Despite claims to the contrary, the Palestinian-Arabs, territory and the fate of the Jewish settlements will permeate the agenda of the April elections, lurking below and hovering above all other issues.
Almost inevitably, elections in Israel revolve—one way or another—around one issue…even when everyone insists they don’t. This is the “Palestinian problem” and its unavoidable derivative, the fate of the Jewish communities across the Green Line.
The Palestinian Problem: Hovering above, lurking below
Take for example the previous elections, in 2015, in which there was widespread consensus among pundits that the conflict with the Palestinian-Arabs was largely a non-issue. Indeed, barely a week before polling began, a Reuters report on the electoral campaign, headlined, “As Israeli election nears, peace earns barely a mention”, noted: “While social issues and the economy were grappled over at length, the conflict with the Palestinians and efforts to forge a two-state solution to the crisis … drew little…comment or insight.”
However, despite this apparent
marginalization of the Palestinian issue, in broad brush strokes, the parties
left in opposition—arguably, with the perverse exception of Liberman’s Yisrael
Beiteinu—all embraced, as matter of political preference, the idea of
territorial withdrawal and Palestinian statehood.
By contrast, all the parties, who
comprised the coalition, were parties with a political aversion to territorial
withdrawal and the prospect of a Palestinian state, being ready to express
grudging acceptance of the idea only with great reluctance—and subject to
unrealistic and unattainable provisos.
Indeed, even Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial statement about the “Arabs heading in drove for the polling stations” had clear connotations as to their collective sentiments of affiliation with their kinfolk across the 1967 “Green Line” and identification with their political aspirations for statehood.
The underlying bone of contention
Moreover, even the dissolution of
the previous coalition, that precipitated the 2015 election, took place over a dispute between Netanyahu and two proponents of “two-states” in his
government, Tzipi Livni and Yair Lapid.
Although several other reasons were cited for the breakup, they were all in the final analysis, an upshot of inherent differences over the underlying bone of contention, the Palestinian issue—and the eagerness of Livni and Lapid to push for “separation” from the Palestinians—i.e. to concede territory for a self-governing Palestinian entity. Thus, “Time” cited one source of Netanyahu’s ire at Linvi as being due to her meeting with Palestinian Authority chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, despite his explicit instructions not to.
Moreover, although Lapid has made perceptible efforts to downplay the Left-wing image that he cultivated before entering politics, when he even endorsed the division of Jerusalem, predicting that “the Palestinian flag will fly on public buildings in East Jerusalem”, he was still stridently at odds with Netanyahu on the Palestinian issue.
Thus, as Finance Minister in Netanyahu’s
government, Lapid asserted
that Israel should make every effort to bring about
two states for two peoples, warning that if a Palestinian state was not established,
this would spell “the end of Zionism.” He reiterated this position
several months after the election, in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in The
Atlantic, in which he urged: “What we need to do is separate from
the Palestinians ”– i.e. withdraw from territory and hand over its control
to the Palestinian-Arabs.
Summing up the mounting tension
within the coalition between Netanyahu and his recalcitrant pro-withdrawal
adversaries, “Time” quoted one expert on Israeli politics as remarking: “Netanyahu
didn’t want this government in the first place, and he prefers what he calls,
his ‘natural allies ’”–-i.e. those not bent on “separation”, a.k.a. “withdrawal”.
“The Palestinians, peace talks, & settlements seem irrelevant…”
A similar situation might well be
emerging in the run up to the 2019 April election, in which the Palestinian
issue is widely considered, at best, marginal to the competing factions.
Reflecting this view, the Jerusalem Post wrote in a recent piece headlined, “Does Peace With The Palestinians Matter This Israeli Election?”: The Palestinians, peace talks, and settlements seem to be almost entirely irrelevant to this election season”.
However, this may prove to be as deceptive as
it was in the past. For indeed, as in past, the real divide between the
rivalrous political alignments in the parliament is still likely to be shaped
by the differing attitudes of the various factions to the Palestinian-Arabs,
the territories in Judea-Samaria, and the fate of the Jewish settlements there,
rather than by differences on any other issues such as education, transport or
health services.
Moreover, even if the term “peace” has become
somewhat discredited, its erstwhile devotees, who once insisted that withdrawal
from territory and transferal of its control to a Palestinian-Arab regime would
usher in the yearned-for “peace”, today –despite disproven hopes—they persist
in prescribing the very same measures as before!! However this time, no longer
for the sake of unfashionable “peace,” but for the sake of a new false deity,
“separation”.
In this regard, careful attention should be
paid to things being said—or rather blurted out—by the new rising star on the April
electoral horizon, former IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. (res.) Benny Gantz.
Gantz is widely seen as the leading challenger
to Netanyahu, and to the incumbent alignment comprising his “natural allies”—and
as a potential leader of an anti-Netanyahu alignment that has a tangible chance
of wresting power from it.
