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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 28 January 1999 Issue No. 413 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 28 January 1999 Issue No. 413
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Focus Economy Opinion Culture Features Living Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Israel's Watergate -- Barak's salvation
By Graham UsherIsraeli commentators have long lamented the Americanisation of Israeli politics. The Knesset's decision before the 1996 poll to have direct elections for prime minister transformed that campaign and the present one from a contest between political parties to a presidential-like parade of candidates, some of whom (such as Israel's new "centrist" contender, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak) don't even have parties or any kind of mass political organisation behind them. Even the cause of the 1996 election -- the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin -- drew comparisons between Israel and recent American political history.
Now there is another resemblance -- in the form of an alleged "dirty tricks" campaign by Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud Party against his Labour counterpart, Ehud Barak. The Israeli press has already dubbed the potential scandal, "Israel's Watergate".
The cause was the break-in on 12 January of the Washington offices of Stanley Greenberg, a Democratic Party pollster currently advising Barak on his campaign. Barak's campaign manager, Tal Silberstein, was quick to make the link between the burglary and the Israeli elections. The thieves "knew exactly what they wanted because the only file taken was one dealing with the Israeli campaign," he said.
The plot thickened on 15 January when Barak's spokeswomen, Aliza Goren, said that five aides to the Labour leader had had their homes broken into in recent weeks. Labour Party members have hinted none too subtly that they believe people "close to" Netanyahu are behind the sudden crime wave, though without proffering any evidence. As for Likud, it has issued a statement condemning the thefts and deriding all insinuation that it was behind them as an "absolute obscenity", in the words of Netanyahu aide, David Bar-Illan.
Not that Barak would be adverse to a Watergate-like scandal hitting Likud, especially if it meant Netanyahu meeting the same fate as Richard Nixon. Three weeks into the Israel's 15th Knesset elections, polls show Netanyahu trailing Barak for the first prime ministerial poll on 17 May but neck and neck with him in the final run-off on 1 June. This is no mean achievement for an ex-prime minister who brought the peace process to an impasse with the Arabs, sent unemployment soaring in Israel and presided over major splits within his own Likud Party.
Barak has yet to make good on Netanyahu's failings. In the last three weeks, the Labour leader has traipsed the country promising jobs, schools and hospitals to all and sundry in a desperate effort to woo those 10 per cent of undecided Israelis whose votes he needs if he is to beat Netanyahu in the first round. Barak's problem is that the constituencies he is addressing -- Russian immigrants, Orthodox Jews and the Sephardi poor -- may feel disillusioned with Netanyahu, but not to the extent of voting for a Labour candidate. The dilemma was aptly expressed by a teacher from a Sephardi development town in the Negev. "We are willing to listen" to Barak, he said, "but I doubt anyone here will vote for him."
Barak also has problems with his own party. Prior to last week's Labour conference that nominated him as the party's prime ministerial candidate, Barak witnessed the defection of Labour deputy Hagai Meiron to Shahak in protest at the Labour Party's "one man rule". At the conference, Barak argued that he should be allowed to set aside "safe seats" on Labour's list for non-party figures like Gesher's David Levy, Defence Minister Yitzak Mordechai and Shahak. The conference voted down the proposal. It also voted former prime minister (and Barak's long time bête noire), Shimon Peres, as the second candidate on the Labour list.
Many Labour members are alienated from Barak not only for his growing autocracy, but because his foreign policy appears indistinguishable from Likud's, especially when it comes to his vision of a final settlement with the Palestinians. At a rally on 13 January, Barak denounced Netanyahu for "setting up a Palestinian state". Four days before, Peres had told the Palestinian Legislative Council that Israel "needs a Palestinian state if Israel is to be a Jewish state. Otherwise, we'll be a binational state". Asked whether Barak shared this opinion, Peres answered with absolute uncertainty. "I think so," he murmured.
Peres' confusion was summed up by his former interior minister, Labour deputy Uzi Baram, writing in the Israeli newspaper Maariv on 15 January. "The Labour Party conference did not express its opinion on the diplomatic issue" (i.e. recognition of a Palestinian state), "believing it was enough to lay down Barak's red lines in order to neutralise the debate". But "if we have red lines of a united Jerusalem, a non-return to the 1967 borders and a non-relinquishing of settlements, we must emphasise our support for an independent Palestinian entity, to be determined through negotiations. Because unless we decide that, where is the real difference between Right and Left ?"
This is precisely the question Palestinians will be asking themselves as they watch Barak versus Netanyahu over the coming weeks.
