Sweet revenge
Victory belonged to three forces in Israel and the occupied territories this week -- Binyamin Netanyahu, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Hamas, writes Graham Usher from Jerusalem
Seven weeks before the Israeli elections, the political landscape in Israel and the occupied territories is starting to congeal into firm contours -- with Ariel Sharon's Likud Party moving further to the right, Avram Mitzna's Labour Party taking up the "centre" and Hamas on the cusp of becoming a recognised and accepted decision-maker in the Palestinian national movement.
These at least are the tentative conclusions to be gleaned from the elections for the Likud and Labour lists for members of the next Israeli parliament and the expectation that another round of Fatah-Hamas talks will convene in Cairo next week.
Conducted on Sunday, the Likud list gave former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu some revenge after the mauling he received from Sharon in the elections for Likud Party leader last month. Netanyahu's allies gained high places on the list while supporters of Sharon trailed behind them, including Israel's current Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz and Likud's Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert.
The relative failure of Sharon's acolytes does not amount to a serious challenge to his leadership but Netanyahu's men are expected to block certain of his declared policies.
Most would prefer a "nationalist" government with the right rather than another national unity government with Labour. Nor are they interested in any "peace process" of whatever stripe, including the American drafted "roadmap" which Sharon "in principle" has accepted.
"Likud will never agree to the establishing of a Palestinian state," crowed Israel's environment minister, Tsahi Hanegbi, on Tuesday. He had just been elected third after Sharon and Netanyahu in the Likud list. The roadmap calls for a "provisional" Palestinian state by 2003 and a final settlement by 2005.
Revenge was also at play in Labour's elections. Supporters of the recently ousted Labour leader, Binyamin Ben- Eliezer, gained high positions at the expense of the remnants of the party's left wing, with the main sacrifice being former justice minister and architect of the Oslo accords, Yossi Beilin.
He came 36th in the list of candidates for the Israeli parliament, a placement so low as to almost certainly rule him out as a future MP. He is said to be now toying with the idea of joining the left- wing Meretz faction or working behind the scenes to forge a pro-peace "social democratic alliance" composed of the Labour left, Meretz and certain of Israel's Palestinian parties.
Israeli analysts posited several reasons for Beilin's fall. Some saw him as the victim of a vendetta by Ben-Eliezer's supporters in the party, who blamed Beilin as the main agitator behind their man's removal as party leader. They "should have restrained themselves, rise above personal rivalries and disputes and understand the variety of views in the party, especially when it's someone the calibre of Beilin," lamented former leadership contender, Haim Ramon.
Others saw it as the final erasure of Oslo from the party that had brought that peculiar diplomatic formula into being. Still others viewed it as a tacit message to Labour's new "dovish" leader that he should spend less time on the campaign trail offering negotiations with the "terrorist" Yasser Arafat and more on building a "separation fence" between Israel and the Palestinian areas. Mitzna "perhaps has a [peace] ideology but his party has just eliminated its chief [peace] ideologist", concluded veteran Israeli analyst, Chemi Shalev, in Israel's Maariv newspaper on Wednesday.
A similar, post-Oslo dynamic can be seen among the Palestinian leadership. The last round of Fatah-Hamas talks in Cairo ended inconclusively, mainly, say PA sources, because Arafat was less interested in brokering a ceasefire than in extracting from Hamas recognition of his leadership. But Hamas showed little interest in bestowing legitimacy on an Authority in which it has no stake or on a leader whose Oslo-like policies it actively opposes.
Hamas's goal in the talks is largely diplomatic, says a PA official. "By negotiating not only with Fatah and the PA, but also with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the European Union and even the US, Hamas has established itself as a parallel Palestinian authority. This is a very important achievement as far as Hamas is concerned."
Whatever the motive, all parties to the next round of talks are expressing cautious optimism that at least a moratorium on attacks on civilians inside Israel can be agreed between Hamas and Fatah. The one condition is that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the EU and US use their various offices to "persuade" Israel to desist from its policies of assassinating and arresting Palestinian militants and invading PA areas.
Israel has yet to be persuaded. This week the army has killed over 15 Palestinians -- civilian and fighters alike -- arrested scores and invaded Berij and Rafah refugee camps in Gaza. It also remains in re-occupation of seven of the eight main West Bank Palestinian cities. Under such oppression most Palestinians know it is not a question of if there will be more suicide bombings in Israel but when.
Carnage in Israel will pull Likud more to the right and Labour more to the "centre". Neither is good news for Arafat and the PA. It is less bad for Hamas.
