Israeli Elections: What is Left for the Peace Process?

Allan Solomonow, Director, Middle East Peace Program, AFSC Pacific Mountain Regional Office, recently returned from an extended stay in the Middle East.

As this article is being written, Labor has revived a plan previously worked out with the Palestinian Authority for a Palestinian State with its capital in "greater Jerusalem." This stance was not lost on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington which has regarded the idea of a Palestinian State as abhorrent. Not wanting to differ with the new Israeli leadership, AIPAC swiftly removed the part of their statement that opposed what they has regarded as heresy, while still declining to embrace the idea. There are times when great leaps of political conscience become necessary. The Israeli elections, exciting as the come-from-behind finish was, appear to have fallen short of infusing the peace with vitality. If nothing else, they show an accumulated frustration and a needed flexibility and soul-searching.

The minimal lesson in the Israeli elections is that the status quo-occupation with no war and no peace, the continuing bickering between the majority of Israelis and the minority of ultra-Orthodox, the hypocrisy and manipulative nature of the Netanyahu government-represents burdens that Israelis deem too great. This begs the question of what is acceptable. While there is great relief throughout Israeli society and even hope for change, there is no hue and cry for the serious peace efforts that are essential to make change possible. Once again, Israel is faced with an "Is the glass half empty or half full" situation.

Israelis and Palestinians alike yearn for some vestige of normality with the hope of a more stable political and social milieu-something no Palestinian or Israeli citizen has known in their lifetime. At this moment, Israel is in the final stage of its painfully protracted birth while the Palestinians hope with all their might that they are on the threshold of theirs.

Traveling around the Middle East earlier this year, I was struck by the growing poverty and despair; I sensed a yearning not for hate, not for confrontation and revenge, but for the chance to survive, to work, to go to school, to see their children marry. This is what transcends politics, binding Palestinians and Israelis.

Fifty years of incessant war and tensions have drained the potential for Israel and her Arab neighbors. Nation-building and democratization have yielded to militarization and deepening hatreds. Arab and Israeli resources have never been utilized to effectively address challenges that needed to be resolved years ago: reconciling the ultra-religious dominance with democratic aspirations, attending to the needs of the minority communities, narrowing the gap between rich and poor, and promoting regional development. Talking with those who live in the Middle East, there is a distinct sense of wanting to move away from the past and all of its myths and rationalizations.

There is great fear that without a strong initiative for peace, life will become demonstrably worse for Israelis and Palestinians. Under the Netanyahu government, the peace process gradually ground to a halt and began to reverse itself. The many nations that had invested in the peace process were becoming increasingly apprehensive, fearful the stalemate would translate into regional instability. The threat of Jewish and Muslim extremism has become more ominous; hatred has been deepening, blinding youth to a viable future.

The Israel Government committed to a policy of strength through the creation of still more "facts on the ground." More settlements, continuing demolition of Arab homes, and the building of new "bypass roads" have squandered the moral capital Israel once claimed, shifting its locus from Jewish suffering to guilt over Israel's oppression of Palestinians. Fear that Israel will become a Jewish pariah has filled Jews in Israel and throughout the world with the realization that peace must be made possible for the survival of the Jewish people-as well as the Palestinian people. Finally there is the realization that Hafez Al-Asad of Syria and the PLO's Arafat (among other Arab leaders) are aging and infirm. If there is not peace soon, it could become a matter of years.

A reassessment of internal priorities has also contributed to the possibility of change. The internal problems of Palestinians and Israelis have reached the point where they can no longer be put off without rending the fabric of their societies. Israel's economy is not faring well, while the economy of the Palestine Authority is barely extant. (Unemployment is higher than it was during the Intifada.) Moreover, each year it becomes clearer that the Middle East is, inescapably, a region, and unable to function, plan, and grow unless it collaborates as a region. This is why the business people in Israel were supportive of Labor; they understand that peace is the sine qua non for survival. The regional drought of almost two years has driven home in a vividly harsh manner just how essential regional cooperation is to Levantine survival.

The third reason for some impetus to change has been the hints of change and the fanning of new hopes. Israel, after all, was little more than a "dream" at one time, as was the idea that Israel ought to talk to (let alone might benefit from) the PLO. Yet for all of the hope among both peoples, much of their energy has been diverted into defending old decisions or trying to redress the past in the hope of bringing the light of justice to horrors of two generations ago. This was a systemic defect of the Netanyahu Government: it tried to "correct" Jewish history from the '40s; namely, the "error" world Jewry made in supporting the soft leftists of Labor rather than the hard-nosed realists of the right-wing Likud who knew that strength would bring the Arabs to terms. The faint taste of hope from the early days of the peace process remains imprinted on the minds of Middle Easterners. They know peace can be made possible.

