2006-01-17-Israel election predictions |
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jewishsightseeing.com, January 17, 2006 |
By Ira Sharkansky
If I was going to wager on the upcoming Israeli election, I
would put it all on Ehud Olmert and his Kadima Party. Olmert is sounding
judiciously prime ministerial, posturing in ways that suggest what Ariel
Sharon would have done. Sharon is basking in the aura of national hero, but
still in a coma and worrying his physicians.
The major competing parties are each making serious mistakes.
One failing is that leaders of both are conceding Kadima's
election. The most they are prepping themselves for is to win enough seats
to join Kadima in the coalition. That may not be adequate to motivate their
organizations for a difficult campaign. Beyond that, Labor and Likud are
making additional errors. Their leaders would not do well in a test of
elementary political science.
Most prominent among the errors of the Labor leader, Amir
Peretz, is to focus almost entirely on social issues like poverty. Not only
is this the emphasis of his own background and campaign statements, but it
is the personal emphasis of almost all the candidates who did well enough in
the party primary to be slotted for sure seats in the next Knesset. Why is
this mistaken? The polls show that voters are more interested in security
issues. The public has been focused for the past five year years on the
Palestinian uprising, and more recently on Iran's nuclear program and its
president's assertion that Israel should be destroyed. Leading Laborites
offer little by way of expertise in the fields of security or international
relations. Former Labor Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and Nobel Peace
Prize winner Shimon Peres is with Kadima, and Peretz has rejected all
suggestions to make overtures to former commanding general of the IDF and
Labor Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Likud, for its part, is too focused on an antiquated view of
national security. Polls have shown for years that the public is willing to
trade land for security, and to rid Israel of responsibility for Palestinian
settlements. The withdrawal from Gaza had the support of a majority of those
answering numerous queries, and was arguably a success both in its
implementation and in its capacity to reduce Israeli vulnerability. Sure
there are homemade rockets coming over the border, but few of them do any
damage, and there are no daily attacks on Israeli troops and settlers within
Gaza.
Likud has become, in effect, the party of figures who opposed
the withdrawal from Gaza, and resist any further concessions of land to the
Palestinians. They are four square against unilateral concessions like that
of Gaza, which may be the future if Palestinians do not negotiate
reasonably, and they do not seem likely to offer the Palestinians very much
if negotiations do seem possible. Some of the extremists have not given up
the old aspiration of controlling the Land of Israel on both sides of the
Jordan (going back to opposing the division of what was the original Balfour
Declaration in 1921 and the creation of what was called the Emirate of
Transjordan.)
In other words, Labor is pitching itself to the left and
Likud to the right. They are conceding the center to Kadima, and the great
blocs of votes are in the center. Politicians go for votes. Ideologues go
for what they think is right. Most democracies are governed most of the time
by politicians.
Labor loyalists (who have not left for Kadima) and Likud
loyalists (who have not left for Kadima) each dream for the glory days of 40
and more seats in the Knesset. Current polls indicate that neither will
reach 20, and one or both may fall below 15.
Sharkansky is an emeritus member of the political science department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem |