Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon might not gain new votes in tomorrow’s elections following Saturday’s military incursion into Gaza City which killed 12 Palestinians and wounded more than 50. But this biggest Israeli raid on the Gaza City since the Palestinian uprising began more than two years ago will not hurt Sharon either. He can only benefit as he runs on a platform of no negotiations with the Palestinians and tough military reprisals.
Sharon is certain to defeat the new leader of the Labour Party, Amram Mitzna, who has pledged to withdraw from the Gaza Strip within a year. Mitzna is proposing first a call to the Palestinians for swift negotiations but then, if the Palestinians procrastinate or prevaricate, Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from all of Gaza and most of the West Bank, plus the completion of an impassable barrier to keep the Palestinians out of Israel. But Israelis, now an entirely post-Oslo people, are in no mood for Mitzna’s message of compromise. They feel that Labour’s last attempt at peace, under Ehud Barak, was a disaster and led to the past two years of violence that have seen more than 700 Israelis killed. But the paradox of this election is that under Sharon’s 23-month stewardship, five times as many Israelis have been killed in the intifadah than in any two-year period of Israel’s history, excluding wars. In two election campaigns, he made security his centerpiece but he has presided over more than two years of escalating conflict with the Palestinians with no peace or security in sight. And partly as a consequence of his inability to end the intifadah, Israel is now in the throes of its worst economic crisis in 50 years, with unemployment at 10 percent, growth at minus one percent and major cuts in social services to the poor, sick and elderly.
Sharon and his party have also been dogged by unprecedented charges of sleaze and bribery. Yet Sharon remains trusted — even though he has absolutely no vision for ending the 28 months of deadly violence. Despite paying lip-service to the idea of a Palestinian state, he promotes a settlements policy that absorbs into Israel large chunks of the land that would be essential to such a state and, in the name of fighting terrorism, has virtually destroyed any future self-governing authority. Recently, he staked out another hard-line position, claiming Europe was too biased against Israel to be a Middle East mediator and reportedly dismissing a US-backed plan for Palestinian statehood as not being realistic.
Because Sharon has continually risen unsullied and unscathed, tomorrow’s contest has instead become less about toppling him than about who will serve under him. The makeup of the next Israeli government will be crucial in determining how Israel responds to intifada and to a road map from the Madrid Quartet calling for the creation of a Palestinian state. Sharon’s Likud party is expected to win 33 or 34 seats. To get the minimum 61 seats in the Knesset he needs to govern, Sharon will have to form a coalition with a number of other parties. Neither the secularist Shinui Party, with its spectacular rise, nor Lapid, Shas or the National Union question Sharon’s right to lead; they simply want him to steer the wheel their way. Because neither Labour nor Likud will win enough Knesset seats to govern alone, they will be more dependent than ever on these small parties who in the end are likely to get more than half the seats in the next Knesset. Thus, more than half the Knesset will consist of parties which offer no answers to either the Palestinian conflict or the economy. A Sharon victory tomorrow will be certain but limited. He will have to unite with parties that are worse than he when dealing with the Palestinians, preventing any move that would increase security, improve the economy or endear Israel to the rest of the world. So the cycle of violence in the Middle East will continue. With an America preoccupied with a possible war on Iraq, Sharon’s war against Palestinians is likely to continue in an intensified form.
