Palestinian paramedics carry a wounded youth into Beit Lahiya hospital after he was injured by Israeli troops in Beit Hanoun. (Wesam Saleh, Maan Images)

At one level you have to hand it to the Israelis. Once cleared into the the Knesset, the parliament building, journalists can wander into the members' cafeteria without an escort. Cheaply made tables are packed together as closely as in an airport terminal, and ministers queue to load their trays with no priority over backbenchers.

Avigdor Lieberman, the ultra-rightwinger, hunches over a soup bowl by the window. Two tables away Ahmed Tibi, an Arab who is deputy speaker, chats to reporters in between fielding mobile phone calls. It is admirably egalitarian and unstuffy, but the mood was far from relaxed on Monday. The government majority was just about to vote to approve Ehud Olmert's appointment of Lieberman as deputy prime minister, with a brief to handle the "strategic threats" which Israel faces.

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Tibi was furious. In other parts of the world a man like Lieberman - "a very dangerous and sophisticated politician who has won his support through race hatred" - would be shunned, he fulminated. In Israel he was given a top job.

Lieberman has described Tibi and other Israeli Arabs who have met Hamas officials as traitors. They should be executed, he said last year, just as the judges at Nuremberg condemned not only Nazi leaders but those who collaborated with them. Lieberman also advocates stripping Arabs in north-eastern Israel of their citizenship and putting their areas under Palestinian rule. In return, Israel should take more land on the West Bank than even Olmert envisages.

Tibi was not worried that the government "would become more brutal" because of Lieberman's presence in cabinet. After all, the mushrooming of roadblocks in the West Bank, the assassinations in Gaza and the war on Lebanon happened without him. "Our problem is with Israeli society," said Tibi. "The appointment of this racist and fascist sends a message to me as an Arab and a human being."

Sitting in the cafeteria alongside Tibi, Zehava Galon, who leads the parliamentary wing of Meretz, Israel's small leftwing party, was equally appalled. Her anger was directed at the Labour party ministers in Olmert's coalition for failing to resign in protest. This was bound to lower politicians' public respect by several more notches, she said. She had written a letter to the Labour caucus arguing that Lieberman was worse than Austria's Jörg Haider or France's Jean-Marie Le Pen. But only one minister chose to leave the government.

"Lieberman's appointment will influence the whole atmosphere of Israeli society," said Galon. "Ministers are only interested in keeping their chairs ... Politicians are already seen as cynical, with no values, no ideology, no principles. This will make it worse. There is no leftwing camp in Israel now. If the Labour party thinks it's legitimate to be allied with Lieberman, I can no longer consider them left, liberal or democratic. This appointment is a terrorist attack on democracy."

To read the full article, please visit The Guardian's website.