Kerry Should Give Up

The fact that Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government used the Palestinian unity pact as an excuse to pull out of negotiations with the Palestinians was very predictable. In fact, Netanyahu said many times in the past that he would do so. Why is this? Palestinian unity is what Bibi fears. As long as Hamas is outside of peace talks with Israel and is reasonably strong, it will have an inhibiting factor on Palestinian negotiating positions. This will serve as a wonderful excuse for Netanyahu not to make peace--a peace that would break up his ruling coalition. In 1999 Netanyahu lost power when a limited surrender of West Bank land to the Palestinians mediated at Wye River Plantation in October 1998 by Clinton led to a collapse of his rightist coalition. When running for reelection in 2013 Netanyahu claimed that he had learned his lesson. The lesson was not, as some in Israel thought at the time, do not form a coalition with parties of the right. Rather, it was not to agree to give up territory to the Palestinians. 

Israel's Leadership Vacuum

Veteran Israeli political reporter Ben Caspit, who has co-authored biographies of both the recently deceased Ariel Sharon and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, had this interesting column for the Israel Pulse of the Al Monitor of the  Christian Science Monitor. I agree with it in general with one major disagreement: Caspit groups both Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Shamir together with the Likud princes. The Likud princes were the children of prominent Revisionist Zionist and Herut figures and include figures like Netanyahu, Benny Begin, Ron Milo, Ehud Olmert, and Tzipi Livni. Shamir and Sharon were from a different generation--that of the princes' parents who served in the underground and founded Israel. Shamir was a contemporary and colleague of Benny Begin's father, Prime Minister Menahem Begin, and arrived in mandatory Palestine several years before Begin did. Shamir became of the trio leading the Lehi underground from 1943 to 1948 when Begin was leader of the Etzel (Irgun) underground. Shamir did, however, head the faction within the Likud that the princes belonged to. Sharon was in opposition to that faction as the head of his own faction within the Likud after 1983. 

Caspit's thesis is that the demise of the generation of Israel's founding fathers (and mothers in the case of Golda Meir and some other women) due to mortality has left Israel with a leadership gap. Actually the founders consisted of three separate generations: that of David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister from 1948-53 and 1956-63, who arrived in Palestine during the Second Aliya or wave of immigration following the abortive Russian revolution of 1904-05; the generation of Moshe Sharett, Pinhas Sapir, and Golda Meir, who arrived in Israel in the 1920s; and finally the 1948 generation that fought Israel's War of Independence and were born in Israel from 1915 to 1930 or who arrived in Palestine as children during the 1930s in the case of Shimon Peres. The first two generations ruled Israel and the Zionist Yishuv from 1935 to 1974. The third generation took over in 1974 when Yitzhak Rabin was elected leader of the Labor Party and prime minister to replace Meir. Sharon and Peres are the last members of that generation. Sharon left office due to his stroke in March 2006 and Peres was elected president by the Knesset in July 2007 and is set to leave office later this year at age 90.

A New Wave of Right-Wing Legislation in Israel?

The 972 website carried this story about a new Knesset bill that has made it through the first step to becoming law by winning a majority vote in the respective committee. The bill would require a supermajority of 80 MKs in favor to give up any part of Jerusalem. Some opponents of the bill have pointed out two absurdities of this in legal terms. First, it negates the Government Basic Law, which with other basic laws passed by the Knesset forms a rudimentary constitution for Israel, which assigns to the government all power over foreign policy. Second, it allows a simple majority to require a supermajority to undo it. For this reason it is doubtful that the bill will pass constitutional muster when it comes before the Israeli Supreme Court (Bagetz) as it undoubtedly will if passed.

Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon Reveals the Truth

This week Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon told the Times of Israel that the ruling coalition was opposed to the two-state solution and would vote against it if it ever came up as a government proposal. This is important because in June 2009 in a speech at Bar Ilan University, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became the first Likud leader to officially embrace the two-state solution. He made it conditional, however, upon the Palestinians officially recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, which Danon said Netanyahu knew they would never do. If they did accept this he would come up with a new condition.  Here is a Jerusalem Post editorial on the confusion.

