Another Round of Fruitless Negotiations?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry this Sunday, June 26, in Rome to discuss ways to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.  Reports say that Netanyahu will tell Kerry that he backs potential Egyptian-led efforts to revive negotiations, rather than the international approach being pushed by France.

 

In the current political season going on here, in Europe and all year round in Israel, one of the favorite issues raised by candidates trying to flaunt their "international" creds is the so called "Middle East Peace Process. It's really a no-brainer politically, because the general assumption is that in Western democracies most people prefer peace to war, and believe (completely erroneously!) that the Israeli-Palestinian problem is the root cause of all regional conflicts.

 

Those who don't understand the dynamics naively believe that a "two state" resolution is the magic bullet that will instantly stop all the conflicts. If only "they" could sit down and negotiate in good faith then everything else will work out...

 

However after five wars, years of terrorist attacks, months of failed negotiations, numerous broken promises, repeated land concessions by Israel and plenty of blame to go around, there are two schools of thought on how to bring that about.

 

First some definitions:  The political terms "left" and "right" used here are the Israeli definitions, and refer to Ideological and political views on the best way to assure Israel's security and long-term survival: "Right" is more conservative (hawkish), while "Left" is more liberal (dovish).

 

In both cases I'm talking about normative Israelis and Americans, who support Israel and the Zionist dream and understand the need for an eventual resolution to the conflict, but have different opinions as to how to make it happen. Note - in both cases I'm NOT talking about the extreme, sometimes violent fringes of both camps.

1. On the "Right" - mainly secular and religious conservatives who feel that Israel should maintain a tough, non-compromising negotiating posture leading to perpetual Israeli sovereignty over most of the areas of Judea and Samaria, while establishing a less-than-fully sovereign Palestinian nation-state that includes the Gaza Strip, is demilitarized and formally recognizes the Jewish State of Israel.  
2. On the "Left" - secular and traditional liberals who prefer compromise driven negotiations that would essentially return most of the West Bank to the PLO with Israel maintaining permanent security control over the Jordan Valley and certain other small areas crucial to Israel's ongoing and evolving security needs. Israel will also maintain most of the established Israeli communities ("settlements") that are built within the four small "Consensus Blocs", in exchange for agreed land swaps of equal area. Here, too, the ultimate goal is a demilitarized Palestinian nation-state that recognizes Israel as the historical and current sovereign Jewish homeland. 

Israelis tend to wander between the camps, but most are not fully committed to either. They will lean one way or the other at any given time, based on either perceived threats, like war or terrorism, on the one hand...or real movement towards peace on the other.

 

The government of the day has a major influence on national "leaning". But since the government is elected by the voters, we have an interesting "chicken or egg" question...or do we?

 

The fact that in recent elections Olmert, Sharon or Netanyahu were able to cobble together right-of-center coalitions has less to do with general sentiments among Israeli voters, who are basically centrist, and more do with the fact that the traditional centrist parties keep breaking up and reinventing themselves with no coherent or unified platform or legacy leadership.

 

On the other hand the Likud party, with few changes, has anchored the right wing of Israeli politics since 1973.

 

Today, Netanyahu heads a solid coalition of Likud and like-minded coalition partners. Therefore, any proposals that Secretary of State Kerry will present on Sunday will be negotiated from Israel's "right-of-Center" philosophy regarding security and boundaries.

 

Together with the current Palestinian leadership vacuum and ongoing rejectionist statements, I feel pretty safe in predicting that this will just be another round of fruitless negotiations

Why I'm giving Lieberman the benefit of the doubt - for now

When the announcement came out last week that Lt. Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya'alon had resigned from his political positions as Israel's minister of defense, and member of Knesset from the Likud party, no-one was really surprised. His relations with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu had been bumpy from the beginning. Ya'alon, a decorated combat officer who rose to the highest rank possible in the IDF and finished his career as its Commander in Chief, had a hard time taking orders from a career politician whose service in the IDF in an elite unit, was respectable, if unremarkable.

Bibi, on the other hand, didn't appreciate the perceived patronizing by his higher ranking, more experienced and sometimes a bit too outspoken, subordinate.

The final straw came last month over two comments  Ya'alon made. Bibi essentially gave him the option to resign or be fired. He "resigned". That was not surprising.

What raised eyebrows, rolled eyes and sent pundits everywhere (except in Israel) into hi-caffeinated hand-wringing angst, was the offer of the job to Corporal (res.) Avigdor Lieberman.

