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Author: Oliver Moore
Date: 20050401
The New Israeli Political Landscape
Over the last few months we have witnessed a major restructuring of Israeli politics. Since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon conceived of unilateral disengagement and made his move toward the center, several interesting things have happened. The collaboration of Shinui and the leadership of the Likud created a very large centrist block by Israeli standards. This marginalised both the left and the right.
The left isn't sure what to do. Their old enemy is carrying out something that looks somewhat like one of their policies (though with certain major improvements); should they oppose their enemy or support the policy? Happily, most of the left has chosen reason over vengeful bitterness, though there are some exceptions on the fringes.
The religious parties are out of their league when it comes to disengagement and to diplomacy in general. Shas refused to take a position on disengagement until Rabbi Ovadia Yosef had made his ruling, and now they follow it dogmatically. United Torah Judaism did what they had to in order to get into the government, which is where the money is. They are now meek supporters of disengagement. These parties simply have no concept of diplomacy, or at least no interest in it.
Whereas the right, up until the advent of disengagement, was a relatively unified group constituted of the National Union, the National Religious Party, and the Likud, it has fallen apart under the stress of Sharon's new policies. The NRP split as former leaders Eitam and Levy created their own party after a long period of dissension within the NRP. The Likud has its own internal problems, and will surely not remain intact for very long. Sharon, Olmert, and Livni cannot remain in the same party as Netanyahu, Landau, and Shalom indefinitely. Only the National Union is internally stable, but this is only because it was already too far right even to consider or debate disengagement. Amid this chaos in the rightist leadership, a new right wing force has emerged from the popular level. The foot soldiers of the ideological settlers' movement have been mobilised. First they made a human chain from Gaza to Jerusalem. Now they are burning tires and blocking highways. Some soldiers are feared to be preparing insubordination, Sharon is receiving death threats, and the minister of the interior, Giddeon Ezra, is considering using preventive detention, a power commonly used against Palestinians, to imprison the main right wing activists during the disengagement.
The right wing has shrunk and become more extreme. Some members of it have so alienated themselves from the nation and the state of Israel that they have become a threat to the democratic system itself. The fact that this places them in a position of objective cooperation with Palestinian terrorists is rarely articulated, but in the first weeks after the disengagement plan was set in motion, it met with spontaneous opposition from two quarters: the Palestinians and the Israeli far-right. The far left was more inclined to accuse Sharon either of bluffing or of not going far enough, but the terrorists and the right are genuinely opposed to disengagement and see it as threat to their interests.
Sharon has proven himself to be quite aware of these subtleties. Following the increase in threats and incitement from extremist Israelis opposed to the disengagement from Gaza, Sharon declared recently that nothing these extremists can do will stop the withdrawal. He vowed never to back down in the face of their threats and their violence. On the same day, he stated that only Palestinian terrorism could halt the disengagement now. These two simple statements, juxtaposed, constitute an insightful depiction of the political realities now between Israel and the Palestinians. Sharon is depicting the extremist settlers as being beyond the pale of Israeli political discourse. He is treating them as what they are: a force which is endangering Israel's democratic system. At the same time, by suggesting that terror could prevent disengagement, the very objective of the extremist settlers, Sharon is giving a broad hint to the extremist settlers that they are in an objective alliance with the Palestinian terrorists. Sharon is challenging the settlers to distance themselves from the Palestinians and return to the Israeli nation by supporting disengagement. "Return to the nation!" is a phrase often used by the settlers in addressing Sharon, but it is really best applied to them.
At the same time, Sharon is extending a degree of support to Abu Mazen. Thus he is distinguishing between Abu Mazen and the terrorist groups just as between Israel's democracy and the extreme settlers. Sharon depicts the situation as one in which the Israeli state and the Palestinian Authority are objective allies, as are the extreme settlers and the Palestinian terrorists. Sharon is painting a picture in which there are moderates and extremists on each side, and in which the true delineation is not between Israel and the Palestinians, but between moderates and extremists, or, perhaps better stated, between democracy and fear. As long as the PA refrains from its own active involvement in terrorism, this can be a useful tactic helping to isolate the terrorists and the settlers.
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