For Obama's Second Term Israel Policy Read Peter Beinart

Those wondering what Obama's policy towards Israel will probably be in his second term should read Peter Beinart's 2012 Jewish bestseller The Crisis of Zionism. Although the subject of the book is the crisis within American Judaism (emptiness of communal life) and in Israel (loss of democracy and the occupation) he does devote a full three chapters out of ten total to Obama. The first of these is entitled "The Jewish President," and in it Beinart attempts to do for our first actual black president what black novelist Toni Morrison famously did for Clinton when she declared him "America's first black president." Beinart argues that Obama as an adult was most influenced by his association with Jews in Chicago, most of whom were either liberal or radical and critical of Israel. But as a candidate Obama was a cautious politician who picked Jewish advisors more for their reputation with the Jewish community than for their academic or policy credentials. This is why he replaced Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer with Ambassador Dennis Ross as his main advisor on Israel and the peace process during the 2008 campaign and for his first term. Beinart ends the chapter with a quote from one of Obama's key Jewish influences, Rabbi Arnold Wolf, "He's going to go very cautiously and not do anything that shakes up the Jewish community." That turned out to not be quite accurate.

Obama's Jerusalem Speech: Just Another Pretty Speech?

It appears that Obama's trip to Israel, Palestine, and Jordan was very carefully prepared and scripted. In Israel Obama went to all the right places to both show his support for peace and to flatter the Israelis. In his Jerusalem speech to students he said many things to both flatter and reassure Israelis as well as to challenge them. In the beginning of the speech he sounded like a typical American politician trolling for Jewish votes (something that he has had much practice in during his many years in Chicago and twice running for the presidency). Later during the end part of the speech in which he spoke about Israel's technological achievements and the economic miracle that Israel could provide to the Middle East he sounded much like President Shimon Peres. If you had an actor read the text of the final part of the speech with a Polish accent you would swear it was Peres.

What Will Bibi and Barack Talk About?

When President Barack Obama flies to Israel next week for his first visit as president to the Jewish state, what will be on the agenda for discussions between him and Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu? The answer to that may well stem from the purpose of the trip. I contend that the trip is largely for domestic political reasons. After Obama made his famous Cairo speech in May 2009 many in Israel who supported a two-state solution urged him to come to Israel and speak directly to the Israelis. Many American Jews also urged the same. But during Obama's first term the timing never seemed right. First, he got into a spat with Netanyahu over the housing freeze and Bibi's refusal to renew it. Then the Arab Spring broke out in the winter of 2010. And by this time Obama had probably decided that he wasn't seriously going to press for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his first term and so he simply promised that he would do it if reelected. This was in the way of throwing a bone to liberal Jews in the Democratic Party who supported J Street and wanted Obama to press for a two-state solution. Meanwhile Obama tackled his real priorities of passing health care reform and financial regulation reform, ending the war in Iraq, and dealing with the escalating war in Afghanistan.

Coalition formation problems in Israel

Sheldon Adelson's free newspaper, Israel Hayom, is reporting that Benjamin Netanyahu told Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid that the foreign ministry is being reserved for Israel Beitenu leader Avigdor Lieberman to return to once his legal problems have gone away. Israel Beitenu ran in a joint list, Likud Beitenu, with Likud in the recent election. Netanyahu is leaving Yesh Atid the choice of the finance ministry or another major economic ministry.  He is also offering the party the defense ministry. Netanyahu has also indicated that he wants the ultra-Orthodox (Haredim) parties in his coalition government. This will make it much harder for Yesh Atid to join as it ran in opposition to the ultra-Orthodox immunity from military service and religious coercion on personal identity issues such as marriage, divorce, and conversion.

Which ministry for Yair Lapid?

