Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From Robert O. Freedman

The Israeli elections, coming just a few weeks after a cease-fire ended the war between Israel and Hamas, appear to have raised more questions than they settled about the Israeli position in the Arab-Israeli peace process.

On the one hand, the extremes of both the Israeli left and the Israeli right both lost ground—the left wing Meretz Party dropped from five to three seats in the 120-member Israeli Knesset, while the right-wing tandem of the National Union and Jewish Home parties (which, unlike the 2006 elections, ran separately) dropped from nine to seven seats.

On the other hand, there was an overall shift from the center-left to center-right on the Israeli political spectrum, due in large part to the failure of the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza to end the rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, and the failure of the brief Israel-Hamas war to end attacks from Gaza. While Kadima, Israel’s centrist party, lost only one seat (from 29 to 28), the left-of-center Labor party dropped six seats, from 19 to 13. At the same time, the right-of-center Likud more than doubled in size from 12 to 27 seats, and the right-of-enter Yisrael Beiteinu party of Avigdor Lieberman increased from 11 to 15 seats.

Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who was asked by Israeli President Shimon Peres to attempt to form a governing coalition, has 21 days left to assemble 61 MKs or more in the coalition. The chances for Israel to move the peace process forward range from limited to virtually non-existent, depending on the type of coalition he forms.

To be sure, there will be no hope for a Palestinian-Israeli peace until Hamas, which currently governs a war-battered Gaza, and Fatah, which rules the West Bank, can reconcile and form a national unity government that has as one of its basic provisions Palestinian recognition of Israel and an agreement to a two-state. While Fatah and Hamas have begun reconciliation talks in Egypt, Hamas will have to make a major change in its political position, and be willing to recognize Israel, for any Israeli leader to give credence to the Palestinian position.

On the Israeli side of the peace process equation, Netanyahu is challenged by the prospect of forming two alternative coalitions, one centrist, and one right-wing. If he forms a centrist coalition—as he claims he wants to do in the face of the existential threat from Iran, the growing world economic crisis which has begun to affect Israel’s economy, and the ongoing challenges of Hamas and Hezbollah—he has three potential partners, all of whom have come out for a two-state solution: Labor, Kadima, and Yisrael Beiteinu (which has been unfairly characterized by some in the media as a far-right party). Netanyahu himself, however, has not yet been willing to come out publicly for a two-state solution, and unless he does so, it is unlikely that either Labor or Kadima will join him. There is, of course, the possibility that Netanyahu will succeed in splitting the Kadima Party by offering major ministries to top Kadima politicians such as Shaul Mofaz and Dalia Itzik. So far, however, they have stayed with Kadima’s leader, Tzipi Livni, in resisting a coalition government until Netanyahu explicitly endorses a two-state position.

Should a centrist coalition not be formed, then Netanyahu faces the prospect of having to form a right-wing coalition consisting of his Likud party (27 seats), Yisrael Beiteinu (15 seats), the two Haredi (ultra-orthodox) parties Shas (11 seats) and United Torah Judaism (5 seats), and the two far-right parties, Jewish Home (3 seats) and National Union (4 seats), for a total of 65 seats.

However, such a coalition will be very problematic for Netanyahu. His first problem will be overcoming the bitter disagreements between the Haredi parties on the one hand and Yisrael Beiteinu on the other. Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman’s call for civil marriage and an easing of conversion requirements, something of great importance to his Russian immigrant constituents but anathema to the Haredim, has led Shas leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef to call Liberman the “Devil” and to state that anyone who voted for Lieberman’s party will have committed an unredeemable sin. Even if Netanyahu manages to make peace between Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu, he faces very serious budgetary demands from the Haredi parties which hope to increase allocations to their specialized institutions, to increase child allowances, and to greatly increase subsidized housing construction. Indeed, Shas alone has asked for $375 million more in allocations. At a time of rising economic constraints, as well as rising demands from the Israeli Defense Ministry to meet the threats from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, there is a real question as to where Netanyahu will find the money to meet the Haredi demands.

Yet another challenge Netanyahu faces in forming a right-wing coalition are the demands of the Jewish Home and the National Union parties. Both have demanded an end to the settlement freeze and the legalization of the hitherto illegal Jewish settlement outposts on the West Bank. If Netanyahu accedes to their demands, he will find himself in an open confrontation with Barak Obama, whose special envoy to the Arab-Israeli conflict, former Senator George Mitchell, has made no secret of his opposition to Jewish settlements on the West Bank as a major obstacle to the peace process.

Given these constraints, it is clear that Netanyahu would prefer to have a centrist coalition with Kadima (together they would have 55 seats) and either Yisrael Beitinu or Labor or preferably both to give him a very broad coalition. Indeed, he has just signed a coalition agreement with Yisrael Beiteinu. Whether he would be willing to pay the price for such a coalition with Kadima—explicit support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict—and possibly a rotational agreement between himself and Tzipi Livni as prime minister (Labor’s Shimon Peres and Likud’s Yitzhak Shamir had such an agreement in the mid-1980s), remains to be seen.