The day before yesterday, two documents appeared side by side in Haaretz: A giant advertisement from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the results of a public opinion poll. The PLO ad sets out the details of the 2002 Saudi peace offer, decorated with the colorful flags of the 22 Arab and the 35 other Muslim countries which have endorsed the offer. The public opinion poll predicts a landslide victory for Likud, which opposes every single word of the Saudi proposal. The PLO ad is a first of its kind. At long last, the PLO leaders have decided to address the Israeli people directly.
The ad discloses to the Israeli population the exact terms of the all-Arab peace offer: Full recognition of the State of Israel by all Arab and Muslim countries, full normalization of relations — in return for Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders and the establishment of the Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The refugee problem would be solved by mutual agreement — meaning that Israel could veto any solution it considered unacceptable.
The Israeli government has never officially reacted to this historic offer. Public opinion and the media ignored it almost completely, walled in by the national consensus that there is no chance for peace.
Recently, the old offer woke up to new life. Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak discovered it suddenly, as if they had found a treasure in a hidden cave. Tzipi Livni discovered that it has some interesting points. That is the background to the blessed initiative of Saeb Erekat’s “PLO Negotiation Department” to publish the ad. Israeli public reaction: Nil. The public opinion poll caused a shock. It says that if the elections were held this week, the Likud would have 34 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, three times more than it has now, and become the largest faction. The dazzling ascent of Likud is an ominous phenomenon by itself, but even more important is the general picture: The bloc of all the parties that support peace, whether by paying lip service or sincerely (called “the left”) will have, according to the polls, 56 seats at most, as against the 64 seats of all the anti-peace parties combined (called “the right”). If Netanyahu is elected prime minister, we must expect four years in which we shall not only not advance toward peace by one single inch, but, on the contrary, the ongoing thrust of the settlement enterprise will push peace ever further away.
The flight of Tzipi Livni, on the other hand, is not gaining any height. The leader of Kadima is a great believer in “peace negotiations”. But “peace negotiations”, like the “political process”, can easily become a substitute for peace itself.
Livni does not offer an exciting peace message. She does not draw up a peace proposal of her own. She is “diplomatic” and keeps her cards close to her chest. The situation of the Labor party is even worse. Much worse. The polls give Labor 10 seats at most, perhaps only 8. Ehud Barak is a walking disaster. But he cannot be removed from the leadership of Labor before the elections. The party is crawling toward its rout with eyes wide shut. Several men of letters, professors and political consultants, some of them refugees from Labor, have done something: They got together and announced that they would ally themselves to Meretz, in order to create a kind of super-Meretz.
They did raise an echo, but the recent polls still give the reinforced Meretz no more than 7 seats (compared to the present 5). Not quite a revolution.
Why? The initiators are well known. They are members of the Ashkenazi elite, like all of Meretz. The public got the impression that instead of the past and far-past leaders who have left the Meretz leadership one after another (Shulamit Aloni, Yossi Sarid, Yossi Beilin and Ran Cohen, all of them with positive credentials), other people are coming in, good people but not really different, with the same good but failed slogans. They have no new message for the new generation, for the Oriental Jews, for the Arab citizens, for Russian immigrants, for the secular people who want to fight against religious encroachment.
The active peace groups, with their young and enthusiastic members, were not invited, so as not to give the party a “radical” look. In the best case, the renewed party might take a few seats from Labor. As far as the general picture is concerned, that would be quite unimportant, since only changes in the balance between the two large blocs have any real effect. Many new voters must be mobilized. There is a place for a new left party, with a new name, a new spirit and a message of hope, that will do an Obama: Arouse the masses of the young generation, infect them with enthusiasm, promise real change. Such an experiment was conducted just now in the Tel Aviv municipal elections with astonishing results. A new election list appeared out of nowhere, the young generation of Tel Avivians joined it with gusto. It attracted the new voters, as well as voters who are disgusted with all politicians, people with a green agenda, people with a social conscience. Hundreds volunteered for it, their candidate attracted a third of the votes against a popular incumbent mayor. Meaning: Yes, it is possible. But it will not happen this time.
Barack Obama will enter the Oval Office 20 days before the Israeli elections. He has still got a chance to have a decisive impact on the outcome. Nobody in Israel wants to quarrel with the United States. If the new president announces immediately after taking office that he is determined to achieve peace between Israel and the Arabs in the spirit of the Saudi peace initiative, before the end of 2009, this will influence many voters.
If Netanyahu is elected, President Obama will be faced with a dilemma: Either to enter into a serious conflict with the government of Israel, with all the American domestic implications, or to leave peace in the freezer, like his predecessors.
The American elections were important for Israel. The Israeli elections will be important for America, too.
