Introducino. huninetteT" Privacy Sheers TI All the light of classic sheers. All the privacy of soft draperies. All the possibilities you can imagine. News Russian Bear Dance The powerful Avigdor Lieberman backs out as the prime minister's political enforcer. ERIC SILVER Israel Correspondent kwuut q ua/fop The A COMPETITIVE PRICING & EXPERT INSTALLATION All other Hunter Douglas Products Silhouettes, Duettes, Vertical Blinds & Wood SPOT Free Professional Measure at No Obligation. Free in Home Design Consulting 21728 W. Eleven Mile Rd. Harvard Row Mall Southfield, MI 48076 O A Registered Trademark of Hunter Douglas Inc U S and foreign patents pending. Michigan's Largest High Quality Antique Mall We have a Large Selection of ... • Stained Glass Windows • Jewelry • Prints & Pictures • Pottery • Vintage Clothing • Books • Advertising • Toys • Furniture ~48~ 5 41 ' Hours: Mon.-Sat. 10-5 352-8622 r Caro Rochester Hills 651-5009 38,000 sq. ft. & over 250 dealers Now 2 Locations 6820 ODS VO u TR ~ is our business Nutrition Discount health toed supermarket political operator. When Netanyahu launched his campaign for a Knesset seat in the 1988 elections, Lieberman signed up as his manager. "When you get to the top," a friend of Netanyahu's told the Jerusalem Report magazine, "you need sweet- talking, genteel PR types. But to get you there in the first place, you need tough guys, with elbows, like Lieberman." Five years later, Lieberman man- aged Netanyahu's barnstorming cam- paign for the Likud leadership, then put his elbows to good use rehabilitat- ing a party demoralized and bankrupt- ed from its 1992 defeat by Yitzhak Rabin. He was again in Netanyahu's corner when he ran for prime minister in 1996. As director-general of the prime minister's office, Lieberman's role was to keep an eight-party coalition in order and strengthen his boss's hold on the Likud grassroots. vigdor Lieberman's sudden resignation as director-gen- eral of the prime minister's office has won his boss, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a respite in the civil war with his own Likud colleagues. However, it has not brought a cessation of hostilities. A conspiratorial, bearded bear of a man, Lieberman was the instrument of Netanyahu's designs, Mr. Hyde, some might say, to his Dr. Jekyll. The prime minister has still to appease disgruntled ministers and Knesset members who have been pressing him hard in recent weeks to reform inner- Likud dealings and govern- ment policy. Meanwhile, Netanyahu still has to navigate between peace and territory, the White House and his own right-wing constituency. So will Lieberman's depar- ture make it easier or harder? Without too much exagger- ation, many Israelis dubbed Lieberman the second most powerful man in the land. His is the kind of rags-to-riches Avigdor Lieberman speaks at a press conference in story more common in the Tel Aviv. United States than in Israel. Lieberman, 39, made aliyah Netanyahu and Lieberman, both from his native Kishinev in Moldova outsiders, vowed to demolish two 19 years ago. Incongruously, his par- elites: the left and the old right. ents had named him Yvette after his Lieberman manipulated and bullied, grandmother. but overestimated the power direct While a student at the Hebrew elections had put in Netanyahu's University, he worked as a disco hands and underestimated the self- bouncer, a security guard at Ben- respect and alliances among Likud Gurion airport and on security at the ministers. prime minister's office. He never understood the resent- While studying international rela- ments he generated. He retreated into tions, he joined a hard-right student ethnic paranoia ("They can't bear to group led by the future Justice. see a Russian getting on."). Minister, Tzahi Hanegbi. Thy were Lieberinan's orchestration of this accused of beating up Arab students month's Likud'convention, where the on campus, though Lieberman denies prime minister appeared to go back on he ever resorted to violence. a promise to his rebellious ministers, The Bibi and Yvette show hit the was the last straw. road in 1987, when Neta.*Iiii was Both Netanyahtt and Lieberman girding to enter Likud politics after a recognized that the latter had to sacri- stint as Israel's ambassador to the fice himself to save his master. But United Nations. They met at a don't bet that he'll stay out of the cir- Jerusalem cocktail party. Lieberman cles of power for too long. El was already making his name as a - Call The Sales Department (248) 354-7123 Ext. 209 12/ 5 1997 116 Advertise in our Entertainment Section! •