser Haider, however, as pointed out by firebrand Arab Israeli politician Ahmad Tibi, is that in Lieberman's case, it is the immigrant that is calling for the expulsion of the indigenous.

The past 10 years and the latest Israeli elections have proven that there is no partner for peace in the Jewish state; that the terms 'hawk' and 'dove' carry little weight outside Israel in describing its politicians.

Zionism has no liberals. As a Jewish American friend once said: "The Israeli Right wants to put all the Arabs on to buses and send them into Jordan. The left wants those buses to be air-conditioned."

Western leaders are already expressing their displeasure at Israel's new blatantly racist face. The support of Israelis for their state's atrocities and their bringing to power extremists has begun to dig the grave of their country's immunity from criticism.

Criticism of Israel is slowly losing its taboo in the US, and this shift is being facilitated by none other than members of the American Jewish community, who feel that Israel no longer represents the utopian Jewish state they had envisioned.

A recent poll by the new pro-Israel lobby in Washington, J Street, revealed that 69 per cent of American Jews oppose Lieberman. Perhaps more shockingly for some, one-third of American Jews said their ties to Israel could suffer if he became a senior member of the Israeli cabinet.

In fact, the emergence of an alternative Jewish voice in America is the surest sign of change. J Street is now actively campaigning against Lieberman and urging Jewish Americans to "stand up for their values".

The combination of growing international disenchantment with Israel, a thriving Israel boycott movement in Europe and the most right-wing government in Israel's history make the situation ripe for the international community to apply real pressure on Israel to become a civilised state.

The time is right for the US to finally turn its focus to the real menace in the region, and Lieberman will make that turn significantly easier.

What the Arabs ought to have realised 10 years ago was that the road to Jerusalem is not through a 'moderate' Israeli government, but one that shows the true face of the supremacist ideology the country is governed by.

Lieberman will be the face of Israel that its leaders across the political spectrum have been trying to hide from the world for the past 60 years.

The Arabs could not have asked for a better candidate to make their case and do their bidding in Western capitals.

Lieberman is our man in Tel Aviv.