Israeli peace becomes more elusive
by Jay McDonough
Things became very complicated in Israel yesterday. The
parliamentary elections failed to produce a runaway winner, requiring
the party with the most seats in the Knesset to form a coalition
government. With 99% of the votes counted, the center-right incumbent
Kadima party has a one seat advantage, 28-27 over Benjamin Netanyahu's
right wing Likud party. Complicating things more was the strong
showing (winning 15 seats) of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu
party headed by Avigdor Lieberman. Israel, very clearly, took a sharp
turn to the right yesterday.
Some nuts and bolts: Israeli President, Shimon Peres, will meet
with party leaders and appoint either Kadima's Tzipi Livni or Mr.
Netanyahu to become the next prime minister of Israel. The PM
designate has six weeks to form a coalition government, cajoling
smaller parties to join forces to achieve the required 61 votes. As
the balance of power in Israel has shifted to the right with the strong
Likud and Yisrael Beitenu showings, many are predicting President Peres
will choose Netanyahu to become Israel's next prime minister. The
fourth place party, Shas, won 11 seats yesterday and would likely align
themselves with Likud.
Apart from the machinations around building a governing coalition, the vote yesterday sent a strong signal the path to peace in Israel took a serious turn off track yesterday. The incumbent Kadima party, with encouragement from the United States, has advocated a two state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict. Mr. Netanyahu, on the other hand, doesn't talk about two state solutions, advocates continued Israeli settlement of the West Bank and has been vague about the Palestinians rights to self determination.
Stephen Walt's essay in Foreign Affairs notes the implications of Israel abandoning, as policy, the two state solution as a model of Middle East peace. Mr. Walt notes three options for Israel:
First,
Israel could drive most or all of the 2.5 million Palestinians out of
the West Bank by force, thereby preserving "greater Israel" as a Jewish
state through an overt act of ethnic cleansing. The Palestinians would
surely resist, and it would be a crime against humanity, conducted in
full view of a horrified world. No American government could support
such a step, and no true friend of Israel could endorse that solution.
Second, Israel could retain control of the West Bank but allow the
Palestinians limited autonomy in a set of disconnected enclaves, while
it controlled access in and out, their water supplies, and the airspace
above them. This appears to have been Ariel Sharon's strategy before he
was incapacitated, and Bibi Netanyahu's proposal for "economic peace"
without a Palestinian state seems to envision a similar outcome. In
short, the Palestinians would not get a viable state of their own and
would not enjoy full political rights. This is the solution that many
people -- including Prime Minister Olmert -- compare to the apartheid
regime in South Africa. It is hard to imagine the United States
supporting this outcome over the long term, and Olmert has said as
much. Denying the Palestinians' their own national aspirations is also
not going to end the conflict.
Which brings me to the third option. The Israeli government could
maintain its physical control over "greater Israel" and grant the
Palestinians full democratic rights within this territory. This option
has been proposed by a handful of Israeli Jews and a growing number of
Palestinians. But there are formidable objections to this outcome: It
would mean abandoning the Zionist dream of an independent Jewish state,
and binational states of this sort do not have an encouraging track
record, especially when the two parties have waged a bitter conflict
across several generations.
The second and third options are nice academic exercises, but fail to consider the Palestinians response. It's difficult to imagine Palestinians would so willingly reliquish their own dreams of a Palestinian homeland with the promise of "limited autonomy" andformal declaration that there will never be a Palestine.
It's expected President Peres will announce his pick for Israeli prime minister in the next week.
Dude, Kadima is so totally center-right. Just sayin'.
Posted by: Peter | February 11, 2009 at 05:51 PM
oops, you're right. my bad.
Posted by: Jay McDonough | February 11, 2009 at 07:29 PM