Before the latest election, Israel Beitenu leader Avigdor Lieberman said that after the election he would break Likud Beitenu back into its two component parts: Likud (20 seats) and Israel Beitenu (17 seats). This would make his party the third largest party in the ruling coalition that Benjamin Netanyahu is attempting to form and leave Likud with only one more seat than Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party. This would strengthen the bargaining position of both Lapid's party and Israel Beitenu vis a vis the Likud. Since Lieberman has made no secret of his wanting to replace Netanyahu as the leader of the Israeli Right, and the media during the election campaign was so full of portraits of Naftali Bennett of Jewish Home, expect him to carry out his pledge.  

Normally a party in the position of Yesh Atid would be offered a choice of either the finance or foreign affairs ministries. Lapid has no expertise or background in either area. From a vanity and publicity point of view, the latter ministry would be more advantageous as it would allow him to be constantly in the Israeli and international media in a positive light meeting with world leaders. Whereas as finance minister he would have to be cast as the villain by cutting Israel's blotted national budget. He might be better off either taking a lesser ministry that would be closer to one of the reform agendas he campaigned upon, or deferring to one of the experts who was elected on his party's list.

Two Likely Coalitions for Netanyahu

With the final results of the Israeli election to the 19th Knesset in  two possible coalition choices for Netanyahu appear likely.  The first would be a Center-Right coalition with Yesh Atid:

Likud Beitenu      31

Yesh Atid             19

Jewish Home       11

________________

Total                    61

Kadima with two seats could be added to provide a little safety margin. In this scenario, Netanyahu would agree to a draft of the ultra-Orthodox Haredim and Yesh Atid would go along with continued settlement. As Yesh Atid appears to put more emphasis on ending religious privilege and coercion and the ultra-Orthodox draft exemption than on achieving peace, this is possible. Certainly, if Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid is anything like his father, Tommy Lapid, leader of the Shinui party of the 1990s-2006, he is closer to the Likud when it comes to borders than he is to Labor. Here is an article from Foreign Affairs that indicates that on territorial issues Lapid is very compatible with Netanyahu.

The second coalition, would be more Centrist:

Likud Beitenu    31

Yesh Atid          19

Labor                15

--------------------------

Total                65

Under this scenario, there would be a religious draft, an end to subsidies to the ultra-Orthodox, and settlement construction would probably be defined by some formula or committee that would allow for "natural expansion" within settlements but not much in the way of new settlements outside of Jerusalem.  There would also probably not be any renewed peace talks with the Palestinian Authority. Labor leader Shelli Yakhimovich campaigned on socio-economic issues, so as long as there was a change in budget priorities towards helping out the secular poor it would probably be happy.

This Jerusalem Post article discusses various coalition possibilities and graphically illustrates four of them. And here Ben Birnbaum of The New Republic discusses the winners and losers of the latest Israeli election in terms both of parties and individuals.

The Center-Left lacks the sufficient Knesset votes to construct a stable coalition of its own without the Likud, even if it was inclined to include the Arabs--which they have not been willing to do in the past.

Israeli Election and the Coalition After

The last polls legally allowed before Israel's January 22 election have the Israeli Right bloc composed of the secular Right parties and the religious parties winning a slim majority of about 64 seats. This includes two seats to the far-right Otzma L'Israel (Strengh to Israel) party, which Netanyahu is determined to keep out of his coalition. This will give him 62 seats or a majority of two. This projection has Likud Beitenu receiving only 32 seats, over ten less than was expected only a month ago. Another older poll by the newspaper Ma'ariv has Likud Beitenu receiving 37 seats (Hebrew link). But usually the differences between polls occur between parties within the same bloc so that the overall bloc margins remain about the same. The Ma'ariv poll has Labor coming in a distant second at 15 seats, Jewish Home a close third with 14, and Shas a close fourth with 12 seats. But the Ma'ariv poll is older and doesn't take into account an apparent shift to the Center-Left and the far Right. Much depends on turnout--typically the highest levels of turnout are found among settlers in the West Bank and among the ultra-Orthodox who are both ideologically motivated to vote. The mainstream Israeli peace movement Shalom Akshav/Peace Now has been attempting to counter this by publicizing voting levels in different locations in the previous election in an app for smart phones and other electronic devices.

