New Government Offers A True View of Israel

Over the past several weeks, the rumblings from the new Foreign Minister of Israel, the right-wing idealogist Avigdor Lieberman, has met with predictable and justified derision from Palestinians and Westerners alike who see the aftermath of the new ruling-right coalition spelling almost certain disaster to any prospects of a two-state solution in the region.

To his credit, Lieberman appears to be assuming the mantle of agitator far too comfortably - recently stating that Israel would not be bound by the agreement reached in Annapolis (i.e. the roadmap to a two-state solution). Using the hackneyed conservative battle-cry of non-negotiation with ‘extremists’, Lieberman not only outraged the only partner available to Israel in the peace process, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but sent the country into an almost certain collision course with the new Obama administration.

Shoring up the damage, Prime Minister-designate Benyamin Netanyahu quickly sealed a coalition agreement with Labour’s Ehud Barak - an all too transparent message to the U.S. that things had not yet ‘gotten totally out of hand’.

Forgetting for a moment that Ehud Barak as Defense Minister engineered the recent offensive in Gaza - and even neglecting the troubling fact that Labour governments in Israel have presided over massive settlement expansion in the West Bank over the past two decades - does this moderate ’shift’ to the left spell a more benign government - or rather, a government poised to take the necessary steps toward peace?

For those who have followed Israeli politics closely, it is clear that the ongoing policies of international belligerence and racial cleansing will doubtless continue - and perhaps even intensify given the empirical belief system endemic in the new ruling coalition.

Digging deeper, however, there may appear to be a modest silver lining - a bittersweet opportunity amongst the impending suffering that is set to befall the Palestinians (yet again).

For decades, Israel’s well orchestrated PR machine has been the envy of Western governments - successfully winning ‘the hearts and minds’ of Americans and many European alike - with charismatic spokespeople (usually assuming American or British accents) ready to defend the actions of the country on the nightly news or challenging television debates.

Israeli Spokesman to the UK, Mark Regev, Defends the Bombing of a UN School in Gaza in January 2009 on BBC Television.

While the PR is still very much in place, can it possibly be prepared for the daunting task ahead? With caricatures like Benyamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, and even Ehud Barak set to guide Israel into the ‘Obama Era’, can the world fail to see what has been expertly polished away for so many years?

Perhaps the only positive effect of the ongoing rhetoric from ideologues such as Lieberman, is the slim hope that the world will finally glean the true policies of the Israeli government. Policies that are almost identical to previous administrations.

With the message remaining the same, perhaps the best hope lies in the messengers themselves - a government that cannot help but show their defiance to the West’s growing desire for a fair and just solution to the illegal occupation and rights abuses of the past 60 years.

At the very least, ambassadors like Mark Regev will certainly be working overtime to cover their tracks…

A Simple Denial of Culture

It is difficult to avoid obvious cliches when contemplating recent actions taken by the Israeli police on Saturday to silence a small crowd of Palestinians in East Jerusalem from celebrating the city’s new designation as ‘capital of Arab culture’ for 2009. 

According to Al Jazeera, about 20 Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem were detained, flags and banners confiscated, and at one school in the area, balloons carrying the colours of the Palestinian flag to be released by children to mark the day were burst.

Celebrations in Nazareth (the largest Arab city in Israel) were also cancelled by police.

With absolutely no violence reported, it is almost impossible to justify or condone the rampant silencing of culture within a claimed  democratic state. Given the recent violence in Gaza, and its subsequent mobilizing of Arab sympathy across Israel and the Middle East, such brazen attempts to further suppress Arab expression must be seen as inciteful, and perhaps even taunting.

With Jerusalem following Damascus as the capital of Arab culture (an honour that is passed to a different city by the Arab League every year since 1996), this weekend’s celebrations and events were in no way designed to inflame discourse between Jewish Israelis and Arabs. Historically, the chosen city has marked the occasion with poetry, music, dance, and sporting events. 

In the media vortex that is ‘Middle East violence’, everyday facts and events like the freezing of cultural expression are often neglected, and their significance underestimated. Because the crucial subtext of this article admits the term ‘no violence’, these acts go relatively unreported in world headlines or in local evening news segments. 

This is indeed a pity, as in many ways the acts of the Israeli police on Saturday better summarize the ongoing denial of cultural identity that is occuring both within Israel borders as well as those areas in occupation whose names light up headline ticker tape. 

Perhaps even more urgently, it is crucial to realise that this story occurs every day, in a thousand places from Israel to Darfur to Tibet. Without the media catalyst of ‘violence’, rockets, and casualties, these stories seem less important - less weighty. 

Marshall McLuhan famously quipped, ““All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.” 

