Extremist may call the shots in Israel

It is easy to brand a man who called for the execution of Arab Israeli lawmakers for meeting Hamas and who has threatened to throw Israel's Arab population into the sea, a fringe lunatic.

But the alarming thing about Avigdor Lieberman is that he may well be the kingmaker in Israel's recently concluded polls.

While a student in Occupied Jerusalem, he began his career as an activist in the right-wing Likud party of then prime minister Menachem Begin.

Lieberman, a former nightclub bouncer, emerged on the Israeli political scene when his far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party — "Israel my home" — won 11 seats in 2006.

He draws much of his support from the one million Jews who, like Lieberman, came to Israel after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Administrative head of Likud from 1993, he ran the office of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from 1996 to 1997.

Frustrated with coalition politics, he founded his own party in 1999. Netanyahu may now be dependent on his former ally's political support.

He has championed the cause of the Jewish colonists — he himself lives in an illegal colony in the West Bank — who adore him for his extreme anti-Arab views.

He pulled out of the government in January 2008, refusing to back the peace talks with the Palestinian National Authority.

Lieberman is vehemently opposed to the concept of "land for peace", on which the proposed two-state solution is based.