The Israeli Elections and the Future of the Peace Process

Secretary Clinton Meets With Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, here with US Secretary Clinton in December 2012. U.S. Department of State/flickr.

Not surprisingly, Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud-Beiteynu coalition won a plurality of seats for the 19th Knesset in last week’s Israeli election. However, while his victory may have seemed certain, his post-election position is much weaker than some of the pre-election opinion polls had predicted and his struggle to form a government of his choice may have only just begun. A quick glance at the new electoral map shows that even with their projected 12-seat lead over the next largest party, forming a government with only right-wing parties (without the religious Orthodox) would leave Likud-Beiteynu short of the 60 seats needed for a Knesset majority. Representing the right-wing political establishment, Netanyahu has to reach out to one of the remaining three traditional Israeli political blocks; the ultra-Orthodox, the center-left and the Israeli Arab. Since no Israeli government is considered “legitimate” unless it has a Jewish majority, only the ultra-Orthodox and the center-left blocks are likely to be considered.

Netanyahu’s choices all mean different things in terms of the direction the prime minister could take Israel in the coming years. On the one hand, only the prime minister can tell us which issues he deems to be national priorities. Although we have a vague idea about Netanyahu’s Iran policies and his pro-settlement sentiments, it will really be his choice of coalition partners that will determine which national and international issues will make it to the top of the next Israeli government’s agenda. While the Iranian nuclear issue will surely continue to be a priority regardless of what shape the coalition takes, other issues—including the question of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks—may not be considered a priority at all.

Netanyahu the Palestinian

Benjamin Netanyahu at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2009 in Davos. Photo: WEF/flickr

PHILADELPHIA – In January, Israeli voters will go to the polls for an election that promises to hand Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu a renewed mandate. Few prospects are more loathsome to the Israeli left, US President Barack Obama’s administration, most European leaders, or many American Jews.

But no one regards the prospect of another Netanyahu government with more anguish than the Palestinians. In the Arab-Israeli conflict’s long, tortured history, they have reviled no Israeli prime minister – with the possible exception of Ariel Sharon – more than Netanyahu. The reason is simple: he is one of them.

Literally, of course, he is not. But, unlike previous Israeli prime ministers (again, with the possible exception of Sharon), Netanyahu has emulated the Palestinian political strategy of sumud, or steadfastness.

The philosophy of sumud is rooted in Palestinians’ implacable belief in the righteousness of their cause and the justness of their methods. It operates both passively and actively in Palestinian culture, demanding stubbornness and tolerating ruthlessness, violence, and duplicity.

Time to Test Iran

This blog is republished here as part of our special holiday selection.

Satellite imagery of suspected Fordo underground uranium enrichment facility in Iran
Satellite imagery of suspected Fordo underground uranium enrichment facility in Iran. Photo: Podknox/flickr.

NEW YORK – Most of the debate about how to address Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear-weapons capacity focuses on two options. The first is to rely on deterrence and live with an Iran that has a small nuclear arsenal or the ability to assemble one with little advance notice. The second is to launch a preventive military strike aimed at destroying critical parts of the Iranian program and setting back its progress by an estimated two or more years.

But now a third option has emerged: negotiating a ceiling on the nuclear program that would not be too low for Iran’s government and not too high for the United States, Israel, and the rest of the world.

In fact, such an option has been around for years – and in several rounds of negotiations. What has changed, however, is the context. And changes in context can be critical; indeed, what happens away from the negotiating table almost always determines the outcome of face-to-face talks.

Israel Media Ratings War Spills into Conflict Coverage

Graffiti in Tel Aviv. Photo: Helga Tawil Souri/flickr

Israeli media has undergone significant changes over the past few years. Growing economic strains have increased competition between media outlets fighting for a share of advertising revenue. However, because the market that media outlets operate in is relatively small many are experiencing serious financial problems. This includes the daily newspaper Maariv, which was recently sold to a right-wing publisher. As a result, many of the newspaper’s workers are expected to lose their job. A similar fate may fall upon employees at Channel 10 and the only left-leaning Israeli daily, Haaretz, which are also incurring heavy losses.

Financial troubles have the potential, therefore, to decrease the independence of reporters, who may be less willing to challenge the wishes of their editors or managers who are, in turn, accountable to the owners of media outlets. In a recent blog post on The 7th Eye, Prof. Gabriel Weimann challenged the view that Israeli media is becoming increasingly biased and polarized due to ideological reasons. He writes:

Frustrations over the ICC and Justice in Palestine

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the National Palestinian Authority, delivers an application for full Palestinian membership in the United Nations to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Photo: UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

It came as no big surprise that the United Nations General Assembly voted to upgrade Palestine to non-member observer status. But, reflecting the reality that international criminal justice now goes to the very heart of Middle East politics, many are left wondering whether Palestine will join the International Criminal Court and request (once again) that the ICC investigate its conflict with Israel. Pondering this issue has left me deeply frustrated.

While it may not be wise to box oneself into a particular moral outlook, I consider myself to be a liberal cosmopolitan. Very briefly, that means that I believe in a politics where all human beings share fundamental individual rights and that when those rights are blatantly violated we, as a global community, have some obligations to respond. This political ethos, I believe, is also what guides most proponents of the ICC, not to mention other liberal cosmopolitan projects such as the Responsibility to Protect.