Pundits have long stopped speculating about the outcome of tomorrow’s elections in Israel. Polls have consistently shown the new Kadima party far ahead of its rivals. They predict Kadima will win slightly less than one-third of the 120 seats in Parliament, or about double that of standard-bearers Labor and Likud, traditionally Israel’s largest parties who have suddenly become also-rans.
Thus, in an election campaign bereft of contest, the main threat to Kadima’s winning a landslide is neither Labor nor Likud but apathy — the fear that thousands of Israelis will stay home tomorrow because they see the result as a done deal.
Such indifference is odd in a season that has witnessed seismic changes, whether being the emergence and surprising popularity of Kadima, or the stroke that incapacitated Ariel Sharon, or Hamas sweeping to victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections. All of these combined should have galvanized the Israeli public to go out and vote one way or the other. Instead, neither the issues nor the candidates — Kadima party leader and acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, ex-union boss Amir Peretz of the Labour Party and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud — have caused much of a ripple.
As in previous Israeli elections, this particular one is a referendum on the fate of the land occupied by Israel. And, as in the past, there will be a continuation of existing government policy. It’s called separation and carries Sharon’s imprimatur. All that his successor Olmert has done is provide the details: the West Bank wall will be Israel’s eastern border, including its concrete envelope around occupied East Jerusalem; the West Bank settlements will be “converged” into three vast blocks; Israel will retain security control over the Jordan Valley; and there will be permanent severance between the West Bank and Gaza, with the latter under Israel’s total control. The same fate awaits the West Bank cantons.
Because Sharon had already forged the template of giving up land when he pulled Israel out of the Gaza Strip in September, what his successor Olmert is proposing hasn’t been a complete surprise to the Israeli public or, for that matter, the Palestinians next door who also seem largely indifferent, firmly believing they cannot stop Olmert from imposing borders of his choice.
The Palestinians are also caught up in their own drama, including the political wrangling between Hamas and their President Mahmoud Abbas. One would be excused for thinking that Abbas himself was also running in the elections in the wake of the many recent statements he has made: claiming that a negotiated peace agreement could be achieved with Israel in less than a year, proposing secret peace talks with Israel and telling Hamas he is prepared to act if the incoming Hamas government damages the interests of the Palestinian people. Abbas is apparently sending a message to Olmert that instead of drawing unilateral borders, he can instead negotiate — and without Hamas being at the table.
