Here’s the thing.  It’s not just that I’m not a huge fan of the hard-right.  Or that I’d like for Palestinians, and particularly Arab Israelis, to have full rights (just as, let’s be clear, I’d like to be the case for Syrian Jews–or Saudi Shias, etc.  I don’t have a double-standard here for minority rights).   It’s that  a hard-right Israel is just really, really bad for Israel on its own terms.  A good analysis here:

Israel has always had its harsh critics in the U.N. and E.U. But, even at its worst, that criticism has been contained within well-defined limits. In Europe and the United States, calls to sanction, boycott, or prosecute Israeli leaders as war criminals have been almost the exclusive province of the extreme left. That won’t hold if Israel crosses an anti-democratic tipping point. If Israel ever actually began enforcing a loyalty oath or stripping Arab citizens of their citizenship or property rights, the road to real international isolation of the sort experienced by South Africa in the 1980s or Serbia in the 1990s could be shockingly short. And an Israel isolated from the international community would be deeply vulnerable.

To be sure, Lieberman is not about to become prime minister. A government even under the right-wing Likud Party is highly unlikely to implement the most extreme of Lieberman’s proposals. Moreover, Israel’s Supreme Court stands as a last line of defense against blatantly discriminatory policies. Indeed, the court has already acted to prevent an Yisrael Beiteinu-led effort to ban two Israeli-Arab parties from running in the current elections. But, if Yisrael Beiteinu performs as well as the polls suggest it will, then it stands a good chance of sitting in the next government. And, with 15 or 16 seats, it would have a relatively strong voice there. Lieberman would hold a prominent ministerial post, along with at least two or three of his colleagues. As a bloc, they would be able to influence the direction of policymaking for the coming years. At a minimum, this would further alienate Israel’s Arab citizens and complicate any peace efforts. It would certainly provide endless fodder to Israel’s harshest critics around the world.