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Jewish World Review Feb. 13, 2009 / 19 Shevat 5769 Enter the Netanyahu government By Caroline B. Glick
Israeli voters decided two things on Tuesday. First, they decided that they
want the political Right to lead the country. Second, leftist voters decided
that they want to be represented by a big party so they abandoned Labor and
Meretz and put their eggs in Kadima's basket.
These two decisions - one general and one sectoral -- are what brought about
the anomalous situation where the party with the most Knesset seats is
incapable of forming the next governing coalition. Despite Kadima leader
Tzipi Livni's stunning electoral achievement, she cannot form a coalition.
Binyamin Netanyahu will be Israel's next prime minister. The Likud will form
the next coalition.
But what sort of governing coalition will Netanyahu form? That is today's
sixty-four thousand dollar question.
During the campaign, Netanyahu said he wants to form a broad governing
coalition. Until Tuesday, he planned to bring the Labor Party led by Ehud
Barak into his government while leaving Kadima out in the cold. It was his
hope that as the odd man out, Kadima would be destroyed as a viable
political entity.
The public though had other plans. On Tuesday voters wiped out David Ben
Gurion's party as a political force in the country. Labor's senior
leadership reacted to their defeat by declaring that the time has come to
move into the opposition. There will be no coalition with Labor.
That leaves Kadima. If Netanyahu wants a leftist party in his government, he
will need to bring in Kadima. Such a coalition would be based on a
tripartite partnership between Likud, Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu.
Although Netanyahu clearly prefers such a broad coalition, it is not his
only option. The other option is to form a government with his rightist
political camp. A coalition of Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas, United Torah
Judaism, the National Union and the Jewish Home parties would constitute a
stable governing majority that could withstand attempts by Kadima to bring
down the government in the Knesset.
The question is which coalition is best for Likud? The answer to that
question is debatable. But to begin to understand what should drive
Netanyahu's decision, it is necessary to recognize his top priorities in
office. Netanyahu has made clear that his top priorities are preventing Iran
from acquiring nuclear weapons, defeating Hamas and strengthening the
economy.
Netanyahu's free market economic philosophy is shared by Kadima and Yisrael
Beiteinu. It is not shared by Shas or Jewish Home. The National Union for
its part is neutral. So to cut income taxes by twenty percent, as Netanyahu
has pledged to do, a coalition with Kadima is preferable to its rightist
alternative. On the other hand, the fact of the matter is that Netanyahu
will probably be able to push his economic policies through the Knesset with
either governing coalition, particularly if he proposes them quickly.
This leaves the issue of Iran and its Hamas proxy in Gaza. Here the
situation becomes more complicated. In a conversation Thursday morning,
Likud MK Yuval Steinitz argued in favor of a coalition with Kadima by noting
that as the Kadima-led government's wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and its
destruction of the Iranian-financed, North Korean built nuclear installation
in Syria in September 2007 show, Kadima shares Likud's willingness to use
force against Israel's enemies.
At the same time, Steinitz acknowledged that Kadima used force in both
Lebanon and Gaza to advance diplomatic aims that are diametrically opposed
to Likud's diplomatic aims. In Lebanon, Livni was the architect of the
ceasefire with Hizbullah that paved the way for Hizbullah's rearmament,
reassertion of control over South Lebanon, and its effective takeover of the
Lebanese government as a whole. In Gaza, the Kadima-led government is about
to agree to a ceasefire that will in the end strengthen Hamas's grip on
power and legitimize the terror group as a political force.
Moreover, unlike Likud, Kadima has made establishing a Fatah-led Palestinian
state in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and Gaza its most urgent strategic goal,
followed only by its ardent desire to give Syria the Golan Heights. Likud
opposes both of these goals.
In contrast to Kadima, the rightist parties in Netanyahu's voter-made
coalition share the Likud's philosophy both in terms of when to use force,
and in terms of the diplomatic aims the resort to force are supposed to
achieve. The rightist Knesset bloc would not agree to a ceasefire agreement
in which Israel is required to release a thousand terrorists, including mass
murderers from prison. They would not agree to ceasefires that enable Hamas
and Hizbullah to continue to arm, control territory or attack Israel. They
would not agree to a national strategy that advocates subcontracting
Israel's national security to international forces. And they oppose
transferring Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to Arab
control.
The disparity between Kadima's and Likud's strategic goals makes a rightist
coalition seem like the best option. But there are reasons why an observer
could reasonably reach a different conclusion. The existential threats
Israel faces today from Iran and its proxies are exacerbated by the fact
that the West's position on Israel is swiftly converging with the Arab
world's position on Israel. Throughout Western Europe, elite opinion has
swung against Israel. Today not only can Israel expect no support from
Europe for its moves to defend itself from its enemies. It can be all but
certain that Europe will actively seek to weaken it. The only question is
what means Europe chooses to adopt against Israel.
