At first glance, the man who has advocated the execution of Arab members of the Knesset and the bombing of Egypt's Aswan Dam may seem an unlikely choice for what is arguably Israel's most sensitive security job. But Avigdor Lieberman, a far-right politician known for his strong anti-Arab and authoritarian views, is about to take up the new post of Minister for Strategic Threats, marking a huge leap forward in Israeli politics. By striking a coalition pact that also leaves him as a deputy to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Mr Lieberman, the burly 49-year-old head of the Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) party, is filling a political vacuum created by Ariel Sharon's incapacitation from a stroke last year. His appointment also comes after Israel's failure to win a clear victory in its war with Hezbollah, and public malaise over a series of scandals involving the largely ceremonial but symbolically important president and other mainstream political figures. The new security post gives Mr Lieberman, who immigrated from Moldova in 1978 and lives in the West Bank settlement of Nokdim, responsibility for the co-ordination of intelligence branches and other powers that were formerly the prerogative of Israel's defence minister, Amir Peretz. Mr Lieberman says his motives for joining the government are to confront dire strategic threats facing Israel. 'The state of Israel faces a united front of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. The entire foreign and security and internal security policy of Israel must provide an answer to this situation,' he said during a recent interview with the HaZofeh newspaper. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel's destruction, and Iran's nuclear aspirations are widely seen within Israel as the country's greatest strategic challenge. But Mr Lieberman also has an ambitious domestic political agenda: cracking down on what he says is the disloyalty of Israel's Arab minority and stripping parliament of much of its powers, instead placing them in the hands of the prime minister. Proposed legislation he's prepared will do away with no-confidence votes, calls for direct election of the prime minister, and allows the prime minister to appoint a cabinet without approval of the legislature and to declare a state of emergency before gaining the endorsement of either the cabinet or the legislature. Mr Lieberman says this is a cure for the frequent collapse of governments and for corruption and inefficiency among cabinet ministers appointed out of political patronage. 'We need to choose a president that has four years of quiet, like in the United States,' he told HaZofeh. To pave the way for Mr Lieberman's entry to the coalition, the cabinet last week endorsed the move from a parliamentary system to one with a very strong executive. Analysts say the change is unlikely to pass the required three Knesset readings, but in the view of critics it offers clear proof of Mr Lieberman's preference for dictatorship over democracy. 'Lieberman is perhaps the most dangerous politician in the history of the state of Israel,' said Hebrew University professor Zeev Sternhell, Israel's leading academic specialist on fascism and totalitarianism. 'Lieberman raises the possibility of someone gaining a real hold on power and transforming Israeli parliamentary democracy into something akin to a dictatorship, a totalitarian regime,' said Leslie Susser, political analyst for the Jerusalem Report magazine. Yosef Chagal, a Yisrael Beiteinu MP, counters that Mr Lieberman is 'less dictatorial' than Israel's two strongest prime ministers, founding father David Ben-Gurion and Mr Sharon, who headed the government from 2001 to 2005 and forced his Gaza withdrawal plan through the political system despite the opposition of most of his own party. 'Our party faction meets several times a week and we have deliberations. It's genuine democracy,' said Mr Chagal. Mr Olmert's alliance with Mr Lieberman shores up the coalition's Knesset majority from 67 to 78 out of the 120 seats. Before the pact, the coalition's future was in question because of the opposition of some MPs in the Labour party, which contributes 19 seats, to the proposed government budget. Mr Lieberman's party holds 11 seats in parliament, making it almost equal in size with the once dominant Likud party. Professor Sternhell says Mr Lieberman poses a greater threat to democracy than Israel has seen before because, unlike other far-right politicians, he's not been confined to the margins and he has a solid kernel of support among the more than one million Israelis who are immigrants from the former Soviet Union and their descendants. 