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5763: Articles posted from September 2002-September 2003
Get the real situation in Israel every day.
An Ariga Update Message
By Robert Rosenberg
December 11, 2002
The election campaign has begun in earnest
For the past three months,
public opinion polls have been predicting an overwhelming victory for Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon and his Likud party, with the Right wing dominating the
next Knesset.
This morning, three days after the Likud chose its nominees
for the Knesset and two days after Labor chose its nominees, a Dahaf poll in
Yedioth Ahronoth shows that for the first time, there are shifts taking place in
public opinion, proving that all the predictions until now have not been written
in stone.
According to the poll, the Likud has slipped 5 Knesset seats,
down to 33, compared to the 38 that as predicted for it only a week ago. Labor
hasn't risen yet from its 21 seats, but with Meretz, the Arab parties, Shinui
and the unionist One Nation all rising, the so-called 'blocking bloc' -- meaning
a Knesset opposition able to muster 60 seats to prevent a Knesset majority for
the other side -- is almost within reach. As of this morning's poll, the dovish
Jewish-Arab Left would win 56-58 seats in the next Knesset, only 2-4 seats shy
of preventing the Likud and a homogeneous Right from forming a government.
And this is only the start of the campaign. While it was very
disappointing to see Labor toss a statesman like Yossi Beilin, and activists
like Tzali Reshef and Yael Dayan to the bottom of their list, in a broader
perspective, that may be good news for those who want to see the aggressive
hawks that head Likud and the satellites to their right, out of power. While
Amram Mitzna is sticking to his clear message of unilateral disengagement from
the Palestinians, the Labor nominees behind him have a more Centrist image, and
are able to draw votes from the still very large undecided
center.
Indeed, this campaign will be all about the center. Sharon,
playing his grampa image, will appeal to the center because he makes sounds
about being ready for compromise (which 70 percent of the public, say the polls,
is ready for with the Palestinians if it will end the conflict). But Sharon is
surrounded by hardliners. The most moderate of the top Likud nominees for
Knesset after Sharon is Shaul Mofaz, the former chief of staff associated with
the most violent of Israel's responses to Palestinian terrorism.
On the
Labor side, Mitzna is surrounded by generals, with the most hawkish of them
being Benjamin Ben-Eliezer who is in favor of the Clinton plan, the Saudi plan
and relinquishing Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem to a Palestinian state. That's
not exactly hawkish territory.
These elections are a choice between those
who have tried for two years to use war to fight Palestinian nationalism as well
as its terrorism, and those who believe peace must be given a second chance. I'm
told I'm naive to believe that the Israeli public might choose giving peace a
chance -- and to believe that the Labor Party under Mitzna has a chance to shape
the political future of the country. I prefer to think of it as faith in
pragmatism as the last remaining ism embraced by the middle class, which despite
the Likud's 25 years in power destroying the social welfare networks and the
educational system is still the dominant force in Israeli political culture. So,
to paraphrase a well-known rightwinger from the distant past, pragmatism in the
defense of peacemaking is no vice.
Robert Rosenberg
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