Right Wing Wins; Peace Moves Farther Away
The results are in. The right wing bloc, led by Netanyahu's Likud party, has more than 60 seats in the new Knesset. Livni's Kadima does have one or two more seats than Likud - but will be forced to create a center right coalition to stay in power. No matter how you slice and dice it, Livni and Netanyahu will be sharing power, and the left - the peace camp - is in mourning.
As Ilene Prusher notes in the CSM, the Israeli political map has been shifting towards the right for some time - and that is very interesting. In the late 90s, I attended a training sponsored by SHATIL and led by a political consultant. He was explaining that votes are largely the result of demographics. Folks in large cities, with education, who have been in Israel longer, and have higher standards of living are more likely to vote for the left. This population is constantly growing as the percentage of Israelis with higher education grows, and as the country as a whole becomes wealthier.
A few factors have come together to change the demographics. First, the Russian immigration wave that added nearly a million new Israelis in the 90s shifted to the right as they became more integrated in Israeli society, instead of the left. Secondly, the massive inequality in Israel has resulted in a rising tide of wealth at the same time as living standards are going down or stagnating for big chunks of the working and middle classes. Finally, the war - as opposed to the background security situation - heightens people's awareness of and relience upon military solutions and those that back them.
These three trends came together to defeat the disorganized remnants of what used to be Israel's ruling class. Looking at the results - seeing that Barack's Labor got only 14 seats, coming in 4th - makes me sad. Labor was the ruling party in Israel from 1948 - 1977. It made sense that it wouldn't always be in charge, but to go down from main opposition party to 4th place, two seats less that the Jewish fascist Lieberman - it's pathetic. And it serves them right.
The constellation of centrist leaders that have been in charge for most of the past 16 years have conducted a dangerous experiment. Under the guise of making peace, they have been making peace negotiations. While the costs of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal have been known for years, Israel has been torn between two self destructive poles.
The first, is the desire to have a stronger internal coalition for peace. While this is reasonable; the problem is that the political system encourages politicians to pretend to be for peace when the public mood is in favor, but then produce a failure when push comes to shove.
The second is the misguided belief that a better deal will be possible if only the Palestinians can be pushed (punished) a bit more. That dance of 'here we are negotiating for a peace that will never be attained because the Palestinians won't give up their rights' always had an expiration date. The public grows tired of the constant tension, of 'peace, peace yet there is no peace'.
We are in for more of the same now, with a minor change in actual policy, but more right wing rhetoric. The level of violence and human rights violations against the Palestinians will increase. Hunger, anger and terrorism aimed at Israeli civilians can't be far behind. Both sides will continue in their efforts to sear into the consciousness of the other, to make the point that they aren't going anywhere. And they aren't - especially not the victims, past, present and future.
- Kadima 28 (center right)
- Likud 26 (right)
- Yisrael Beiteinu 15 (scary fascists)
- Labor 13 (has-been center left)
- Shas 11 (Mizrachi, religious, right wing)
- United Torah Judaism 5 (ultra orthodox, right wing)
- Hadash 4 (only Jewish - Arab party. Left wing)
- Jewish Home 3 (formerly National Religious Party. Far right)
- United Arab List – Ta'al 4 (Arab party - includes Islamists, moderates)
- Meretz 4 (oh how the mighty have fallen. Party that was for the war before it was against the war. Left wing)
- National Union 4 (Fascist - but without a sufficiently scary and thuggish leader)
- Balad 3 (Nationalist Arab. Left wing)
[PS. I'm very sorry that the Green Movement-Meimad didn't get in.]
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