'He has a genuine social power base among the Russian immigrants and in the lower middle class among people who think the Knesset and supreme court have too much power,' said Professor Sternhell. 'By joining the cabinet, he's taking a giant step forward.' Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Mr Olmert, said the prime minister insisted that entry by Mr Lieberman into the government be strictly on the basis of the existing coalition guidelines. 'The prime minister says there are things he disagrees about with Lieberman,' she said. 'Lieberman may have said all sorts of things but if he's willing to join the guidelines of the present government without changing it, the prime minister is more than happy to have him join.' But Moshe Arens, a former defence minister under right-wing Likud governments, has criticised Mr Lieberman's appointment to the security post. 'Ordinarily, the prime minister, defence minister and ministerial committee of defence, together with the foreign ministry, deal with whatever threats the country faces. My guess is this will cause more confusion,' he said. In a period in which Mr Olmert and his Kadima party, as well as defence minister Mr Peretz's Labour party have been discredited after Israel's failure to win a clear victory in this summer's war with Hezbollah, Mr Lieberman, who speaks fluent Russian but a choppy Hebrew, has become the undisputed rising star of Israeli politics. Public dissatisfaction due to a series of corruption and sex scandals rocking mainstream political life have also played into the hands of Mr Lieberman. The sense that the entire system is in decay was accentuated earlier this month when police recommended that President Moshe Katzav be indicted for rape. In many respects, the crisis also has its roots in Mr Sharon's incapacitation by a stroke last year - he remains in a coma - which deprived the country of its most popular leader and left a vacuum at the heart of Israeli politics. Mr Susser, the analyst, describes Mr Lieberman as 'extremely sharp and extremely capable'. Mr Lieberman was seen as the brains behind Benjamin Netanyahu's successful campaign for the premiership in 1996 and Mr Sharon praised him as the most capable minister in cabinets formed in 2001 and 2003. Mr Sharon fired him in 2004 for his opposition to plans for Israel to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank. In the last election, Mr Lieberman was able to triple his party's Knesset seats, running on a platform of strong leadership and law and order. But his extremist views have also come to the fore regularly. In 1998, he called for the bombing of Egypt's Aswan Dam in retaliation for Cairo's support for Yasser Arafat. Then in May, Mr Lieberman called for the execution of Arab MPs for meeting with leaders of Hamas and for marking Israeli Independence Day as the anniversary of the displacement of the Palestinians. Mr Lieberman's view of Israel is one of a country where only Jews have inherent political rights. 'Israel is our home. Palestine is their home,' read Yisrael Beiteinu's election platform, referring to Israel's Arab minority, which comprises 20 per cent of the population. In 2004, Mr Lieberman suggested that only those Arabs who are 'completely loyal' to Israel be allowed to stay in the country. In the interview with HaZofeh, Mr Lieberman said: 'The vision I would like to see here is the entrenching of the Jewish and the Zionist state. I very much favour democracy, but when there is a contradiction between democratic and Jewish values, the Jewish and Zionist values are more important.' His party's platform calls for transferring Arab areas of Israel to the Palestinian Authority and for annexing Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. That is widely seen as a guise for stripping Israeli Arabs of their citizenship and voting rights. The anti-Arab character of the party is justified on the grounds that 'they' want to destroy Israel. 'They do not want to live together with us so why should we pay for all their schools and their health funds?' asked Yisrael Beiteinu MP Mr Chagal. 'In Gaza, they have a Palestinian area, while we have the state of Israel, in which there are Arabs who hate us. This is untenable.' Asked to explain Mr Lieberman's popularity among Russian immigrants, Mr Chagal said: 'He's a very strong man. If he says something, he does it. He has credibility.' Shawki Khatib, a leader of Israel's Arab minority, has urged Mr Olmert to back away from his burgeoning alliance with Mr Lieberman, whose rise, he says, should be a 'red light for Israeli society'. Mr Khatib has termed Yisrael Beiteinu a 'fascist party' and says that history has shown every fascist party targets minorities.