Ominously reminiscent ring
In this regard there appear, to be
much room for concern regarding Gantz’s political predilections.
For after soon breaking his long—and exasperating—silence, he has come out with public statements in which he used language disturbingly reminiscent of a “plan” (for want of a better word) being aggressively promoted by two copiously funded civil society organizations: the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS).
Sadly, it is a “plan” that is borderline moronic in its underlying assumptions, hopelessly myopic in its strategic vision and callously malevolent in its attitude to tens of thousands of Israeli citizens, (indeed up to 150,000 by some estimates), resident in communities beyond the security barrier in Judea-Samaria.
Adding to this sense of unease is Gantz’s long standing association with these two organizations and/or with many of their prominent members. Indeed, at the time of writing this column, Gantz was still registered as part of the INSS team and is even reported to have been involved in the formulation of its currently proposed “plan”.
In broad outline, the “plan” is based
on the idea of unilateral Israeli “initiatives” (read “concessions”) to keep
the increasingly discredited two-state formula on life support, including
renouncing Israeli claims to sovereignty over any territory beyond the security
barrier, freezing all construction in, and funding of, Jewish communities in
that territory, but, allegedly to avoid the errors of the
2005 disengagement from Gaza, keep the IDF deployed there.
Eerie echoes
In a recent interview on the widely viewed Hebrew site, Ynet, Gantz made remarks that eerily echoed the “rationale” of the INSS-CIS “plan” and which were widely interpreted as being favorable to the 2005 Gaza disengagement—and as endorsing the implementation of additional unilateral measures, involving withdrawal and evacuation of Jewish communities.
According to Gantz: “The
disengagement was carried out with Israel’s political considerations in mind”.
He added that “we must find the way in which we don’t have control over
others…we need to take the lessons [of the Gaza disengagement] and implement
them elsewhere.”
Although it is difficult to
misconstrue these words, Gantz did try to walk them back later –but to little
avail.
Indeed, a later clarification,
after the interview, from his party that “under a Gantz government there not
will be any unilateral measures regarding evacuation of settlements” is
hardly reassuring. After all, while the INSS-CIS plan does not call for the
unilateral evacuation of settlements, it does recommend stifling and strangling
them, until they wither away and are abandoned.
But if Gantz’s benign perspective
of past debacles is troubling enough, his apparent endorsement of a future
fiascos is even more so—and casts a heavy shadow over his judgment.
Foreseeable foregone fiasco
After all, the “plan” advanced by
INSS-CIS is an almost certain formula for disaster.
For, it will unavoidably:
– Replicate the conditions that
prevailed in South Lebanon prior to 2000—on the fringes of Greater Tel Aviv
– Entrap the IDF in open-ended
occupation, whose duration is dependent exclusively on Palestinian-Arabs
– Culminate in unilateral
withdrawal without any agreement
None of this is difficult for foresee.
Clearly, by advocating renunciation of claims to sovereignty
over all of Judea-Samaria beyond the security barrier, on the one hand; with
the continued deployment of the IDF in that territory, on the other, the INSS-CIS
“plan” is in effect, calling for replicating precisely the conditions that
prevailed in South Lebanon until the hasty unilateral IDF retreat in 2000.
The “plan” envisions this IDF deployment continuing until some
acceptable arrangement with the Palestinian-Arabs can be reached. But what if
no such agreement materializes?
Obviously then, this formula for deploying the IDF for an
indeterminate period, in territory over which Israel lays no sovereign
claim—and hence, by implication, acknowledges that others have such
claims—creates an unsustainable political configuration.
Indeed, all the Palestinian-Arabs
need to do to ensnare the IDF in an open-ended “occupation” is… well, nothing.
All they need to do is wait for the
IDF to become caught up in what will inevitably become an ongoing guerrilla
campaign — an easy target for attacks by a hostile population, backed by armed
Palestinian security services (which neither INSS nor CIS recommends
dismantling).
Unilateral withdrawal in slow motion
Soon, a combination of mounting
domestic and international pressure will build up for the IDF to
withdraw—similar to that which precipitated the IDF pullout from South Lebanon.
On the domestic front,
recurring IDF casualties in a “foreign land” will result in incessant calls to
“bring our boys back home”.
On the international front,
increasing impatience with open-ended “occupation” will create growing demands
for the removal of Israeli troops.
Eventually, continued IDF
deployment will no longer be tenable and evacuation will become
inevitable—without any adequate political settlement or sustainable security
arrangements.
Just like in South Lebanon.
This then, is the inevitable chain
of events that will result from adopting the INSS-CIS plan.
Given the troubling evidence, there seems a definite chance that, if elected Prime Minister, Gantz may well embark on the course charted by INSS-CIS.
Accordingly, whether raised explicitly during the campaign or not, support or opposition for it will be the latent agenda in the April election—and voters ought to be aware of what they are really voting for—or against.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is from Israeli Prime Minisiter Benjamin Netanyahu’s Facebook page.