It is difficult to deny this point to some degree, but the facts remain that meaningful stories do exist - and in a world of fully interactive and real-time access to diverse media sources, blogs, and digital opinions, it is everyone’s duty to find them.

Crossing The Lobby

As reported in yesterday’s Al Jazeera, President Barack Obama’s selection for the Head of the US National Intelligence Council, Charles “Chas” Freeman, has resigned from his appointment accusing the Israel Lobby in the United States of plumbing “the depths of dishonour and indecency” in its all-out character assassination campaign launched over the past several weeks.

Following a number of libelous e-mails sent in a rare ‘mass coordinated’ campaign to supporters sympathetic to the Israel Lobby, Freeman said on Tuesday:

“The tactics of the Israel lobby plumb the depths of dishonour and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the wilful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth.

“The aim of this lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favours.”

The resignation is not only a setback for Barack Obama (as yet another chosen appointee has backed out of a high profile position), but again highlights that lobby organizations such as AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) retain considerable power and influence even within Obama’s radically updated administration.

As we have witnessed in elite American politics, crossing the interests of lobby groups like AIPAC can spell political disaster - with most pundits speculating the recent attacks were engineered to not only remind the adminstration of the group’s influence, but to serve as a ‘warning’ to undecided US Senators facing difficult re-election campaigns.

Freeman has been a target of the Israel Lobby since his 2007 ‘pro-Palestinian’ statements, including his remarks that “the brutal oppression of the Palestinians by Israeli occupation shows no sign of ending.”

It is worth noting that the above relatively ‘mild’ statements - which we in Europe would view as almost commonplace amongst journalists and politicans - can create such political turmoil in the United States. Moving forward, Barack Obama’s ‘New America’ will ultimately be defined by its ability to face harsh internal friction from lobby groups such as AIPAC - if not, the ‘new’ adminstration will look awfully similar to the old.

Endgame

Looking through the latest news reports from Israel this morning, I am reminded of a few lines from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot that seem especially poignant. In the opening scene of Beckett’s most famous play the two protagonists, Vladimir and Estragon, appear lost, mercurial and wholly unaware of their purpose or the fate that awaits them. In a fit of confusion, they angrily begin to question each other on their predicament - attempting in vain to validate their choice of time and place.

ESTRAGON: You’re sure it was this evening?

VLADIMIR: What?

ESTRAGON: That we were to wait.

VLADIMIR: He said Saturday. (Pause.) I think.

ESTRAGON:  You think.

VLADIMIR: I must have made a note of it. (He fumbles in his pockets, bursting with miscellaneous rubbish.)

ESTRAGON: (very insidious). But what Saturday? And is it Saturday? Is it not rather Sunday? (Pause.) Or Monday?   (Pause.) Or Friday?

VLADIMIR:  (looking wildly about him, as though the date was inscribed in the landscape). It’s not possible!

Like Vladimir and Estragon, we also wait for the results of an election that most believed was concluded over 10 days ago. And like the two doomed characters of Beckett’s drama, many of us have attempted to rationalize and validate our expectations.

On Friday, with Tzipi Livni effectively ending any possibility of a (somewhat) centre-right government in Israel by refusing to join a Likud-led coalition, the endgame was decided - with Netanyahu almost certainly set to become the next Prime Minister with Avigdor Lieberman close by his side. Livni has described the likely partnership as an ‘extremist right-wing government’ - one she refuses to collaborate with choosing instead to lead an opposition party to help balance the dangerously conservative coalition set to take the reigns as early as this Sunday.

Interstingly, Livni’s party, Kadima, having been formed by Ariel Sharon himself - a man whose policies most Western political observers would recognize as far-right, militarily aggressive, and religiously motivated - has been characterized by the media over the last few weeks as ‘centrist’, a label that that can only be applied when compared to Netanyahu’s Likud, or Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu. Indeed, in attempting to discern the levels of ‘conservative’ between the parties in these last elections, the media has been forced to include titles such as ‘ultra’, ‘far right’, and ‘extreme right’ to describe the coalition that is set to govern in a week’s time. Thankfully, we have not yet been subjected to terms such as ’super duper conservative’, or ‘mega mega conservative’ - but of course only time will tell.

Leaving aside the range of what we in the West would consider ‘right wing’, and focusing instead on the inevitable combination of the three hardline parties of Israel likely to form the government - Likud, Shas, and Israel Beiteinu - it is important to recognize that the only common ground these groups occupy is perhaps the media’s defined nomenclature of ‘more conservative’ than Kadima.

