A toxic force rises in Israel

[Violet_Crumble]

The country needs to take a long hard look at itself after a vote that has elevated a far right politician to kingmaker

Jonathan Freedland
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 February 2009 17.15 GMT

The search for silver linings in the murky cloud of yesterday's Israeli election requires a great effort of the will. There is not much to go on. You could draw comfort from the fact that Likud's Bibi Netanyahu, who thought he was such a dead cert to win a matter of weeks ago, was rejected, albeit narrowly, in favour of the woman he so consistently patronised, Tzipi Livni of Kadima.

Or you might take solace in the notion that the near tie between Bibi and Tzipi would most easily be resolved by the pair rotating the premiership between them, each taking a two-year turn, following the precedent set by Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir after they fought each other to a dead heat in 1984. The virtue of such an arrangement could be the exclusion of the ultra-nationalist hardman Avigdor Lieberman, whose Israel Beytenu – Israel our Home – party surged to third place on Tuesday.

Or you might assume that the likeliest coalition will be unambiguously of the right, given that – even though Likud itself fell short – the parties of the self-styled "national camp" won a convincing victory over the centre-left bloc. Bibi's motivation will be to expose Kadima to the chill of opposition for the first time in its short life, where, Bibi hopes, it will wither and die. The result will be the most rightwing government in Israel's history. Good, one longtime peace campaigner told me yesterday. "Let the right have power and live with the consequences." They will soon be on a collision course with Barack Obama's Washington. Under US pressure, they will unravel, the right's limitations will have been exposed and the pendulum will swing back leftwards.

Even if that is too hopeful, some on the Israeli left see a value in the country having a full-bloodedly rightist government. "Maybe we're like the alcoholic who needs to touch bottom before we can start the climb back up," was how one put it. Perhaps there has to be a crisis before there can be a recovery.

If these sound like heroic attempts at self-consolation, that is because they are. The truth is, the clouds are much clearer to see. The hawkish camp thumped the centre left on Tuesday, and that's even when you generously count Kadima and Labour – co-authors of operation Cast Lead – as the centre left. But this is about more than a victory for the right. Something else happened and its face belongs to Avigdor Lieberman, the kingmaker whose 15 seats are essential if either Bibi or Livni are to govern without each other.

He does not fit straightforwardly on the Israeli right wing. For one thing, he is avowedly secular. Indeed, much of his appeal was to anti-religious voters who liked his demand for civil unions, thereby breaking the orthodox rabbinate's current monopoly on state-sanctioned marriage. Talk of liberalising the sale of pork products proved too much for at least one religious party, whose spiritual leader warned that a vote for Lieberman was a vote for Satan. The result is that Bibi may find assembling a coalition that includes both the religious parties and Lieberman impossible.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/11/israeli-elections-2009-israelandthepalestinians2

[IndianaGreen]

1. Here is another point of view on the Israeli elections

From Communist Party of Israel

On the Israeli elections

Two days after the general election on Tuesday (February 10), it was clear that even after all of the soldiers' votes had been counted today evening (Thursday, February 12) the mandate distribution in the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) was not altered.

Following the final votes' count, center-right Kadima remained with 28 mandates, rightist Likud was close behind with 27 mandates, the racist Israel Beiteinu party was the third biggest party with 15 mandates, Labor received only 13 mandates, Shas had 11 mandates and Meretz only 3 mandates. Hadash (the Democratic Peace and Equality Front – Communist Party of Israel) has increased its influence to four mandates. Hadash Chairman MK Mohammad Barakeh said he was "very happy". "This is still serious progress" he said.

Israel's military offensive against Palestinians in Gaza Strip and the major protest demonstrations organized by Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel and the progressive and militant peace forces lead by Hadash, focused the election campaign on two main issues: what should be the Israeli peace and security policy and what should be the relationship between the state and its Arab-Palestinian minority.

Those issues split the Israeli population and led to the disappearance, for all intents and purposes, of the center-left Zionist agenda. 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 majority coalition – in other words, not necessarily the leader of the party who received the most votes.

<snip>

MK Dov Henin expressed optimism about his party's support among the young generation of voters, and added "In the one hand, there is a new Israeli consensus that clearly rejects any further steps in the peace process. Under certain circumstances this center will be willing to continue negotiations with the current Palestinian Authority, but it will be unwilling to make any significant concessions. On the other hand, the Arab-Palestinian minority of Israel rejected the violent policies that characterize the occupation policy of the government. In addition, Hadash and the Communist Party managed to mobilize a not negligible portion of the Jewish-Israeli young population for their political and social agenda. It further led to the eradication of the well-intentioned do-gooder liberals from the political map. Parties like Meretz got certain political support in kibbutzim and from the Tel Aviv middle class, but their message proved irrelevant to the majority Arab-Palestinian citizens and the Left activists both Jews and Arabs".