The Israeli Election: A Preview

Israel goes to the polls on January 22. Everyone has already conceded that Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu will be heading the next government. His Likud Beitenu (Union: Our Home) party is forecast to receive between 34 and 38 seats out of 120 in the Knesset. Next largest will be the centrist Labor Party with 16 to 18 seats--up from 13 in 2009. Third will be the Jewish Home (haBeit haYehudi) party with 13-14 seats- (Hebrew link) --this will be a record for the old National Religious Party, which normally received anywhere from four to ten seats in each election since the 1950s. For another forecast in English see here. The Kadima party, founded by Ariel Sharon as a splinted from the Likud in November 2005, is likely to only receive two seats despite being the largest party after the 2009 election with 28 seats. Most of its voters are said to be either returning to the Likud after seven years, returning to Labor after three years, or going to former Kadima leader Tzipi Livni's haTnua (the Movement) party that is projected to receive seven seats. Overall the Right is projected to receive about 53 seats and the Center-Left about ten seats less than that. Daniel Levy, an analyst affiliated with a number of European and American think tanks as their resident Israel expert, has a very good article organized around the concept of Israel's "four tribes" or electoral blocs.

There are many explanations for this move to the right.  But the important thing is the effect that it will have on the policy of the Israeli government. Netanyahu is likely to form another rightist coalition with one of the Center parties in the coalition, such as Yesh Atid (There is a Future), as a legitimizing party in the small role that Labor has periodically filled (after 2001, after 2009 etc.) An attempt to form a Center bloc with Yesh Atid, Labor, and haTnua blew up last week when Tzipi Livni issued a statement about a meeting that the three party leaders held and then the other two contradicted her.  This will make it easy for Netanyahu to play the three parties off against one another after the election. The most interesting figure in this election cycle has been Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party, portrayed in this New Yorker article by David Remnick.  Here is an article that ran on Sunday January 20--two days before the election--in The Times of Israel on the Likud's post-election coalition options.

The End of the Two-State Solution? Part I

Purely by coincidence, today's edition of Real Clear World has three very pessimistic articles on the Middle East peace process only about a week or two after I mailed in the manuscript for my latest book, tentatively titled Why the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Remains Unsolved: the Politics of the Two-State Solution, which will probably be published by McFarland Publishing of North Carolina sometime late next year. These three articles here, here, and here, tend to blame the Palestinians and Arabs in general rather than Israel. The first is by a noted Italian commentator on international affairs, Emanuele Ottolenghi (eight tongues); the second by The New Republic's longtime columnist Leon Wieseltier; and the last by a writer at a conservative Israeli tabloid, Yediot Aharonot (confession: this was the paper I usually read when I was a student in Israel over three decades ago because of its relatively easy Hebrew). 

The problem with the two-state solution since it was first proposed by West Bank Palestinian and Israeli intellectuals in the 1970s was that it required both sides to go way out of their comfort zones and take real risks for peace. The risks on the Israeli side--at least until Rabin's assassination by a radical religious law student in November 1995--were mainly political rather than physical; on the Palestinian side they were both. Plus these two sides had to be ready to take these risks at the same time and while the United States administration was prepared to vigorously mediate between them to reach a solution. Since the early 1990s the two sides were out of sync. First, Arafat was most desperate for a deal in 1992-93 at the start of the Oslo process when the PLO was bankrupt due to a cutoff of Gulf state contributions following Arafat's embrace of Saddam's annexation of Kuwait. But Rabin wanted to take it slow and test Arafat and develop support for a final settlement. Plus, it was not all that clear that Rabin supported the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Under Netanyahu from mid-1996 to mid-1999 Israel pursued a go-very-slow policy. By the time that Ehud Barak was ready to negotiate with the Palestinians in early 2000, Arafat was suspicious of his motives and ready to appease the Islamists and reject Israeli compromise proposals at Camp David. In October 2000 the Al-Aksa Intifada broke out with both Arafat and Arik Sharon bearing heavy responsibility for it. After that a solution was precluded until the Palestinians had a new leader. But this resulted in Sharon replacing Barak as prime minister in February 2001. A settlement now awaited a new Israeli leader as well. This did not occur until March 2006 when Kadima leader Ehud Olmert followed Sharon two months after Sharon's massive stroke.