Presently, Europe suffices with threatening to prosecute Israeli military
personnel and political leaders as war criminals, levying partial embargos
on the sale of military equipment to Israel, supporting anti-Israel
resolutions in international forums, and refusing to end its trade with
Iran. In the future, the EU is liable to end its free trade agreements with
Israel, seek Israel's delegitimization as a "racist" state, and perhaps join
Russia in supplying Arab armies and Iran with advanced weapons and nuclear
reactors.
As for the US, the Obama administration's interest in courting Iran and the
Arab world place Jerusalem on a collision course with Washington. Given the
high priority the Obama administration has placed on appeasing Iran, its
decision to end US sanctions against Syria, and its intense desire to
establish a Palestinian state, it is fairly clear that Israel cannot expect
to enjoy good relations with Washington in the coming years without adopting
policies that would endanger its survival.
It is common wisdom in Israel that the Israeli Left is capable of limiting
the level of hostility directed against Israel from the US and Europe. Livni
exploited this popular belief during the electoral campaign when she warned
that a rightist government would destroy Israel's relations with Washington.
Apparently convinced by her warnings, some voices in Likud argue that with
Livni and Kadima in the government, the US and the EU will think twice
before adopting openly hostile policies.
Unfortunately, this view is demonstrably false. As foreign minister in Ariel
Sharon's government during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, Shimon Peres
did not prevent the international Left in Europe and the US from accusing
Israel of committing war crimes. The Kadima-led leftist government was
unable to secure European support for Israel in the Second Lebanon War. The
fact that Israel was led by the leftist Kadima-Labor government during the
wars in Lebanon and Gaza did not improve the West's negative reaction to the
fighting.
The generally ignored truth is that international hostility towards Israel
is driven by factors extraneous to Israel. Consequently Israel's governments
have little ability to influence how foreign governments treat it regardless
of who forms those governments.
There is one intrinsic advantage that leftist parties bring to rightist-led
coalitions. Leftist parties are capable of mobilizing the support of the
domestic leftist elites for the government's actions.
Because the Left was in the government in 2003, 2006 and 2009, the media
supported Defensive Shield, the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead.
And because it was in the opposition during the 1982 Lebanon War and during
the Palestinian uprising from 1988 to 1990 as well as during 2003 when
Sharon led a rightist coalition, the political Left colluded with the
leftist elites in the media, in Peace Now and its sister groups, as well as
with foreign governments to undermine the government. Since Tuesday night,
both the local media elites and Kadima leaders have made clear that they
will consider a Likud-led rightist government illegitimate and will work to
destabilize it with the intention of overthrowing it within a year or two.
It is true that it is hard to imagine that either Kadima or the leftists in
the media would oppose a decision by the Netanyahu government to attack
Iran's nuclear installations. But it is also true that they would seek to
minimize any strategic advantage Israel might gain either locally or
internationally from removing this clear and present danger to Israel
specifically and to international security generally. In the aftermath of
such attacks, Kadima would unquestionably blame the government for whatever
punitive steps Washington and Brussels implement against Israel in
retaliation for the attacks.
More disturbingly, in the event that Kadima leads the opposition, it is easy
to imagine Livni and her cohorts in Kadima and in the media attacking the
government for refusing to give land to Fatah in Judea, Samaria and
Jerusalem and for refusing to surrender the Golan Heights to Syria. Kadima's
leaders will have open invitations to travel to Washington and Brussels to
delegitimize the Netanyahu government's policies towards the Palestinians
and the Syrians, and more likely than not, they will use them.
On the other hand, it is far from clear that the situation would be much
better if Netanyahu were to bring Kadima into his coalition. Livni can
hardly be expected to set aside her obsession with establishing a
Palestinian state in Jerusalem, Gaza and Judea and Samaria, particularly
given that she seems convinced that she won the elections.
In short, given their disparate strategic goals, as a senior coalition
partner, Kadima can only be relied upon to support Netanyahu in implementing
a limited set of policies. As Netanyahu considers his options for forming a
coalition, he needs to answer four questions:
First, can Kadima's cooperation be assured in the event that the government
decides to attack Iran's nuclear facilities?
Second, will having Kadima in the government bring Israel significantly more
leverage with the Americans in the run up to or the aftermath of such a
strike than not having it in the government?
Third, will the Likud be weakened more if Livni attempts to advance her
Palestinian policy from within the government or outside it?
And finally, as Likud's senior coalition partner, will the damage Kadima
causes Likud through its devotion to Palestinian statehood and willingness
to transfer the Golan Heights to Syria outweigh the advantage gained by its
partnership in attacking Iran?
How Netanyahu answers these questions should determine the nature of his
governing coalition.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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