As a minor example of the contrasting sentiments of the new coalition’s leaders, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef - the spiritual leader of the ‘mega’ religious right-wing Shas party - recently called Avigdor Lieberman “the devil”. Netanyahu himself has been loathe to award any power to his long-time rivals - and as publicly stated over the past month, everyone involved in this ‘conservative coalition’ thinks the other is either too conservative, dangerously imbalanced, or not nearly conservative enough.

None of this bodes particularly well for populations living on either side of the Green Line - or more widely, throughout the entire region.

Perhaps in the end, the rest of us watching from afar are not like Vladimir and Estragon after all. Perhaps the metaphor of a quarreling, confused collection of absurdist characters should be applied elsewhere.

A King Maker Arrives

With roughly 48 hours to go until President Shimon Peres formally selects either Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni or Likud head Benjamin Netanyahu to form a coalition government, the Knesset ‘horse-trading’ is well underway, with both parties working hard to secure the support of perhaps the election’s biggest winner, Israel Beiteinu’s Avigdor Lieberman. 

Holding a projected 15 seats in the new Israeli Knesset when final tallies arrive on Wednesday - and in effect making himself available to the highest bidder - Lieberman now has the enviable position of selecting the best offer, truly inheriting the ‘King Maker’ title he has been hesitant to acknowledge the past week. 

According to today’s Jerusalem Post, Lieberman has already met with both party leaders over the weekend and although it would appear Netanyahu’s Likud would be the more ‘natural’ fit,  is shrewdly refusing to divulge any current preference. And why should he? With Livni likely offering his party (and by extension himself) attractive roles in the Foreign or Defence ministries in an attempt to best a similar Likud offer, the quesiton is no longer who will be the next Prime Minister, but more appropriately, how powerful will Avigdor Lieberman become. 

Earlier on Monday MK Stas Misezhnikov,  a key figure in Lieberman’s negotiating team, stated to the Jerusalem Post that the party would only settle (in either case) for one of Israel’s top three ministeries - Defense, Foreign, or Finance. With both parties likely to make further concessions to Mr. Lieberman in the proceeding 48 hours, it is doubtful he will ’settle’ for the position of Finance Minister, and instead will insist on either the Foreign or Defense ministries - arguably two of the most powerful positions in government.

Given Lieberman’s rather outspoken views on Palestinian loyalty and previously documented proposals for full racial seperation, his ascendency to one of top three posts in the government spells certain dismay for the Palestinian Authority and by extension, U.S. President Barack Obama’s plans for a negotiated peace settlement in the forseeable future. 

With a majority of Arab States alongside the Palestinian Authority labelling Mr. Lieberman a racist and a clear detriment to the peace process, the next few days will be very tense indeed. 

Perhaps more sobering, this could be the first Israeli election in history where the role of Prime Minister seems altogether unimportant.

A Box Of Chocolates

It is a pity Forrest Gump was never asked to elaborate on his views of Israeli politics. Had Robert Zemeckis added that dimension to his 1994 pseudo-epic, we might have been treated to yet another analogy featuring the now famous ‘box of chocolates’.

Indeed when it comes to Israeli politics and its subsequent elections - one never knows what one will get.

Following the apparent victory of Tzipi Livni’s Kadima party on Tuesday, most of the world awoke on Wednesday to the prospect of a Kadima-led coalition with Livni as the new Prime Minister. That’s how normal Democratic elections work, right.

Wrong.

As anyone following the situation this week can attest, navigating the maze of the Israeli election process is not unlike the Democratic Party Nomination cycle in the United States - a system rife with complications.

So here goes.

In order for an Israeli political party to win an outright victory to govern alone, they are required to capture over 50% of the total seats in the Israeli Parliament. As the Parliament (or Knesset) has a total of 120 representatives, it is therefore necessary for said political party to acquire a minimum of 61 seats.

So far so good.

In the case of the past week, both Kadima and Likud (the two leading parties in this election) fell well short of the required 61 seats to allow either a clear and autonomous victory. Early predictions put the total seats won by Kadima at 28, and Likud at 27. The ultra-right wing Yisrael Beitenu Party led by Avigdor Lieberman came in third, capturing  roughly 15 seats.

This is where it gets fuzzy.

In order for any party to form a government, its leader (i.e. Livni or Netanyahu) must demonstrate an ability to cobble together 61+ seats in the Knesset primarily through allying with rival parties in the formation of a ‘ruling coalition’.

So who has the best chance of making this happen?

As the fall of the Labour Party, and subsequent rise of far-right parties such as Shas and Yisrael Beitenu demonstrate, the Israeli political system is moving clearly to the right. With the large number of total seats in the hands of far-right parties (including Likud), it is very possible Benyamin Netanyahu will be viewed as the most likely candidate to form a majority coalition government.

