Is Lieberman a fascist?

[bemildred]

FWIW, I do not agree entirely, the view that the people belong to the state, and not the other way around, is quite old, was not invented in Italy or the USSR, but it's an argument, and he gets the political distinctions right IMHO ...

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So, what is Yvet Lieberman? On the face of it, he defies easy categorisation. Most Israeli Right wingers are either motivated by religion or (like Sharon or Netanyahu) are not above exploiting religious terminology and rhetoric when it suits them. Not so Lieberman. He is secular, he dislikes (well, probably hates) the religious and doesn’t make bones about it. He is not a classical Right wing nationalist á la Begin either. When you listen to him, the national narrative, the sense of history and destiny that informed Menahem Begin so much, are striking in their absence.

My claim is that Lieberman is basically a fascist. Not “fascist” as a term of abuse but a fascist in the narrow, historically faithful meaning of this term. He is a fascist because he elevates the State to a supreme status. In classical liberal discourse the state exists for its citizens. In fascism citizens exist for the state. This, and not racism, explains the ludicrous Lieberman’s idea of loyalty pledges: he really believes that the relationship between Israelis (Jewish or Arab) and their state should be like between medieval serfs and the master of the manor – and serfs must swear their fealty or else… Equally, he believes that the State can give and take away its citizenship, and any rights accruing from that, as it wishes and that the executive is effectively above the law and above the courts. Il Duce would have approved.

But how is it that a not-terribly-well educated professional politician and businessman, who in all likelihood never read “The Doctrine of Fascism” in Enciclopedia Italiana, is so faithfully rediscovering its tenets? The answer, I believe, is in the formative first 18 years of Lieberman’s life in the Soviet Union. For here is the paradox. The very country that elevated “Fascism” to the ultimate epithet of abuse, was the best post-Mussolini approximation to a Fascist utopia: a state that is above its citizens, is owed their loyalty and owes them absolutely nothing. Unlike numerous other immigrants from the Soviet Union, Lieberman never internalised the values of Western democracy and liberal society. He learnt to use its language, and this makes him the more dangerous.

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/03/19/is-lieberman-a-fascist/

[OHdem10]

1. "Fascism should be more appropriately called Corporatism because

it is the Merger of State and Corporate Power"---Benito Mussollini

One could therefore answer your question--yes.