Lieberman, The New Haider?

Now, I carry no candle for the German-nationalist Third Lager in Austria, with its rabid capitalism and anticlericalism.

But if Israel Beitenu enters government tomorrow, can we expect Israel to receive anything even remotely approaching the vilification and the pariah status heaped on Austria after the FPÖ entered government in 2000?

If not, why not?

After all, Jörg Haider was a member of the native population fighting, as he saw it, against immigrants. Avigdor Lieberman is an immigrant fighting against the native population, Arab and Haredi (for a start) alike.

But then, secular Ashkenazi immigrant hostility to Arabs and to Orthodox Jews alike has been the defining characteristic of the Zionist project from the start. Is it about to stand exposed by, and in the person of, someone picturesquely naïve enough to take it at face value? I almost hope so.