A Moldovan-Israeli Werewolf in Paris

By Will

Israel's racist-thug-turned-racist-Foreign-Minister Avigdor Lieberman continues his sideshow tour of Europe. While the party in the Washington DC Hilton that housed the AIPAC conference moved to Capitol Hill, Minister Lieberman made his way to Paris.

In the City of Love, the chauvinistic hatemonger was a virtual Pepé Le Pew (sorry for the mixed metaphors, but there's more to come). He was met by protesters calling him a fascist. The French weekly Journal du Dimanche ran the headline, "Lieberman, a bothersome visitor," and called his views "nefarious."

The debonair French leader, Nicolas Sarkozy, was too embarrassed to slap palms with the former nightclub bouncer, and probably did not want to have to wait in line behind the velvet ropes to make the club look popular.

The Sark chose to duck out of town, leaving his own Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to repeat the French demands for "the complete halt of settlement building, including that linked to 'natural growth.'"

Kouchner also told Lieberman there is no military solution to the Gaza problem and that the Strip must be opened permanently to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis. He then slapped the visiting minister in a face with a baguette.

While these diplomats apply pressure, day-time Lieberman seems minimally diplomatic -- perhaps he's comforted by the cast of expert Palestinian-screwers, Bibi, Barak and Peres, who expertly fend off any outside pushes for Israeli concessions.

I just fear that a full court diplomatic press will be the full moon, setting off the true monster, candidate Lieberman and the pro-settler constituency that put the goon in office. This wolf has a particular appetite for Palestinians, and their crushed bones feed the careers of many Israeli pols. Israel's alarming move to revoke the citizenship of some non-Jewish citizens is an alarming sign of possible future paths to keep the Jewish state Jewish -- especially with growing demographic evidence that Jews are no longer a majority in the lands the government presides over.

If I could leave with one positive note, I love that Lieberman is just another public relations fiasco for Israel. It causes the state to spend that much more of its resources on PR clean-up.