The elections factor, Wednesday, December 14, 2005

The Likud pulled out the old 'Peres will divide Jerusalem' slogan this morning, replacing Peres with Sharon. It worked in 1996, why not now? Meanwhile, Shaul Mofaz took time just before he jumped from Likud to Kadijma to okay the construction of hiundreds of apartments in the West Bank, despite promises to the U.S. to cease settlement expansion. Indeed, according to Haaretz's Akiva Eldar this morning, Mofaz's defense ministry is unable to explain how an entire new neighborhood, built without any permits, and at the expense of neighboring Palestinian villagers, has sprouted in the ultra-Orthodox suburb of 'Upper Modi'in.'

It's all electioneering of course. Sharon pollster Kalman Gayer was a little loose-lipped when he told Newsweek about Sharon's plan to give up 90 percent of the West Bank and make compromises in Jerusalem. Gayer's in the doghouse for now – but he has been a strategist for the Kadima party since Sharon began thinking about it months ago, and it is unlikely Sharon will change horses midway. But who, other than his two sons, knows what Sharon really has in mind about anything nowadays?

Mofaz was trying to win settler support when he approved the construction. But the settler leadership doesn't trust Mofaz – after all, he executed Sharon's disengagement plan, so the support Mofaz hoped for never materialized. Maybe that's one of the reasons that made him suddenly defect to Kadima, Sharon's new party. Pinchas Wallerstein a 'Yesha' figure of considerable importance, was quoted this morning by Ynet, the Yedioth web site, as saying he trusts Labor's Amir Pretz more than he trusts either the Likud or Kadima. “He's decent compared to them,' said Wallerstein, even though he is against Peretz's plans for negotiations with the Palestinians and a withdrawal from the West Bank. Wallerstein called the Mofaz approvals for construction, 'cynical and transparent.'.

Also part of the election campaign is the sudden flurry of talk about the Iranian nuclear program, with IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz playing what may have been an unwitting role when he told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Iran could hand over a 'dirty bomb' – meaning a conventional bomb packed with radioactive materiel -- to terrorists. MKs immediately leapt upon that statement to make their own promises for Israel preventing Iran from getting anywhere in its weapons program. Nobody apparently stopped to think about why exactly Iran would need to give a dirty bomb to Hizbollah when it is building the real thing.

In short, it's a silly season about serious matters nowadays in Israel, which makes it all the more difficult to understand what is really happening. For example, there are reports today that 'senior Labor' figures are enamored of the idea of a temporary coalition headed by Peretz, to include the Likud, Shas and even far-Right parties, meant to bring down Sharon and disintegrate Kadima. But the reports also say that Kadima is the source of most of the reports about the so-called 61-seat government, which would rule until November, when elections would be held.

So, Israel has four months of this to go. The Palestinians meanwhile are worrying that they might not be able to hold elections as scheduled – and that worries Israel, because Hamas would regard a cancellation or postponement of the January 2006 legislative elections as an excuse to resume their military operations against Israelis. Fateh primaries meanwhile have failed to produce a list of candidates that everyone can agree on, so Fateh operatives simply stole the voter registration databases from six voter registration offices in Gaza and the West Bank, holding the computers hostage until the Fateh list is comprised of the younger generation, and not the Tunis crowd, meaning old-timers and corrupt cronies. Abu Mazin has a list in his hands, but if he doesn't satisfy Marwan Barghouti, it's anybody's guess what will happen next in Palestinian politics. That's precisely the type of situation that the Israeli security services don't like.

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