The Israelis knew that Bibi had no choice. I'll try to explain:

In the US, the executive and legislature branches at all levels: federal, state and local, draw their power and authority from the voting public directly. In Israel the executive branch (Primer Minister, ministers, etc.) is installed and empowered by the Knesset, both individually and collectively.

The Israeli system of government is a parliamentary democracy, based on "proportionate representation". Voters for the Knesset cast ballots for a party - not an individual candidate. The parties are competing for the 120 seats in the Knesset.

After an election, all valid votes are counted and the Knesset seats are allocated proportionately to the number of votes each party received. If party A received 30% of the votes - it will get 30% of the 120 seats = 36 seats or Members of Knesset (MK's). Once allocated, the new MK's are sworn in.

In order to form or maintain a government, a party must receive a vote of confidence from at least half of the sitting MK's+1 = 61. Anything less and the government will not be confirmed or will fall in a future "no confidence" vote.

Since no party in Israel's 68 years of history has ever received 61 seats in an election, every Prime Minister candidate has had to cobble together a coalition of several parties, and for the next few years try to keep everyone in their coalition happy...

After the last election Bibi formed a coalition with a razor thin majority of 61. Ya'alon's resignation of his Knesset seat left the coalition under the threat of losing a no-confidence vote at any time. Bibi had to act fast to stay in power:

First he tried (not too hard...!) to get the center-left "Zionist Union" party (24 MK's), led by Yitzchak ("Bujy") Hertzog, but that fell through.

Since the "Joint List" Arab party (13 MK's) is not really an option, Bibi turned to the party that has always been his ideological and political "plan B" (or maybe it was really "Plan A" all along...?), Avigdor Lieberman's right-wing nationalistic "Yisrael Beiteinu".With six MK's - it pretty much solidifies the government's continuation. Lieberman demanded and received the Ministry of Defense.

The new coalition agreement was ratified by the Knesset, and Lieberman was sworn in.

Understandably, not everyone in Israel is happy, but aside from those few perennial declarers who say (again) that they are "packing their bags", everyone understands that this is the cost of Israel's style of democracy.

As for Lieberman as Defense Minister, I'm taking a wait and see position. Though he may not have been my first choice to replace Ya'alon, he might just turn out to be the right person at the right time. I disagree with those that are arguing that the position should be held by someone from within the IDF.

Due to the importance of the defense portfolio, prime ministers have often held the DM position in addition to their prime ministerial duties... seven of the sixteen Defense Ministers to date were serving Prime Ministers: David Ben Gurion, Levi Eshkol, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Bibi (two days...).

Five of them (Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Shaul Mofaz and Moshe Ya'alon) were former IDF Chiefs of Staff. Most of them were either civilians or served at low ranks See the list below.*

Anyone familiar with the last 68 years knows that Israel has had excellent Defense Ministers who had no IDF experience at all: Ben Gurion, Eshkol, Arens, Peres, Begin, and civilian ones those were not that great: Lavon and Peretz for example.

And even among those who had IDF experience, some were great, some were good, and at least one made a terrible decisionthat cost Israel over 9000 casualties, of which 2,656 were IDF killed.

Like I said - I'm taking a wait and see position on Lieberman as Defense Minister.

* Here is the list of Past Defense Ministers and whether or not they served in the IDF:

Order	Minister
1	David Ben-Gurion	civilian
2	Pinhas Lavon	civilian
-	David Ben-Gurion	civilian
3	Levi Eshkol	civilian
4	Moshe Dayan	IDF (General)
5	Shimon Peres	Civilian
6	Ezer Weizman	IDF (General)
7	Menachem Begin	Civilian
8	Ariel Sharon	IDF (General)
-	Menachem Begin	Civilian
9	Moshe Arens	Civilian
10	Yitzhak Rabin	IDF (General)
-	Moshe Arens	Civilian
-	Yitzhak Rabin	IDF (General)
-	Shimon Peres	Civilian
11	Yitzhak Mordechai	IDF (General)
-	Moshe Arens	Civilian
12	Ehud Barak	IDF (General)
13	Binyamin Ben-Eliezer	IDF (General)
14	Shaul Mofaz	IDF (General)
15	Amir Peretz	IDF (Captain)
-	Ehud Barak	IDF (General)
16	Moshe Ya'alon	IDF (General)
-	Benjamin Netanyahu	IDF (Captain)
17	Avigdor Lieberman	IDF (Corporal)