The rise to power of Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who was elected leader of the ruling Kadima party last month, naturally has implications for the prospects of peace agreement with the Palestinians.
The Israeli Arabs supported the election of Livni in the belief that she was better placed than her rival -Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz - to help advance the peace negotiations.
Polls in Israel showed that the non-Jewish Kadima voters registered the highest turnout during the primary election. Knowing that she stood a better chance at capturing the Israeli Arab vote, Livni requested and obtained the extension of voting time by 30 minutes to allow Muslim voters to reach the polls after iftar.
The Jerusalem Post reported that in some Arab polling stations, "Livni crushed her rival," Mofaz. Her slim margin of victory led some commentators to suggest that Livni was elected by the Arab Israeli members of Kadima.
The Palestinian leadership, which urged Israeli Arabs to vote for Livni, was also openly supportive of Livni. A Palestinian official, expressing happiness with the results, was quoted by the Israeli press as saying: "Even if our formal position is that we work with whoever is elected, it is no secret that working with Livni will be much easier. She knows the material, and there is no need to start from scratch with her."
Israeli Member of Knesset Yossi Beilin shares Palestinian optimism: "I am really happy that Livni won because she is committed to the peace process," Beilin said. "I think the right thing for her to do now is to form a coalition that wants to promote peace rather than a broad government with the right."
Disruptive force
But this optimism ought to be tempered by the sobering reality of the history of the religious party Shas's role in coalition governments; it opposed the 1993 Oslo Agreement; it withdrew from the government of Ehud Barak in 2000 to sabotage any agreement that might have come out of the Bill Clinton-sponsored Camp David negotiations between Arafat and Barak.
Nor has time modified Shas's opposition to peace with the Palestinians. In fact, the religious right has acquired respectability as Israeli positions hardened in the face of the threat that peace poses to the Zionist goal of redeeming the land of Israel. As Israeli writer Akiva Eldar put it: "A fundamentalist, chauvinist, ethnic party [its members are all ultra-Orthodox Mizrahi men] has turned from a political curiosity into a legitimate, substantial body."
On instructions from the rabbi, the leader of the Shas, Eli Yishsai, opposes negotiations with the Palestinians, rejects peace with Syria, and threatened to resign from the government if any negotiations included the subject of occupied Jerusalem, or if colonisation activities were frozen.
Moreover, Livni, who is a protege of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who himself never really accepted the roadmap for peace proposed by the Quartet (US, Russia, European Union and the United Nations), is said to be a hardliner.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Livni's husband told friends that Livni is more right-wing than Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud who opposes peace with the Palestinians.
She has already expressed readiness to use the military option against Iran, and to "act first" against Hamas.
Livni is also responsible for legislations that erect hurdles in the path of Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements. For instance, she sponsored a Bill that would have made any realisation of the right of return for Palestinian refugees require the approval of 80 out of 120 members of the Knesset. She was also the co-sponsor of a Bill that called for a popular referendum on every agreement signed with the Palestinian Authority.
The popular mood in Israel is not inclined to peace agreements with the Palestinians. Colonisation activities continue unabated as Palestinian dispossession grows unchecked. The colonisers now terrorise not only the Palestinians but also any Israelis who support peace agreements with the Palestinians.
The religious right has acquired political respectability and a hardened opponent of peace with the Palestinians like Benjamin Netanyahu is favoured in opinion polls as a strong contender to win the next general election. As the horizons of a viable Palestinian state continue to recede, the Palestinians could only express frustrations.
Continued expansion
Writing in the Wall Street Journal (on September 19) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that if peace is not achieved soon, "the parameters of the debate are apt to shift dramatically". He said: "Israel's continued expansion of colonies and land confiscation in the West Bank makes physical separation of our two peoples increasingly impossible." The number of Israeli colonists in the Palestinian West Bank, he pointed out, "grew by approximately 85 per cent after the Oslo accords were signed".
Arab foreign ministers requested an urgent UN Security Council session in late September to discuss Israel's continued colonisation activities in the occupied West Bank. Washington initially objected but finally relented and allowed the meeting to take place.
But US Secretary of State Rice used the occasion to call on the Security Council to focus on the outlandish remarks made by the Iranian president at the United Nations. "If the council feels it needs to meet again," she said, "on threats to peace in the Middle East, it ought to focus on the Iranian president's remarks."
Arab complaints that colonisers in the West Bank were the main obstacle to peace were effectively silenced. In the end, constrained by the demands of religious partners in a coalition government, apparently unwilling to challenge a hardened public mood supportive of rejectionist politicians such as Netanyahu, and in the face of acquiescence from Washington in continued Israeli expropriation of Palestinian lands, Livni will have to show extraordinary leadership to reach agreement with the Palestinians.
Adel Safty is distinguished visiting professor at the Siberian Academy of Public Administration, Novosibirsk, Russia.
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