Gaza: Winners and Losers

Eight days of fighting or rather mutual bombardments between Gaza and Israel changed little. Apparently the fighting began because Hamas decided to violate the unwritten rules and not only be more permissive of another jihadist organizations attacking Israel from the Strip but make some attacks of its own. In an election campaign this was intolerable for Israel and Jerusalem decided to respond by a targeted killing of the Al-Kassem Brigades (Hamas's military wing) commander Ahmed Jabari. This in turn provoked Hamas into responding with an all-out barrage of rockets and missiles including the long-range Iranian Fajr missile. This resulted in Israel responding by bombing suspected rocket storage sites and other Hamas military targets as well as tunnels used by smugglers.  

The main results are that Jabari left his position as commander possibly sooner than he expected, but in the manner that he anticipated, and that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided to take another break from politics, this time possibly a final one. Hamas was not able to decisively intimidate Israel and vice versa. In fact, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may conclude from this that the response from Iran's allies to an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would be tolerable. 

Here is APN analyst Yossi Alpher's summary of the winners and losers.

A majority of the Israeli public, (article is in Hebrew) by an almost two to one margin, was disappointed by an early Israeli ceasefire and wanted an invasion of Gaza by the IDF. Expect these voters to vote for the Israeli Right in January--for Likud Beitenu, National Union, and the Jewish Home parties. The use of moderate force never seems to benefit centrist Israeli politicians because it simply demonstrates that there is no military solution to Israel's Arab problem and much of the Israeli public refuses to accept this and so supports those parties that promise the use of even greater force. In the February 2009 elections it was Kadima that lost out. Now it is Barak and Netanyahu. Barak split from Labor to form his own faction as so many military politicians have in the past ranging from Sharon in 1976 and 2005, Dayan in 1980, and Weizman in 1981. Barak probably expected to end up in the Likud, but with it moving further to the Right, this was impossible. So Barak returns to the private sector to make large speaking, consulting and influence peddling fees. Having served in all the top positions in government for which he is qualified (PM, defense, foreign, interior) he is forced with the choice of either stepping down in the future to take lesser posts or retiring permanently. Rabin gave him a precedent for stepping down to be defense minister after having served as prime minister, but any lower might be considered to be beneath his dignity. Netanyahu has been left isolated in the Likud as the settler representatives of the Radical Right triumphed in internal Likud elections to win the realistic seats. Gone are Benny Begin and Dan Meridor.

What next? Don't expect much action in Gaza in the next few months as Israel goes to the polls on January 22 and then has to form a new government from the resulting parties. (Here is the latest Ma'ariv poll in English.)  If Netanyahu really does plan to attack Iran he will keep things quiet with Hamas and Hezbollah, but if he is merely bluffing or trying to maneuver the U.S. military to do Israel's job for it, he will probably come down heavily on Hamas for any ceasefire violations once his new coalition is established after the elections. Hamas will probably attempt to rebuild and benefit from its new status of respectability in the Arab world.

I would like to congratulate Stratfor for their free analysis of the war to those getting their weekly free articles and to American for Peace Now's News Nosh daily compilation of the Hebrew press in Israel.

 

Is Netanyahu's real competition internal?

Read the first paragraph of this article by veteran English-language Israeli reporter David Horovitz and see how dismissive he is of Netanyahu's real competition from the Center-Left. And then go on to read the rest of the article where he discusses the chances of Likud Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon, who it is rumored is planning to run as a socialist from the Right.  Horovitz doesn't claim to have any answers, merely questions.  But the first weeks of any Israeli general election campaign are always a circus as polls appear and every Israeli salivates over the prospect of someone replacing the "usual suspects" to use a line from Casablanca. But then the truth begins to dribble out about the new boy wonders who are made of flesh and blood after all. And Israelis resolve themselves to picking one of the lesser evils. 

