Loyatly and honesty

Esterina Tartman, chairwoman of Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party, who was promoted to Minister for Tourism in the Ehud Olmert government on Sunday, has now stepped down. On Tueday, in a television interview, she asserted ‘any citizen who is not loyal to the idea of a Jewish state, his citizenship should be rescinded’.

Her remarks should be seen in light of recent analysis by Jonathan Cook indicating that Israel is engaged in a gradual campaign to complete the ethnic cleansing left unfinished in 1949, in part by requiring Palestinian citizens of Israel to swear loyalty oaths or relinquish their citizenship.

According to the report in the SMH,

Her remarks coincided with a parliamentary ethics committee deciding not to take action against her for recently criticising the appointment of Israel's first Arab Muslim minister as "assimilation" and "a lethal blow to Zionism".

It’s rather heartwarming that such a vicious racist has gone to some lengths to discredit herself. It transpires that

Ms Tartman had been awarded more than 2.5 million shekels ($750,000) in state and private compensation for a 1997 traffic accident that she claimed had left her with impaired memory and concentration and unable to work for more than four hours a day. Fourteen months ago she managed to have this award increased on appeal.

Ha'aretz followed this up on Tuesday by reporting that despite her disability Ms Tartman had gone on to win a Knesset seat, chair the state audit committee and her own party caucus, set up an employment agency, act as marketing manager for a chemicals company and serve as director and committee member for an insurance agency.

It also emerged this week that she has wrongfully claimed to have a master's degree from the prestigious Hebrew University and a degree from Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv.

I fear, however, that what’s odd about ‘Tartarina’ is not the nature of her views, but her forthrightness in expressing them in public.

Meanwhile, Ha’aretz reports,

A proposed constitution written by the Israeli Arab advocacy center, Adalah, states that Arab Knesset members will be able to bring about the disqualification of bills that impinge on the rights of Arabs, and classifies the State of Israel as a "bilingual and multicultural" country rather than a Jewish state.

A courageous move in the current climate.