The foreseen instability of the future governing coalition, the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories and the current capitalist crisis, suggests that there may be elections again within the next two years. "It is imperative that, facing those elections, the Arab-Palestinian citizens and the militant left unite and present an alternative to the growing fascist forces in the Israeli society" said MK Khenin. "A new generation of young people has entered Israeli politics," he continued, "They are open and critical, and in Hadash and the Communist Party they have found a real alternative to old Zionist politics."

http://www.maki.org.il/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=79&Itemid=106

[azurnoir]

2. There could be a silver lining in the right wing turn

in Israeli politics as it finally make plain and undeniable where the so called "road map" really goes

[IndianaGreen]

4. Road map has been dead for years!

An ultra-rightwing government will only result in more deaths and suffering.

The only path to peace is for Israel to withdraw behind the pre-1967 borders.

[azurnoir]

5. Yes however the "centrist" governments in Israel

have had a good deal of "success" with pretending otherwise for years now, IMO that is the difference between the two the centrists say one thing and do another the right wingers are up front about their intentions, the difference is in their words not so much their actions

[LeftishBrit]

3. Horrible - and very reminiscent of the RW xenophobic parties in Europe these days

The one ray of hope is that 'Bibi may find assembling a coalition that includes both the religious parties and Lieberman impossible'.

[IndianaGreen]

6. Two states?

Two states?

However, even Kadima and the Labour Party’s “two state solution” would leave Palestinians with control over a carved up territory dependent on Israel for survival in the West Bank and Gaza.

In negotiations with Israel, the only “state” offered to the Palestinians has been geographically separated walled cantons. Israel has made its continued occupation of East Jerusalem non-negotiable.

The difference between the positions amounts to whether to give the Palestinian ghettos the pretence of statehood.

This reflects the apartheid nature of the Israeli state. When Israel was established in 1948 on 78% of what was then Palestine, violent ethnic cleansing drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and ensured that the Jewish settler population was in a majority.

The Israeli invasion of the remaining 22% of Palestine (the Gaza Strip and the West Bank that, despite Israeli denials, includes East Jerusalem) changed the demographic balance.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2009/783/40326

[oberliner]

7. Great piece - thanks for posting!

The last paragraph is especially interesting.

While Shas and Beiteinu may both be "right wing" in some respects, the two parties are extremely different from one another and stand for completely different principles.

Among other differences, Shas is a religious party and Beiteinu is a secular party.

I do not see a coalition led by Likud and including both Shas and Beiteinu having much of a shelf life - and thank goodness for that!

[Violet_Crumble]

10. I agree with you on that...

I do not see a coalition led by Likud and including both Shas and Beiteinu having much of a shelf life - and thank goodness for that!

I'm assuming if a coalition collapses that another election is called in the hopes that a new govt can be formed?

[oberliner]

11. Either that or another coalition is formed without an election

Although it's hard to see that happening with the current allocation of seats.

[IndianaGreen]

8. Avigdor Lieberman's stronghold of Ashdod

Ashdod, as I drive around, is a city that seems fresh out of the box. New, as Jerusalem is old. It is not pretty. Not well-laid out. Simply imposing. Its neighbourhoods sprawl down to the scruffy dunes down by the sea where an Israeli gunboat is visible in the haze.

Tower blocks on either side of the wide streets, like Herzl Boulevard, form deep and gleaming canyons that bounce back the sea-refracted light. But at ground level, the city comes into focus. Beneath the blocks are pokey little shops and kiosks that seem out of all proportion to the bleached buildings that house them.

In some of the grocers, distinguished by their handwritten Cyrillic signs and posters advertising karaoke with scantily clad girls. Stacks of pork and ham and sausage are available to buy whose shelves jostle with battalions of vodka bottles.

It is a crucial clue to the identity of Ashdod that, on the day I visit, it is booming with F-16s flying past, en route to the skies above the nearby Gaza Strip. (Later I discover that they are bombing Gaza after a rocket fell on the neighbouring city of Ashkelon.)

This is a city that has grown rapidly in the last two decades, engorged by an influx of immigrants, prominent among them almost 80,000 Russians and eastern Europeans, who began arriving in the 1990s. Since then the Russians, as they are universally referred to here, largely have come to dominate both politics and the city's economy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/04/lieberman-israel-election

[oberliner]

9. Vague undertones of anti-Russian prejudice in this piece

Author seems to have some distaste for the Russian immigrants to Israel.