On the face of it, Israeli politics is not only chaotic but also corrupt. The financial scandal engulfing Ehud Olmert looks set to finish the career of the Israeli premier, whose reputation has never recovered from sending Israeli forces to defeat and humiliation in southern Lebanon in 2006. Ariel Sharon, whose Kadima party Olmert leads was also implicated in payola and his son Omri was jailed for fraud. A year ago the country’s President Moshe Katsav was forced to resign in the face of rape allegations and was convicted on a plea bargain of lesser sexual harassment charges.
Something it would seem is certainly rotten in the State of Israel. However, these scandals serve a useful purpose for those Israelis who reject peace and a just settlement for the Palestinians. Ehud Barak, leader of the Labor party and as part of the coalition government, its defense minister, has called on Olmert to quit. Political analysts suggest that the premier’s departure would probably trigger a general election with the opposition Likud party likely to emerge as the main winner. Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu is a hawk when it comes to Palestine as he demonstrated when he was prime minister for three years to July 1999. The 1998 Wye River Accords he signed with Yasser Arafat failed in large measure because in subsequent negotiations, the Israelis put obstacle after obstacle in the way.
Whatever the outcome of the political maneuvering to form a new coalition from the five main parties and minor groupings (who between them currently have 37 of the 120 parliamentary seats), it can be certain that once again the peace process will be put on hold. By and large, while the same old faces with the same old political agendas jockey for power, they will all, as ever, protest that until a stable coalition can be formed, the Palestinian question must wait. It could well be argued that such gyrations conceal the fundamental truth that no leading Israeli politician of any hue is prepared to run the risk of peace. Israel was born in violence 60 years ago and has been sustained by violence ever since. Forever presenting itself as the underdog surrounded by aggressive Arab neighbors, it has tapped deeply the emotions and pocket books of the United States, to a large degree because of the extensive influence of the American Zionist lobby. Take away the violence and the glue of danger that has always bound the Israeli state together comes apart. Make peace and the flow of foreign subventions to defend “brave little Israel” comes to an end.
Therefore any domestic political difficulties that can stall progress on Palestine are grist to the obstructionist political mill, whose wheels have been turned at one time or another by every Israeli political leader. The one arguable exception was Labor Premier Yitzhak Rabin, the architect of the original Oslo Accord. Rabin broke establishment ranks and paid more than lip service to peace with the Palestinians. That was undoubtedly why on Nov. 4, 1995, he was gunned down by a right-wing assassin.
