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A Realistic Look at the Coming Olmert Years
by Yossi Alpher
- Every Israeli government since 1988 has been brought down by internal politics that hinge on the Palestinian issue. No Israeli government has taken more than one significant step toward dealing with this issue without collapsing under the weight of its own coalition contradictions. Such is the nature of the Israeli political system.
- Prime Minister-designate Ehud Olmert's anticipated coalition will almost certainly suffer the same fate. The 29 mandates of his own party, Kadima, representing just under one-fourth of the electorate, are not sufficient to sustain a stable coalition for the long haul.
- Olmert will almost certainly now be obliged by his Labor partners, and possibly by international pressures, to attempt another round of negotiations, presumably with Abu Mazen. Only when this fails will he turn to "convergence," i.e., dismantling additional settlements.
- The nature of his coalition and the built-in constraints in his own party will probably afford him breathing space for one "round," one accomplishment, before Israel is plunged back into early elections. That means the initiation of a major withdrawal of tens of thousands of West Bank settlers: initiation, because the cost and logistics of removing so many settlers guarantee that the project will take far more years to complete than Olmert's coalition can survive.
- The most we can probably expect from the incoming government with regard to the Palestinian issue is low-level contacts with Hamas to ensure that Palestine is not plunged into a humanitarian crisis, along with the beginnings of another round of settlement dismantlement on the West Bank and completion of the security fence along an increasingly rational path - all with Washington's blessings. (Bitterlemons)
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Seek Agreement by Negotiations
by David Kimchi
- Good, but not good enough. That was how the peace camp in Israel summed up the results of the elections. The left of center had hoped for more, but was not overly dissatisfied with what it got.
- Those results were, above all, a vote of no confidence in the settler movement and its backers.
- This was the first national election in which the choice of staying or leaving a large part of the West Bank was put to such a clear test, and the results were as convincing as they could be.
- The fact that Kadima received far fewer votes than it had expected will make it more difficult to establish a strong government able to implement its policy of withdrawal. Its first priority will be, in any case, to patch together a coalition that enables it to receive a majority of votes in the Knesset in the forthcoming debate on the government budget.
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Regarding its Palestinian policy, the govenment has, theoretically, three policy options: to maintain the status quo for any number of reasons; to begin negotiations with the Palestinians for an agreed settlement; or to declare that a Hamas government precludes any possibility of negotiations and it therefore opts for a unilateral withdrawal. In practice, however, those choices are severely limited.
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Washington, for its part, can also be expected to press for a resumption of negotiations and will only reluctantly approve of unilateral withdrawal as a second best choice if negotiations prove to be impossible. (Bitterlemons)
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