No matter how painful Israels economic problems may be, security still comes first.
Kulanu, the new Israeli party that won 10 seats and is likely to be the linchpin in election winner Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, campaigned on economic issues. Kulanu needed to bring in former Israel ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, so that it wouldn’t be completely bereft of a foreign policy voice. Yet, Kulanu, impressive though its showing may be, did not change the fundamental Israeli reality: fears over security. When all is said and done about the Israeli economy, there was a brutal war in Gaza last summer.
Hamas planned to destroy Israel, via an extensive system of fortified, underground tunnels, enabling massive, surprise kidnappings and chaos, in which it would be impossible to tell the difference between Israeli soldiers and Hamas terrorist dressed in the uniforms of Israeli soldiers.
Iran is stonewalling on dismantling its nuclear program.
Syria is hemorrhaging from a civil war between sworn enemies of Israel, the official ruler Assad and the would be rulers ISIS and al-Qaida.
Jordan is under extreme duress from the influx of Syrian refugees.
Turkey turned on a dime from Israel’s major friend in the Muslim world to a sworn enemy of Israel.
Lebanon has its own frightening, terrorist tunnel complex, built by Hezbollah, itself armed by Iran.
Netanyahu reminded Israeli voters of these intractable realities, and Israeli voters responded. The United States has been attacked on its own soil only twice, in 1812 and on Sept. 11, 2001. Israel has been attacked on its own soil in four major wars and countless 9/11s of its own — countless terrorist attacks. Israeli voters took this into account above all.
An improved diplomatic tone between Netanyahu and the US is not likely under Netanyahu’s renewed Israeli mandate. Facing that unfortunate reality, Israeli voters nonetheless said: Security — life and death — must come first.
All this said, economic issues, especially the widespread poverty in Israel, will no doubt rise on the list of Netanyahu’s priorities. The opposition — Zionist Union and either Yesh Atid or Kulanu — remains a formidable electoral force. Netanyahu will not want their popularity to grow. He will have to address their issues.
We are sympathetic with Netanyahu’s renunciation of a Palestinian state at a time when the likelihood that it would be ruled by Hamas-like or ISIS terrorists has risen greatly from the time that Netanyahu accepted the idea of a Palestinian state in 2009.
We are not sympathetic with Netanyahu’s strong denunciation of the Israeli-Arab parties just before the election. Israeli Arabs are citizens of Israel. There is no choice but to live with them and improve their lot. When Netanyahu stated that he would establish “a patriotic government,” the message was clear: Israeli Arabs are not patriotic. We are far from convinced that this is so among most Israeli Arabs, but to whatever extent it is true, it falls on Israel to sow the seeds of that patriotism with wise, non-paternalistic, and economically equal policies.
One final message from this week’s election:
These Israeli centrist parties that rise out of nowhere go nowhere. Does anyone remember the dramatic emergence of the “Democratic Movement for Change,” under the widely respected and indeed charismatic Yigal Yadin in 1977? This party became the linchpin in Menachem Begin’s historic coalition that turned out the Labor Party from power for the first time in Israeli history. The Democratic Movement for Change party has long been consigned to the dustbin of Israeli history.
The current Israeli centrist version, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, dropped from 19 seats to 11. Even the centrist Kadima party — which occupied the prime minister’s seat as recently as 2008 — is now anonymously folded into the Zionist Union, with Kadima’s successor’s current leader Tzipi Livni unceremoniously dumped from a promised PM-rotation the day before the election by Zionist Union head Isaac Herzog.
Which means that the choices in Israel remain pretty much what they’ve always been, rather black and white: Likud on one side, Labor (“Zionist Union”) on the other side. Hawks vs. doves. Hardline on the Palestinian issue vs. more outreaching on the Palestinian issue. Capitalist vs. socialist (not liberal but unabashed socialist).
For those who mourn the current election’s likely foreclosure of peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, please keep in mind that in 2008, when the centrist Ehud Olmert offered the PA’s Mahmoud Abbas an independent state, plus sovereignty over half of Jerusalem and even the Temple Mount, plus land swaps from the Negev for lands on which settlements sit — Abbas turned him down cold. Nothing Israel could offer — even going way beyond what Netanyahu would offer — was enough for the PA to sign off and accept its own state alongside a Jewish State.
Deja vu all over again; 1947 Partition Plan all over again.
The bitter feelings of the current Netanyahu government toward the current PA representatives notwithstanding, the basic reason for the absence of a Palestinian state is the continuing Palestinian unwillingness to accept the permanence of Israel as a Jewish state — to settle the conflict once and for all. John Kerry couldn’t change that. President Obama couldn’t change that. Israel’s voters affirmed as much. Who elected Netanyahu? The Palestinians.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
