Issue No. 611
Opinion
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7 - 13 November 2002 Issue No. 611 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
When confusion reigns
Ibrahim Nafie ploughs through the minefield of Israeli party politics
In a long awaited step, the Israeli Labour Party, led by Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, decided to abandon Sharon's coalition. Ben- Eliezer now replaces Meretz Party head Yossi Sarid as opposition leader.
The decision followed a dispute over the 2003 budget, in which Sharon refused $150 million in grants for new towns while at the same time providing generously for occupation activities in the Palestinian territories. Most agree the reasons put forward for Labour's withdrawal do not reflect the real causes of this much delayed decision, which should have been made long ago by Labour politicians, specifically Ben-Eliezer and Shimon Peres, in an attempt to put some distance between the Labour and Likud positions vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Labour's withdrawal of 30 October has led to a state of confusion within the political arena. Certainly the motives of the majority of players are governed by personal calculations rather than disputes over economic conditions or ways of dealing with the Palestinian question and other Middle East developments.
Sharon's coalition has now lost the majority it enjoyed with Labour on board, currently commanding 55 out of the Knesset's 120 seats. Sharon was faced with two options -- to either reconstitute his cabinet with members of right-wing parties from outside the coalition or else tender his resignation and call for elections within 90 days rather than waiting till October of next year.
Sharon undoubtedly favoured the first option, which permits him to remain in power for another year. Tendering his resignation would not only divest Sharon of his post as prime minister but might undermine his position as Likud leader now that the party's former head, Binyamin Netanyahu, has returned to the political arena to challenge Sharon for the leadership of the party, a process that would be facilitated, in the case of Sharon's resignation, by revoking the law concerning direct election of the prime minister and returning to a parliamentary electoral policy.
Sharon's concerns are compounded by the fact that opinion polls indicate Netanyahu is gaining in popularity at the expense of Sharon, a fact reflected in Netanyahu's success in procuring the Likud central committee's decision to reject the notion of an independent Palestinian state in the face of Sharon's opposition -- motivated by considerations that originate in Washington -- to such a move.
The committee's decision to support Netanyahu boosts his chances of resuming the leadership of the party. And as a result Sharon preferred to constitute a narrow right- wing government and see out his electoral term, buying time in which he hopes to consolidate his position within Likud.
Sharon worked hard to reconstitute his government, bringing on board Yisrael Beitenu, the party headed by Avigdor Liberman with a mainly Russian immigrant constituency. Liberman was Netanyahu's office director during the latter's premiership. And in a move to impose his authority on Netanyahu, Sharon offered his rival the Foreign Ministry, while offering the position of minister of defence to former army chief-of-staff Shaul Mofaz, who retired last July and has now completed the three-month interim required by law before a retired official can be readmitted into political life.
Mofaz immediately accepted the offer, while Netanyahu asked for an opportunity to think it over. He accepted the post, but only on condition that Sharon agree to early elections, force President Arafat out of Palestinian land and reject the American roadmap.
Lieberman is unlikely to have entered Sharon's coalition without first sounding out the advice of Netanyahu. It was, after all, the former prime minister who first suggested to Lieberman that he leave Israel B'Aliya to form his own, Yisrael Beitenu Party. Which suggests that Netanyahu's plan is to contribute to the failure of Sharon's policy from within and springboard to the leadership of Likud.
The Labour Party, meanwhile, is in the middle of its own crisis, a result of the on- going erosion of its earlier mid-left orientation. The crisis first came to a head following the assassination of Rabin by a Jewish extremist on 5 November 1995. Since then the Labour Party has lacked any genuine political leadership, operating without any clear vision as to how to secure peace.
Following Rabin's assassination Shimon Peres temporarily assumed leadership of the party, making a series of disastrous mistakes, including the Qana massacre. These resulted in the loss of Israeli Arab support and in the May 1996 elections he lost to Netanyahu.
Barak, the next Labour prime minister, was elected on a Rabinist platform. Yet he moved the party ever closer to Likud and the Zionist right, a tendency embodied in the Camp David II negotiations, which amounted, according to American participants such as Robert Mali, to "a trap set up for Arafat". It was only logical that Barak should then lose the elections to General Sharon: when candidates try to outdo one another in the extremism of their views the most extreme will win.
Labour's crisis was compounded when Ben-Eliezer succeeded Barak. In terms of political orientation Ben-Eliezer is more Likud than Labour, which explains his willingness to participate in Sharon's government and assume the post of minister of defence; the post of foreign minister duly went to Peres, who seems to excel at the tasks of the second lieutenant, adopting whatever positions he feels might suit the leader. A faction within Labour, represented by Shlomo Ben-Ami, Yosi Belin and Haim Ramon, refused to be part of the coalition, preferring to stay out of government altogether.
Sharon's policies, and the role played by Peres and Ben-Eliezer in the acts of terror perpetrated by the Israeli army against Palestinians, resulted in the disappearance of any significant distinction between Labour and Likud. The former became a department of the latter, and as such was placed in a position that is sufficiently weak to possibly undermine its survival within Israel's political arena as a coherent entity.
Labour has split into two factions, one of which works in close collaboration with Likud while the other calls for a return to the party's original principles and an end to collaboration in Sharon's coalition.
The division within the party has resulted in a corresponding division among its supporters, who now form two constituencies, one of which is virtually indistinguishable from that of Likud, the other forming the Meretz bloc. Indeed, some commentators have suggested founding a new party combining socialism with democracy and drawing on the support of those opposed to Ben- Eliezer's extremism -- a development that would lead to the end of the Labour Party in its current constitution.
It was with the aim of short-circuiting such a development and reconstituting the party that Ben-Eliezer withdrew from Sharon's coalition. The party's two factions -- represented by Ben-Eliezer on the one hand and Haim Ramon and Avram Mitzna on the other -- are expected to clash in the internal elections scheduled for 19 November.
Opinion polls conducted within the party indicate that Mitzna command 41 per cent of the vote, Ben-Eliezer30 per cent and Ramon 19 per cent.
In the face of Labour's withdrawal and the manoeuvres of his right-wing rivals, Sharon could not avoid tendering his resignation last Tuesday. Israeli President Moshe Ketzaf duly dissolved the Knesset and called for early elections, scheduled for the beginning of February. The frenzy to secure leadership positions has now reached fever pitch, a situation heightened by the fact that direct election of the prime minister has now been replaced by party elections. The next prime minister will be the head of the party that secures the greatest number of seats.
It is clear that Labour will face a major problem in the next elections. It has lost much of its identity as a left-leaning party with specific views on the peace process, a fact that has contributed significantly to the disintegration of the Israeli "peace camp".
Labour's withdrawal from Sharon's coalition is too little, and too late, to end the party's internal crisis. The features of the next phase, though, will only become clear after the 19 November internal elections which will decide the party's orientation. Only then will we know whether Labour is destined to remain a department of Likud, generating even more confusion within the Israeli peace camp, or whether it will return to its traditional course, that espoused by Rabin and remembered by President Mubarak when he addressed the Israeli public on the seventh anniversary of Rabin's assassination.
The most significant consequence of the confusion prevailing in the Israeli political arena is the deterioration of any prospects for a political settlement of the Arab Israeli struggle. What is taking place inside Labour and Likud, especially inside Labour, the initiator of the Oslo Accords, will be decisive in determining the fate of the peace camp in Israel, and consequently the security and stability of the whole region.
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