'Racist' forced to withdraw bid for Israeli cabinet post

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Published: 01 March 2007

Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the most right-wing party in Israel's governing coalition, was forced last night to cancel his nomination of a colleague condemned as a "true racist" to the Tourism Ministry.

Mr Lieberman had faced mounting embarrassment over his choice of Esterina Tartman for the post of Tourism Minister after a series of damaging revelations about her eligibility for the job - or lack of it.

Ehud Olmert's Cabinet confirmed Ms Tartman's appointment on Sunday despite her having made what was widely construed as a racist attack on the appointment of the first Arab Muslim minister last month.

Saying that Ghaleb Majadale's promotion was "lowering the guillotine on Zionism" Ms Tartman, a Knesset member in the Yisrael Beiteinu party declared: "We need to burn this plague out of our midst and God willing, the Lord will help us with that." Her own party leader's harshly anti-Arab views did not deter Mr Olmert from making him a deputy prime minister in his coalition, and the most vigorous public opposition to her appointment at that stage was largely confined to the liberal left in Israeli politics and Arab politicians.

But doubts began to spread wider after the revelation by Channel Two television that Ms Hartman had received around £150,000 in social security benefits after producing a doctor's certificate that she was not able to work more than four hours a day because of a car accident a decade ago.

Then Yedhiot Ahronot revealed that two institutions from which she had claimed to have graduated with a "clear economics background" including a "master's in business administration", Hebrew University and Bar Ilan University, had no record of her having even enrolled. Instead it appears she has only a bachelor's degree from the rather less distinguished Israeli branch of the New York-based Touro College.

The Bank Yahav, where she claimed to have been a vice-president disobligingly disclosed that she had only been a deputy department head.

And the Israel Defence Forces even declined to confirm that Ms Hartman, a zealous army reservist, held an Israeli record for women in the military by having made 42 parachute jumps.

Mr Lieberman has now nominated a former senior policeman in his party, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, to the job.