Dear Friend and Reader:
As a result of this week’s general elections in Israel,В Tzipi Livni of the center-right Qadima Party took aВ razor-thin lead over Binyamin Netanyahu’s neo-conservative Likud Party. However, the Knesset, Israel’s “Congress,” the body with which the next prime minister will form a new coalition government,В is now predominated byВ far right wingВ parties. Even with her slim lead, it appears Livni andВ her Qadima Party will not have enough Knesset support to assume power.
FromВ the USG Open Source News:
“According to Israeli law, the creation of a coalition government is granted to the head of the faction who has the greatest chance of forming a coalition — in other words, the one with the greatest chance of securing positive support from other factions. Given this fact, it is unclear from exit polls which party leader should be given this task. While Qadima Chairwoman Tzipi Livni appears to have won the elections (securing 28 to 30 seats, according to various polls), Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu lags behind by only two mandates. More importantly, the exit polls show that right-wing parties will secure over 61 mandates — thus easily allowing for the potential creation of a right-wing coalition. Moreover, Livni has a troubled history with coalition construction. In October, after winning the Qadima primaries held pursuant to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s resignation, Livni tried and failed to set up a coalition government, leading to the call for early elections.”
I’ve been keeping a watchful eyeВ on the general elections in Israel,В В our staunchest ally andВ aВ keystone toВ American policy in the Middle East.В В The resultsВ of Israel’s general elections for prime ministerВ should give us pause, and will most likely rise to the top ofВ Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s priorities in the coming months and years.
Over the last eight years, Israel hasВ gone further right in its political leanings. This trend towards the right in the Knesset should not come as a surprise.В ItВ is now a matter of cause and effect. With the United States’В five-year occupation of Iraq and ongoing tension with Iran,В Bush Administration policies in the Middle East, includingВ its hard pro-Israel stanceВ continues to contribute to instabilityВ in the region,В with Israel using military force asВ its response.В
Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, once deemed far-right wing when it first ascended to power during the Clinton Administration in the late 1990s, is now viewed as “centrist” by newer and further right wing parties in Israel, particularlyВ Avigdor Lieberman’s “Israel Is Our Home” party, a proponent of racial hatred against Israeli-Palestinians.В In the divisive aftermath of Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, Lieberman suggested that Arab-Israeli lawmakers who met with Israel’s enemies should be executed as collaborators.
According to Juan Cole at Informed CommentВ with Lieberman’s party leveraging control overВ Israel’s next prime minister, they mayВ propose and enact any one of the three following possibilities for the Palestinian state and its people:
- Apartheid, with Israeli citizens dominating stateless Palestinians and controlling their borders, land, water and air. Apartheid would be accelerated under Lieberman’s baleful influence. Over time, this outcome would break down, since it will be unacceptable to the rest of the world over the coming decades).
- Expulsion. The Israelis could try to violently expel the Palestinians (and possibly Israeli-Palestinians as well), creating a massive new wave of refugees in Jordan or Egypt’s Sinai. (This option would almost certainly end the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and might well push the Arab states into the arms of Iran, creating a powerful anti-Israel military coalition and a huge set of threats to the United States.)
- One State. The Israelis could be forced over time, by economic and technological boycotts, to grant citizenship to the Palestinians of the occupied territories.
Israel’s political analysts predict that Binyamin NetanyahuВ may more than likely assume power as prime minister.В LiebermanВ as a kingmaker in the Knesset could choose to put his chief conservative political rival BinyaminВ NetanyahuВ over the top with a neo-conservative bloc forming the new government.
However, Lieberman’s extreme positions could also force the Knesset’s Arab-Israeli minority faction to join forces and provide Tzipi Livni a slim near-majority she couldВ use to swayВ President Shimon Peres toВ form the new center-rightВ government. IfВ Israel’s Arabs in the Knesset choose to do that, it would be with great hesitation and possibly a high political price. According to Cole, В “Livni’s problem is that if she tries for a right-of-center coalition with the left, she can only get 47 seats. The nine Arab representatives would not formally join her coalition and now hate her because she was among the leaders of the great Gaza Massacre.”
Cause and effect. Americans should know by now. After living through eight years of an administration elected under questionable circumstances and witnessing the economic, environmental and geopolitical ramifications of that election particularly in the Middle East, weВ understand sadly and all too well thatВ elections have consequencesВ that reverberate far into the future, affecting the lives of millions. These consequences don’t stop at our borders.
Yours & truly,
Fe Bongolan
San Francisco