No peace for Syria; no peace process for Obama

This article by Tony Karon indicates that the war in Syria is at a stalemate, with the Sunni rebels lacking the heavy weapons to contest the planes and tanks of the regime in the cities. Those who can remember the civil war in Libya will remember the important role played by NATO air forces. NATO has no plans to get involved in Syria, which has a serious air defense system. Bashar al-Assad also did not support terrorism in Europe the way Muammar Kaddafi did. For Britain, France, and the U.S. intervention was a means of settling scores with an old foe and possibly deterring future terrorism by demonstrating that Western democracies have long memories. The only outside country showing any interest in getting involved militarily in Syria is Turkey, but the Turkish population is not up for the cost of a major war. Thus, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will have to limit himself to running refugee camps for Syrian refugees and supplying a few small arms and other aid. If he did intervene it would enhance the political role of the Turkish military, Erdogan's main domestic political foe. 

Is Ahmedinajad another Hitler?

For several years now it has been for the Israeli government and its American supporters the contention that President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad of Iran is the reincarnation of Hitler and Iran is another Nazi Germany. Having just finished reading the initial chapters of Ian Kershaw's Hitler Nemesis 1936-45 covering the 1936-39 period, I would like to review the main traits that Hitler exhibited in 1938 in dealing with Austria and Czechoslovakia:

• Hitler was head of a great power with well-led armed forces equipped with modern weapons.
• Hitler was a dictator with no real internal opposition after late 1937.
• Hitler was convinced that he had a great personal mission of giving Germany lebensraum in the East through "the sword" and destroying the imaginary Jewish threat to Germany.
• Hitler's health in 1939 was starting to go (largely because of his self medication with quack remedies) and he was convinced that he had little time left to him.
• Hitler was a natural gambler with a high tolerance for risk.

Old coaliton, new elections?

It was announced by Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz yesterday that he was pulling out of the coaliton after Prime Minister Netanyahu caved in to the ultra-Orthodox parties and rejected the findings of the Plesner Commission on military service. When Mofaz agreed to go into the coalition just over two months ago it was for the purpose of finding a solution to draft dodging by the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) section and to implement electoral reform. The two issues are related. It is Israel's present proportional representation list system with its low (2%) entry barrier that allows the ultra-Orthodox to blackmail those mainstream secular parties competing to form the government into giving their voters special status. When Kadima entered the coalition the Knesset was debating a bill for new elections.

Netanyahu's True Views Revealed

Last week a committee appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Levy Committee, to look into the future of the West Bank made its recommendation. Not surprisingly considering the composition of the governing coalition made up mainly of parties from the secular Right and religious Right, the committee did not recommend either leaving the territory or ending settlement, but rather argued that the occupation does not exist. This was straight out of Neo-Revisionist ideology. The argument is that because Israel conquered Judea and Samaria i.e. the West Bank from Jordan in 1967 and only two countries (Britain and Pakistan) had recognized Jordan's annexation of the West Bank in 1950, then Israel has as much right to the West Bank as the Palestinians who rejected the 1947 partition plan. The trouble with this logic is if one thief steals from another thief that does not make him the legal owner under the law.

Tzipi Livni: The Latest Great Western Hope

Tzipi Livni was best friends forever with Secretary of State Condi Rice during the second Bush term and appeared on many lists of influential women. Tzipi Livni, the former leader of Kadima, was the latest but not the last of a string of Great Western Hopes in Israel who are more loved in America and Europe than in their own country. They are polyglot and erudite men and woman known for their reasonableness and learning. They explain Israel to the world and attempt to explain the world to Israel. All have been foreign ministers at one time or another and two have been prime ministers and a third--Livni--nearly became prime minister.