Gaza: Stay Human

by Vittorio Arrigoni

To the shock of Western diplomats, the delicate role of Foreign Minister was assigned to Avigdor Lieberman, leader of Yisrael Beitenu (‘Israel is our motherland’). No representing the third largest political force in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, during the election campaign Lieberman, in the run-up to the February 2009 elections, made the horrifying argument that an atomic bomb should be dropped on Gaza. During Operation ‘Cast Lead’, he argued that, ‘We must continue to fight Hamas just like the United States did with the Japanese in World War II’,14 which was interpreted by many as alluding to the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 by the Americans in order to force an end to the Second World War. In his first speech as Foreign Minister in April, Lieberman clarified his vision of shalom, of salama, of enduring peace: ‘“Si vis pacem, para bellum” – if you want peace, prepare for war; be strong.’ One could die in Gaza searching for a more explicit way of dressing up ‘might is right’ as ‘peace’.