Next week, President Shimon Peres will consult all 12 parties in the new parliament, and based on their feedback and party preferences, will choose Netanyahu or Livni to try to form a government. Incidently, the Israeli President is elected every 7 years, and while wearing an illustrious title, is more of a figure-head rather than a ruling Head of State.

So the election is not really a decisive election. And a winner is not really a winner. Well, not yet at least.

Perhaps it is simply best to avoid all this for now. Or as Mr. Gump would do, “Run Forrest, run…!”

The Man In The Middle

As the world prepares for the outcome of tomorrow’s crucial parliamentary elections in Israel, most experts remain divided on its likely outcome. While the spotlight has predominantly focused on the next Prime Minister -  with headlines shifting the momentum between Tzipi Livni’s Kadima Party and Benyamin Netanyahu’s Likud, little has been made of the dramatic fall of Ehud Barak’s centrist Labour party, and with it the inevitable rise of an ultra-right wing religious movement launched on a platform of belligerence toward the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

Described by Al Jazeera as the likely ‘King Maker’ of these elections, Yisrael Beiteinu’s hardline leader Avidgor Lieberman is well known throughout the region for his extreme views toward Arab Israelis - having recommended relocation of all Palestinians within Israel’s borders to the West Bank or Gaza, stripping Arab Israelis of both their citizenship and human rights. The Times recently summarized his popularity as follows:

His fan base sees him as a forceful leader with clear vision who can sweep away almost two decades of compromise with the Palestinians, which they say has only led to more terrorism, and impose tough conditions that will ensure Israel’s security. At recent rallies, youthful right-wing supporters have chanted “Death to the Arabs” as they awaited their hero.

Lieberman is an outspoken advocate of drastically reducing the number of Israeli Arabs in the country, proposes all Palestinians living in Israel swear an oath of allegiance to the country, and champions a programme of harsh retribution and military action against cities, towns and communities of the West Bank offering any resistance to the ongoing occupation.

Put simply, his campaign slogan of “no loyalty, no citizenship” has met with thunderous support by a hardline Israeli minority (including illegal West Bank settlers) who feel the recent Gaza operation was an example of ‘too little too late’.

While the prospects of Lieberman gaining outright power for his party are slim, he may indeed become a crucial player in the next Israeli government, and a key partner to the party that emerges from tomorrow’s election with a majority of seats in the Israeli Parliament (the Knesset). As Israeli law requires no less than 61 votes in the 120-member Knesset (over 50%), and with Livni and Netanyahu likely netting only 25-27 each, the victor must look to a third party for a coalition solution.

A solution that may well spell the continued rise of Mr. Lieberman.

Stick with bruised earth as the returns unfold on Tuesday. With the threat of a Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu coalition and an ultimate power-share of Benyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman now a very real possibility, the stakes are high indeed.

Harsh And Disproportionate

On Monday Defense Minister Ehud Barak reassured the Israeli public that Operation ‘Cast Lead’ had been successful in curbing Hamas rocket attacks and dealing a fatal blow to the belligerent regime that continues to stand in defiance of both Israeli and PLO governments. Speaking on Israeli Army Radio, Barak hinted further strikes may still take place stating, “If we have to, we will hit Hamas again.”

Israeli politics have always demanded a macabre display of finger-wagging, threats, and brash military rhetoric. Some would call this the ‘language of the Middle East’. In a world where the ‘Arab’ understands only force (a phrase used more than once in the past 3 weeks), Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been playing his role to acclaim, adding an ominous warning on Sunday meant not only for Hamas, but for the uncooperative International media, when he predicted that a renewal of Hamas rocket fire will result in “harsh” and “disproportionate” action in Gaza.

“Harsh” and “disproportionate”.

These words have been used with such frequency by the world press during the Gaza campaign of the last month, that we have become all but anesthetized to their meaning. The famous political adage of ‘singing the enemy’s song’ cannot be understated as Olmert has in essence robbed the words of their meaning – defiantly accepting the challenge of the media, and forcing them to raise the stakes. 

Now that the Israeli government has publicly stated its strategy which has been illustrated with such bloodshed over the preceding weeks, how will the world’s media react? Rather than claiming the Israeli Defense Force will employ ‘surgical’ and ‘pinpoint’ strikes against military targets, the Prime Minister has told us all what we already know. The show of force that is endemic in the Israeli psyche (indeed a last method of survival of the current coalition government) will continue until the ‘politics’ are satisfied. Not before. 

Indeed with opposition leader, Benyamin Netanyahu criticizing the government for failure to eradicate Hamas entirely, we can expect the “harsh” and “disproportionate” reality to continue. 

