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Born Evet Lvovich Lieberman in Moldova (a former Soviet Republic) in 1958, he studied at a local agricultural institute, worked as a nightclub bouncer, and later as a Baku, Azerbaijan broadcaster, before moving to Israel with his parents in 1978.
He got a Hebrew University social science degree, served as an IDF corporal, then began a political career. In the 1980s, he helped found the Zionist Forum for Soviet Jewry, and was also a member of the Board of the Jerusalem Economic Corporation and Secretary of the Jerusalem branch of Israel's "national workers union," the Histadrut Ovdim Le'umit.
From 1993 - 1997, he was Director General for the Likud party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's chief of staff during his first term. In 1999, he established the far-right, ultranationalist Israel Beiteinu Party (Israel is Our Home), the same year he became a MK. He's also held other positions, including Minister of National Infrastructure, Minister of Transportation, and is currently Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.
Across the board, his positions are over the top to put it mildly. On September 5, he called peace with the Palestinians unattainable, "not next year and not for the next generation....Our proposal is: No to unilateral concessions, no to continuing the settlement freeze (a fake moratorium, in fact, never frozen, and), yes to serious negotiations and mutual gestures of good faith," though he offers none of his own.
"The peace process," he said "is based on three false basic assumptions. That the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main fact of instability in the Middle East, that the conflict is territorial and not ideological, and that the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders will end the conflict."
On the contrary, he says. Give up some land and they'll demand more. Never mind that all of it belongs to them. For over 43 years, Israel has been an illegal occupier, what Lieberman other Israeli politicians omit from their rhetoric, important truths too disturbing to admit.
Deploring peace, he says those for it "should prepare for war and be strong." He also believes "tensions within the Muslim world are 95 to 98 percent of all the problems of the Middle East, (the) Israeli-Palestinian conflict account(ing) for two percent."
He, his party, and the Netanyahu government want all valued West Bank and Jerusalem Judaized, confining Palestinians to isolated, resource poor cantons, surrounded by hostile settlers, free to commit violence with impunity.
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