She expressed to me her clear dislike of him both as a politician and as an uncle. The word "asshole" was used many times.Tuesday, February 10th 2009, is election day in Israel.
The biggest problem with the way the Western media reports international conflicts lies in its tendency to homogenize each opposing side. In reality, the domestic political situations in both Israel and Palestine are complex; each has many different characters and movements struggling for power. Not only do these domestic power struggles alter the course of the "peace process," but leaders constantly revise their respective bilateral stances in order to lure public opinion. In many ways, power struggles within each entity have coloured the decades-old conflict as much as issues of land or religion.
There are 34 registered political parties in Israel who compete for seats in Parliament under a proportional representation system. Any party with at least 2% of the vote is eligible for its share of seats in the Knesset, so in practice there are usually about a dozen different parties represented. Since the winning party might only get a quarter of the seats, they need to form coalitions with smaller parties in order to govern.
Some parties want peace and are willing to negotiate for a two-state solution in good faith with the Palestinians. Others might
negotiate, but generally in bad faith. Some want to expel all Arabs from the Palestinian territories in order to create a "greater Israel." Other parties exist to represent the interests of Arab Israelis specifically. One wants to give the Palestinians MORE land but strip Arab Israelis of citizenship into order to keep Israel Jewish. Another wants Israel to strip religion from its national identity altogether. One even exists solely to protect the interests of pensioners. As you can see, this is quite a carnival.It is important to note that each party has a different agenda in Israeli politics, and a different conception of what it means to be Israeli and to "support Israel". It has been only sixty years since the country nearly broke down into civil war between leftist and rightist factions. Such divisions are now usually discussed peacefully, but they are still very real.
It appears at this point that the election will be a close race between Tzipi Livni's Kadima party and Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, with the latter more likely to win. Netanyahu opposes a Palestinian state and opposed the closure of the Gaza Strip settlements in 2005. I went to dinner and a cockfight with his niece while in northern Ecuador last summer. She expressed to me her clear dislike of him both as a politician and as an uncle. The word "asshole" was used many times.
Assuming that Netanyahu will win, we will find ourselves in a situation where the two most prominent parties in the Israeli-Palestinians dispute (Likud and Hamas) do not recognize each others' right to exist. The worst possible outcome from this arrangement is that these two groups will increase the level of violence in order to radicalize their respective populations and draw voters away from more moderate parties. Fear can get you votes in Israel just as easily as it can in the United States, but there is plenty more fear to go around.
On the other hand, if Hamas and Likud can agree on a workable framework for a multi-year truce, it will be easier to get the moderate parties to sign on than if the situation were reversed. A development like this could be a new beginning for the region and signal the start of a long healing process. Israelis will have to renew their reputation with their neighbours and the broader international community. Palestinians will have to turn their attention to the widespread post-traumatic stress disorder that affects their population, and work to combat the growing tide of religious extremism that is poisoning what was once the Arab world's most progressive enclave. Even with the best possible outcome, it will be another fifty years before life in this region gains a sense of normalcy.Historically speaking, to predict chaos in the Middle East has generally been a safe bet. Despite the glimmer of hope in the previous paragraph, I suspect that it will continue to be so. ...but you never know. Few would have predicted in May 1977 that Israel and Egypt would sign a peace deal within two years. In a decade full of surprises on the international scene, I hope that there are a still few pleasant ones yet to come.
