Kadima's victory and the prospect of peace
In his first speech after the elections, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called for peace talks with the Palestinians. One third of the Israeli did not go to vote; Shinui Party has disappeared; the Likkud party abandoned.
Tel Aviv (AsiaNews) - The greatest surprise of Election Day in Israel was no doubt the statement made by Acting - and future - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in his first speech after release of the preliminary election results. Mr. Olmert made an emphatic, emotional appeal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abou-Mazen) to negotiate together a peace treaty. If sincerely meant, this was a major departure from the habitual refusal of both Mr. Olmert and his immediate predecessor, Mr. Sharon, to accept the Palestinian President's reiterated call for a return to peace negotiations. It was also at variance with Mr. Olmert's preferred focus - during the election campaign - on his "plan" for a unilateral reorganisation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, consisting in annexing some areas to Israel and, at the same time, evacuating Israeli settlements from other areas. Whether and precisely how Mr. Olmert's publicly stated wish to negotiate an actual peace treaty is going to be translated into a concrete policy initiative is yet to be seen, and will no doubt become clearer as coalition building negotiations get under way between his Kadima Party and the probable candidates for such a coalition.
These negotiations will take place against the backdrop of a highly fragmented and partly "post-modern" political scene in Israel. More than a third of the voters did not vote, expressing their lack of confidence in all the parties together, and perhaps in the democratic system as such, or else simply showing a dangerous "postmodern" disengagement from politics. Kadima itself appears to be getting only 28 seats in the 120-member unicameral Israeli parliament, the Knesset, while as many as 7 seats appear to have been won by the Pensioners' List, which has no other political "credo" in addition to its commendable attention to the plight of the country's gravely impoverished elderly.
Twenty-eight seats is also the number won by the three theocratic Jewish religious parties - which to secular Israelis, and to Christians, among others who are not Orthodox Jews, is cause for concern, especially since the liberal secularist party, Shinui, which had 15 seats in the previous Knesset, has now disappeared from the parliament altogether! In this sense the results do not appear to reflect the trends in the population, since probably many of those who do favour a secular constitution did not vote at all this time, thereby increasing unnaturally the number of seats won by the religious, although more accurate demographic analyses are expected in coming days.
Most impressive has been the dramatic fall in support for the right-wing Likkud Party of ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu, which will have, it appears, only 11 seats, compared with 38 it had on the morrow of the last election in 2003! A very large part of its most loyal electorate - the less educated poorer classes, attracted by its nationalist rhetoric - abandoned Likkud in anger over the hyper-capitalist policies of Mr. Netanyahu, the Finance Minister from 2003 to 2005. These policies, which Mr. Netanyahnu claimed were necessary "to save the economy", pushed hundreds of thousands of families into deep poverty, and dismantled a great deal of Israel's traditional social safety net, for single mothers, the old, the disabled and the other most vulnerable citizens. At the same time these policies further enriched the richest Israelis, especially the "twenty families" that often appear to the public to control far too much of the national economy. Practically all the political parties are now committed to reversing some or all of these effects, and Mr. Netanyahu itself had tried desperately to convince the voters that he was going to pursue different policies this time if they gave him their trust - which evidently only a small minority were persuaded to do. Thus Likkud, which has been at the centre of government in most years since 1977 (except in 1992-1996 and 1999-2000) will now be in opposition, and not even the largest opposition party.
In sum, as things appear immediately after the elections, Mr. Olmert will probably be the next prime minister, and Labour will be his principal coalition partner. It remains to be seen what weight any of the religious parties will be given in the new government, and what the impact of such religious participation in government will have on civil and human rights.
The most intriguing question is, again, how Mr. Olmert will follow up on his call for peace. All in Israel, and in much of the world, will be staying tuned.
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05/09/2017 10:03
23/01/2006
