semitism.net

I know it’s been forever since I’ve posted here. There have been some big upheavals in my personal life: I’m leaving the medical group where I’ve worked for four years, and very likely starting a practice of my own. This is kind of exciting, but it may curtail my blogging for a while to come. Still, I couldn’t let the Israeli elections go by without some mention.

By giving Kadima a plurality of 29 Knesset seats, the Israeli voters did two things. They embraced a policy of continued withdrawal from occupied territories, relegating the advocates of complete territorial annexation to a marginal minority; and they endorsed the strategy of unilaterlism that Sharon originally devised and Olmert has maintained. They showed - perhaps not suprisingly - that security and stability are more important to a majority of Israelis than the respective ideals of the reclamation of Biblical Israel on the one hand, and a just and equitable peace with the Palestinians on the other…

Without a doubt, Israel’s leaders now have a mandate for territorial withdrawal in the West Bank. The importance of this should not be minimized. Uri Avnery declared in his weekly column:

The main result of these elections is that the hold of the nationalistic-religious bloc, which has dominated Israel for more than a generation, has been broken. All those who announced that the Left is dead and that Israel is condemned to right-wing rule for a long, long time have been proved wrong.

All the right-wing parties together won 32 seats, the religious parties 19. With 51 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, the rightist-religious wing cannot block all moves towards peace any more.

This is a turning point. The dream of a Greater Israel, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, is dead.

True. But the dream of peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians within mutually agreed borders isn’t in much better shape.

Amos Oz is an earnest and thoughtful writer and in no way a political propagandist. He speaks sincerely for the disillusioned Israeli left when he writes:

The rise of Hamas, unwilling as it is to recognize Israel’s right to exist, refusing as it is to even negotiate with Israel or to renounce terrorism, or to respect signed Israeli-Palestinian agreements from the past, has brought a crisis upon the Israeli peace movement.

Oz does not argue for unilateralism, but he does not, either, see much promise in direct negotiations with the Palestinians. Instead he suggests that Israel pursue a peace agreement with the Arab League, which would include a final border settlement and a Palestinian state. Presumably the League could then impose this agreement on the Palestinians (he seems to be overlooking the fact that Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the main powers of the Arab League, have little influence over Hamas, a client of the more radical states of Syria and Iran; not to mention the Palestinian right of self-determination).

Whether Oz is right or wrong, I think his view reflects the belief of many moderate as well as right-wing Israelis: that Hamas - talk of a long-term truce notwithstanding - is dedicated to Israel’s destruction and cannot be trusted as a negotiating partner.

If Israelis feel discouraged, the mood among Palestinians is downright gloomy. The BBC reports:

…in the aftermath of this election, as Palestinians see it, the rise of the winning Kadima party presents them with a special problem.

Its leader, Ehud Olmert, wants to abandon Jewish settlements in the centre of the occupied West Bank.

But Israel would consolidate its hold on the main settlement blocs. It would also hold on to occupied East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley.

Palestinians would be confined to areas in the middle of the territory.

They say they would be stripped of some of their best land and water resources…

In his victory speech, Mr Olmert reached out to the Palestinians, and offered to talk.

But on Palestine Square, in the heart of Gaza City, they were deeply sceptical. Traders and shoppers believed that Mr Olmert would impose his plan - come what may.

“I don’t think Olmert wants to negotiate,” said an old cigarette seller called Abu Wa’el. “He’ll say what Sharon used to say - that there’s no Palestinian partner for peace.”

The JTA found similar sentiment in its man-on-the-street (or rather, in this case, man-at-the-checkpoint) interviews after the Israeli election:

“Each one of the Israeli parties wants Israel to be in control, the occupier of the Palestinians, so none of them will give us the state, none of them will give us our rights,” said Gada K., a Palestinian woman headed through the checkpoint in the direction of Jerusalem. “They are not concerned with the Palestinian people. They have the power; we are weak.”

My experience is that the Palestinians tend to have a good line on Israel’s real strategy, since they see it in action every day. When I was in the West Bank last year - at a time when world opinion perceived the Gaza disengagement as a dramatic step toward peace - our Palestinian hosts had maps that showed a cantonized Palestinian rump state on forty percent of the West Bank, with Israel in possession of all the large settlement blocks and the Jordan Valley. Sure enough, a year later, that turns out to be exactly what Olmert is proposing.

Still, it should be remembered that this is a proposal, not a final settlement (ironic term, isn’t it?). What may be more important is Olmert’s willingness to enter into negotiations. He has talked about a four-year timeline for what he is calling his “consolidation plan,” and he has left the door open to modifying the plan in the context of peace talks. If talks actually took place, could the Jordan Valley, Ariel, Ma’ale Adumim and East Jerusalem end up on the table? It’s not impossible. With the exception of Jerusalem, Israeli voters clearly have no love for the settlements; and Sharon did show last year that even large, established settlements can be evacuated and the residents relocated within the Green Line.

It looks like Israel will have a center-left government composed of Kadima and Labor, and excluding Likud and the new Ziofascist Yisrael Beiteinu party. I doubt that Olmert will take the initiative in re-opening negotiations with the Palestinians; but, if the right conditions emerged, Israel’s current political configuration is one that could sustain a peace process.

As always, the international community and especially the U.S., have a critical role to play in determining which direction the conflict will go. Israel has military superiority, and there is little inherent incentive for it to negotiate. The two factors I can see that might sway Israel would be a renewed, effective campaign of terrorist violence, leading to a realization that unilaterlism cannot guarantee security (though this could just as well have the opposite effect, re-invigorating the right); or, preferably, firm international pressure for peace talks, backed up by the threat of economic sanctions.

U.S. statements after the election were not promising. The Associated Press reported last week on Condoleeza Rice’s press conference in Berlin:

The United States, departing from its insistence on a negotiated settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, expressed openness to the possibility of unilateral moves by Israel to fix its final borders by 2010.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would not rule out support for the plan by the Kadima Party, which took first place in this week’s Israeli elections on a platform of withdrawal from major areas of the West Bank…

The tone of her remarks contrasted with previous US statements warning the Israelis against doing anything that would prejudge negotiations on the border or other so-called final-status issues…

“Of course, everyone would like to see a negotiated solution. That’s what the road map is all about,” Rice said, referring to the US-backed plan aimed at creating a Palestinian state with mutually agreed frontiers.

“I would note that if you are going to have a negotiation, though, you have to have partners, and the Palestinian government that has just been sworn in does not accept the concept of a negotiated solution.”

In my opinion, Hamas has the potential to play a historic role in bringing peace to Israel and Palestine, and giving birth to a Palestinian state. I say this because Hamas may be the only group with the necessary strength to unite the Palestinian factions and the credibility to sustain support for a peace agreement if one were forged. I also think Hamas would be a savvy and tough negotiator and a vigorous guardian of Palestinian interests, which Arafat was not in the Oslo accords.

The difficulty, obviously, will be getting to the point of negotiations. The immediate challenges for Hamas are to establish its own position vis a vis a Jewish state (trying to play both sides is not working); to improve its international standing, and get itself off the European and American list of terrorist organizations, which is a huge obstacle to international diplomacy; and to persuade at least some segment of the Israeli establishment that it is a trustworthy representative for the Palestinians.

Did anyone say this was going to be easy?