Elections in the air, Tuesday, November 08, 2005

More than ever, said the headlines this morning, the smells of early elections are in the air. The Likud is now two separate Knesset factions, and the prognosticators are predicting that Sharon will now do everything he can to either drive the rebel faction out of the Likud or crush them inside the party. How exactly he plans to do that remains a mystery, but there is no mystery about what is happening to the Likud, which has been the ruling party in Israel since 1977 (except for the Rabin and Barak administrations in the 1990s). The party is so divided between Sharon opponents and supporters that it is now the consensus among political reporters that there will necessarily be a split. The question is whether the split will drive the rebels into the arms of the National Union or force Sharon to form a new party. This week, the conventional wisdom is that he will fight it out inside the Likud.

The conventional wisdom, as depicted in the polls, says that whatever happens in the Likud, as long as Sharon is in the political arena, whether in the Likud or at the head of a new party, he will be elected as prime minister.

But much depends on what happens in the Labor Party, which is now his main coalition partner. Polls taken after Matan Vilnai threw in the towel show that Peres may have a commanding lead over Amir Peretz, the union leader who has sparked hopes inside the Labor Party of creating an social-civic alternative to the Likud – and with a much more dovish approach to the conflict with the Palestinians. There is even an argument to be made that Peretz, more than anyone else in Labor right now, is the real heir to the Rabin legacy, because of Peretz's emphasis on domestic affairs, social welfare, job creation, and significantly, an insistence that now, more than ever, is the time for dialogue with the Palestinian Authority, something that Sharon seems loathe to do and which Peres promotes but does little to force Sharon to try it. An ascendant Peretz, even if he doesn't win tomorrow's primaries vote in the party, could become a lightning rod for disaffected Likud voters of the past who have been driven into poverty by the neo-Thatcherite economic policies instituted by the Likud over the past few years and particularly during Netanyahu's years as finance minister. Peres may have promised Matan Vilnai the defense ministry, but the real question after tomorrow's vote will be what Peretz will get from Peres, if Peres wins. Everyone knows what Peretz would do if he wins: pull Labor out of the government and start running an election campaign. Peres, on the other hand, seems committed to sticking with Sharon for as long as possible.

Meanwhile, it's the Europeans – and to a certain extent the Americans -- who are taking an active role in trying to bridge differences between Israel and the Palestinians. European law enforcement experts are working in the PA territories, training officers and troopers. The EU is preparing to send teams of border monitors to take up positions at the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt – but the Israelis are insisting that the EU monitors have law enforcement authority, something the Europeans are not eager to assume.

The Israelis are also insisting that remote controlled TV cameras at the border crossing beam live images of the crossing to Israeli security officials. The Palestinians say that is further proof that the Israelis have not yet grasped that they are no longer in charge of Gaza. In any case, PA President Mahmoud Abbas, seemingly eternally optimistic, keeps saying a Rafah agreement is close. If he wins a deal with Israel on the border crossing before the PA's parliamentary elections in January, it could be helpful for his Fateh movement in Gaza, which is dominated nowadays by Hamas. It is not helping matters, of course, that Sharon shows no interest right now in meeting with Abbas to try to solve the outstanding issues. But there's nobody – except perhaps Peres – who has any real influence over Sharon, other than the Americans, and even though Condoleezza Rice will be here this week to take part in Rabin memorial ceremonies, and is said to be hoping to ease the tensions between Jerusalem and Ramallah, nobody expects her to knock heads together. Yitzhak Rabin's Last Speech, which he delivered at the Tel Aviv peace rally on Nov. 4 1995

More news from today || Yesterday's situation (Archive)

© Today's Situation From Ariga, http://www.ariga.com by Robert Rosenberg; Feel free to pass this page on, including this line: Subscribe to get it daily by email -- or unsubscribe -- at http://www.ariga.com/signup.shtml >>>>>>>>>>RSS Feed

Feed Shark

Today's Situation || Yesterday's Situation