Barak is an election victor, but only by default. Another partial victor is the ultra-Orthodox Shas party which ran in defiance of the Israeli legal system they accused of pillorying their recently convicted leader, Arieh Deri. Most of the votes lost by the Right-wing Likud went to Shas as a cry of exasperation with the barely viable Likud. But no less victorious, nor contradictory, was the passionately secular party, Shinui, which picked up only one less seat than Shas.

In fact, the two traditional powers, Likud and Labor, both lost. Their combined total was less than 38% of the vote. This means that there are 15 parties (half of those that ran, averaging 8 votes each!) now in the Knesset. Any coalition must dilute its principles either by gathering the three largest parties or forging a broad, and necessarily unwieldy, political amalgam. Whatever formula is adopted, the elections have shifted Israel towards the Center and slightly to the Right.

Let me add a small but important caveat to that. The Labor Party is the only part of the Center-Left that lost votes. The Arab parties (including one Jewish woman) gained a seat as did the Leftist Meretz (including an Arab woman and man). Thus the Israeli Left demonstrated the single most durable block of "mandates" (votes), totaling a fifth of the Knesset-more than Likud and a block that would be much more formidable if the Arab minority were to exert its numbers.

The elections produced a clear mandate against Netanyahu and only by default for Barak. This is a modest, but discernible mandate for political and social change: to move forward on peace and to end mounting pressures from the ultra-Orthodox. There is a growing, restless search for vision and leadership to finally address these two dilemmas that have confounded Israel for two generations. Daring vision and charismatic leadership are weak suits for Barak. He is bright and honest but, in the best military mindset, he is a cautious, sometimes arrogant loner.

Israelis are wondering which Barak has been elected. Will it be the tough, wizened soldier who hawks security much like Netanyahu? Will it be the Rabin protégé who advocates security but with a velvet glove? Or will it be the closet dove, restrained by election politics, but anxious to fly free like a Shimon Peres? Bets are favoring the hawkish direction-far closer to the Right-Center Netanyahu-Rabin axis than the (barely) Left-Center Rabin-Peres one. Most Israelis recall how Barak voted against the Oslo Agreement when it was ratified; he has no known pretensions to dovishness.

Thus Barak's peace position, on which he ran, is a hawkish litany. Jerusalem will be the unified capital of Israel, the blocks of settlements will be retained by Israel. A close reading leaves some "wiggle room," enough to tantalize the doves while placating the hawks. A unified capital does not preclude a joint capital. There are persistent rumors that Barak has revived the "Beilin-Abu Mazan plan" of the previous Labor government providing for a Palestinian capital in Abu Dis, a Palestinian community near enough to Jerusalem to save face for the Palestinians and provide deniability for Israel. It is technically plausible, according to Israeli scholar Yossi Alpher, for Israel to retain possession of most of the settlements by annexing only about 11% of the land.

Expectations are that Barak will implement the Wye Agreements of last fall and give a priority to Syrian and Lebanese negotiation; after all he did promise a Lebanon withdrawal "within a year," and many expect it even sooner. Nonetheless the Palestinian dimension seems likely to progress slowly, as proof that Labor can "unite" Israel by being as pro-security as the Right. Unfortunately, this seems to be the trend in the new "social democratic" governments of Europe.

The tougher question may be the mandate the new coalition chooses. Is peace even at the top of the agenda? Will the price of coalition require dealing with Israel's internal politics, trying to breach the widening chasm dividing ultra-orthodox and secular? Is it possible to recast the political structure to incorporate all of Israel (One Israel) in a way that transcends the historic domination by European (Ashkenazi) Jews?

The night before the election I attended a program in Berkeley, CA sponsored by the Jewish Voice for Peace, a group of hundreds of mostly young Jews who are working for an end to the occupation, a shared Jerusalem, and a Palestinian State. There were two Palestinian and two Israeli speakers. The program, to raise money for a Palestinian and an Israeli charity, was called "Joined at the Hip," which is how they perceive the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. For Jewish activists who remember the days of national Jewish peace groups like Breira and New Jewish Agenda, it was exhilarating seeing the prophetic tradition spontaneously reemerging in a generation that had not known of its predecessors.

That the fate of Palestinians and Israelis are linked in a profound way, that they are fated to live together, is undeniable. The question many of us keep asking is how many more innocent lives must be taken until there is a full and lasting settlement? That choice is as much ours as anyone's.