After all, Olmert has revealed to us exactly how it will unfold. It is now up to the International media to respond to his challenge.

A Democratic State Silencing the UN

Not coming as a surprise given Israel’s traditional handling of the media, United Nations Envoy Richard Falk was promptly denied entry to Israel on Sunday night following his recent comments characterizing Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank as  ‘crimes against humanity’.

On Monday the International Herald Tribune reported that Falk was held at gunpoint late on Sunday by Israeli immigration services when attempting to enter Israel via Ben Gurion airport and was promptly loaded on the next available flight to Geneva. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has described Falk as ‘unwelcome’ in the State of Israel.

A significant statement that has gone grossly under-reported throughout the media was issued on Tuesday by United Nations Human Rights chief Navi Pillay who accused Israel of “unprecedented and deeply regrettable” treatment of a UN investigator.

Accoring to Pillay, “[Falk's] UN mobile phone was confiscated, making further contact between the UN and Professor Falk impossible until after his subsequent deportation to the United States on Monday. ”

She went on to state that “special rapporteurs do not require a formal invitation by the Israeli authorities in order to carry out official missions to the occupied Palestinian territories. It is the responsibility of states to cooperate with the independent UN experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. That is an important principle.”

What kind of ‘democracy‘ can Israel claim to be if it openly silences United Nations Representatives by denying them access to the country?

As a key member of the UN’s Human Right’s Council, Falk’s treatment on Sunday should not only serve as a clear indication of the punishment Israel metes out to uncooperative International Aid Organisations and Journalists who do not play ball ; but should raise alarm with both the UN  Security Council and Western Leaderships as a further sign of Israel’s increasing evolution into a media-controlled, and undenialably fascist rogue state.

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UPDATE (12:07 GMT)

Count on Al Jazeera to bring immediate news on the situation, with an excellent interview with Falk. Please watch below:

Netanyahu, Obama, and Peace in 2009

One step forward, two steps back. Unfortunately that is the sentiment today when reading through some of the latest reports from inside Israel and across the political spectrum.

To begin with, I encourage you to read an enlightening summary editorial in yesterday’s UK Guardian discussing the real prospects for peace in light of both the Obama Presidential victory and the ongoing uncertainty of the Israeli political system.

Let’s look at the facts:

1) A 5-month ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza has all but disintegrated; with now almost daily reports coming in of Israeli retaliation for the symbolic Qassam rocket attacks originating from the Gaza borders.

2) Fatah and Hamas have renewed their friction, with PA President Mahmoud Abbas threatening to call an early election designed to oust Hamas once and for all.

3) Frightening though it sounds, there is now the very real (if not probable) chance of Likud winning the next election on February 10th. This means a return of Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu (a man who will immediately abolosh any talks around the West Bank and Jerusalem - and will almost certainly accelerate additional settlements and extension of the now infamous separation barrier).

Never one to voice support for an Israeli politician (much less a member of Ariel Sharon’s hobbled Kadima party), but unless rival Tzipi Livni closes the gap in Israeli opinion from the hardline right, we must face the very real prospect of a return to Likud-style oppresion of the West Bank and Gaza (perhaps on a scale even worse than the years experienced under Sharon).

Lest we forget, it was Netanyahu who opposed the withdrawl from Gaza. And to help contrast his politics with that of Sharon, check out this chilling quote made at the time of Sharon’s plan to return control of Gaza to the Palestinian leadership:

Sharon gave and gave and gave, the Palestinians got and got and got, and my question is, what did we get? Nothing and nothing and nothing.

Point of order: this is Sharon we are talking about here!

There can be no illusion, Israel is heading back to the politics of 2000; back to the sparks that ignited the Second Intifada and that now threaten to extend that conflict well into 2010. What electricty we all shared at an Obama victory should (yet again) be tempered and restrained. With Netanyahu in power, there is little the new President will affect or ‘change’ in this part of the world. And now more than ever, we should fear the escalating of tensions between Israel and Iran (a country Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened with a preemptive strike - a claim that may well prove true once he takes power in February).

Those are the facts. And so is this: frightening times are ahead, rather than behind.

I’ll close this post with a quote from an exceptional piece by Gideon Livy in today’s Ha’aretz aptly titled ‘Israel Elects Its Bush‘:

Netanyahu will once again deceive, Obama will keep his distance due to other urgent problems, opportunities will be missed and the fire will flare up again. This is what we want, and this is what we will get. Nonetheless, the inauspicious polls do contribute one thing: They rip off the disguise. An Israel that votes Likud does not want peace - no ifs, ands or buts.

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