Lieberman is no better than Feiglin

Kadima achieved its great accomplishment thanks to votes from the left, whereas Likud did not lose even more seats to Kadima because it succeeded in temporarily concealing and silencing Moshe Feiglin's Jewish Leadership movement. Now, even though Avigdor Lieberman and his aides - who, when it is convenient, like to wear the mask of pragmatists - are no better than the group from Jewish Leadership, Tzipi Livni and Benjamin Netanyahu are both competing for their favors.

That is the nature of politics and the reason why politics are loathed by decent people who consider them the opposite of integrity and basic morality. It is no wonder that so many people do not bother to go to the polls.

But Lieberman is not a unique phenomenon. About one-third of the members of the current Knesset show contempt for democracy's moral contents.

Yisrael Beiteinu is joined by the ultra-Orthodox parties, whose patterns of behavior and principles in the political sphere are not substantially different from the concepts held by Lieberman's party or the Feiglin branch of Likud. Even though the ultra-Orthodox parties' source of authority is spiritual and the leader who makes the decisions achieved his position due to his intellectual prowess - while Lieberman draws on his skill at sowing hatred - the result is similar. Lieberman and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, along with the factions at the fringes of their parties, represent those in our society who have authoritarian temperaments and tendencies.

Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas and United Torah Judaism, National Union and the "Feiglins" openly show contempt for human rights. The claim that human rights are the heart of democracy and that the reason for its existence is to preserve human rights granted equally to all people everywhere, causes them revulsion. From their point of view, anyone who believes this is an enemy of the Jewish people and undermines the very foundations of the Jewish state.

Even though some members of the nationalist camp are worse than Lieberman, he is the most dangerous because he is a natural street leader, the only one here. And lo and behold, instead of being an outcast, Lieberman has become the kingmaker. Anyone who in the past demanded that the Europeans denounce Joerg Haider's Austria, anyone who considered Jean-Marie Le Pen an anti-Semite who must not be allowed near power, cannot treat the Lieberman phenomenon with forgiveness.

Until now, anti-democratic trends in Israel have been halted by a political framework designed in an era that had not yet known Lieberman and before religious Zionism had undergone a radicalization of the kind not even dreamed of by Agudat Yisrael, Poalei Agudat Yisrael and the National Religious Party as it was then. That is why the recent elections are a milestone. Not because of the success of Israel's version of Haider-Le Pen, but because of the legitimacy granted to him by politicians who lust for power and lack restraints.

It is likewise wrong for Kadima's leaders to be blinded by Yisrael Beiteinu's secularism. Secularism is not a philosophical value in Lieberman's eyes but rather a means to solving his voters' problems. When that issue is resolved, the settler Lieberman will be seen joining religious nationalists in the most natural fashion. Less separates those two camps than what unites them. On the one hand, both of them want to rule over the territories and continue expanding there, and to perpetuate the policy of apartheid. On the other hand, they strive to reduce individual freedoms and rights to a minimum. With regard to the Arabs, their intention in practice is to do away with the defense of these rights.

Later on, the judicial oversight of legislation and government actions will be abolished, the significance of which is the beginning of the end for democracy. It is interesting that Lieberman, like South American dictators at the end of the previous century, also supports capitalism run wild. Like them, he is a great liberal when it comes to the freedom to exploit another person, but not with regard to other freedoms.

The experience of the previous century proved that when the liberal and conservative right joins up with the extreme right, in the hope of becoming stronger, it ends up disintegrating both morally and politically. So this is not the time to toss aside basic values. A front must be set up to preserve democratic freedoms. Those for whom our society's future is important must understand that a partnership with Lieberman will destroy everything in politics. Therefore blocking his way to power is a national interest, and a party interest, from Likud to Labor. The leaders of Likud and Kadima must be aware that teaming up with the man who for years has thrived on the frustrations, fears and complexes of Israeli society will ultimately lead to their own end.