New leadership for Israel but the same intractable concerns

[IndianaGreen]

New leadership for Israel but the same intractable concerns

Emile Hokayem

Israel will wake up this morning with at least an idea about its new leadership; one that may nail shut a door to peace with its Arab neighbors that already appear to be closed.

Israel has long blamed a dysfunctional Palestinian leadership for the inability to reach peace. Whatever the merits of that accusation in previous years, the fragmentation of Palestine into two competing entities and societies is sadly now all too evident. But what is even clearer is that the fragmentation and dysfunctional nature of Israeli politics, with its competing egos, diverging approaches and hyper-populist instincts, has all but engendered a country that is profoundly disoriented and unable to imagine a peaceful future.

Indeed, whoever the winner is, Likud’s Benyamin Netanyahu or Kadima’s Tzipi Livni, a coalition cabinet will have to be formed and will surely comprise members of both parties. It will likely also include Israel Beiteinu’s Avigdor Lieberman and possibly the shrinking Labour party’s Ehud Barak as well. Until now, this familiar cast of politicians has together given Israel no sense of strategic direction and their individual agendas have clashed repeatedly.

Coalition governments have not been particularly effective in recent times, and in the absence of consensus and commitment on the importance of reaching peace, they have reverted to a default and facile position of confrontation, of which the bloody overreaction in Gaza was just the latest episode. So, one would be forgiven for dismissing any new governmental combination as simply more of the same.

That, however, would be missing two deeper transformations in Israeli politics: a perhaps permanent shift to the right and the emergence of Iran as the paramount threat that must be countered at all costs and everywhere. These concurrent trends are slowly but dramatically transforming how Israel thinks about and interacts with its neighborhood.

http://www.alarabiya.net//views/2009/02/11/66271.html

[KT2000]

1. "The emergence of Iran

as paramount threat" means the US gets to become involved in yet another war - one that just may finish us off.
Thanks Israel - as a once solid supporter, I am done.