Israeli Elections

Turning Point?

The polling comes at pivotal moment in history.

Uriel Heilman

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Herzliya, Israel

H

amas' survival intact in its
recent war with Israel consti-
tutes de facto Israeli recognition
of a militarized Palestinian state on Israel's
doorstep.
• Israel is on a collision course with
Syria, which is unlikely to sever ties
with Iran. If Israel does manage to make
peace with Damascus, Bashar Assad's
regime would be in danger of collapse
and replacement by an even more radical
regime.
• Iran's nuclear program is just a year
or two away from weaponization, and
even if a military strike on the country's
nuclear facilities is successful, it will only
delay, not eliminate, Iran's ability to get the
bomb.
• U.S. President Barack Obama is likely
to be too preoccupied with the economic
crisis to stop Iran's pursuit of nuclear
weapons.
These were just some of the grim
assessments out of Herzliya, the pictur-
esque Tel Aviv suburb where Israel's top
brass gathers each year to examine, debate
and report on the myriad challenges fac-
ing the Jewish state.
The ninth annual Herzliya Conference,
which took place last week, provided a
sobering look at the problems Israel's next
prime minister will have to confront.
"We cannot ignore the threats around
us," Defense Minister Ehud Barak of the
Labor Party said in his presentation, one
of three formal addresses at the confer-
ence by prime ministerial candidates.
"The dove has not returned with an olive
branch because the floodwaters have not
receded yet:"
By all accounts, the Feb.10 election came
at a pivotal moment in Israeli history.
On the Palestinian front, the window of
opportunity for a two-state solution is at
risk of closing, many analysts warn, with
the Palestinians increasingly divided and,
in Gaza, radicalized. Even if the moderates
prevail, the demographic balance between
the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River
soon will reach a tipping point where
Arabs outnumber Jews.
That would open the door for the
Palestinians simply to push for a one-man,
one-vote, single-state solution that would

Al2

February 12 • 2009

Benjamin Netanyahu

spell the end of the Jewish state as it is now
On the Iranian front, the Islamic Republic
is likely to acquire a bomb during the next
Israeli prime minister's term unless efforts
to arrest the process succeed. Meanwhile,
Iran continues to arm and train fighters
from Hezbollah, the terrorist militia in
southern Lebanon that has an estimated
40,000 rockets pointed at Israel.
Within Israel itself, the next prime min-
ister will take office at a time when public
confidence in the institutions of state are
at a historic low and calls for fundamental
government reform — including changing
Israel's electoral system to make it more
stable, less prone to corruption and more
representative — are growing.
Then there's the economic crisis.
All this makes it all the more remark-
able that the Israel election campaign
appeared to be devoid of substantive
debate on the issues. Marked more by
sloganeering and attack ads than by real
discussion, the campaign produced stag-
geringly high numbers of undecided vot-
ers heading into Election Day.
There are several reasons for the lack of
genuine debate. For one, the campaign ran
just three weeks, cut short due to the sus-
pension of formal electioneering during
Israel's 22-day operation in Gaza.
Second, Israelis were going to the polls
to choose a prime minister for the fifth

Tzipi Livni

time in 10 years. With their disenchant-
ment of politics running high due to
financial and sex scandals that have
resulted in the resignations of a prime
minister, president, justice minister and
finance minister in the past three years
alone, Israelis are suffering from election
and political fatigue.
It doesn't help that the candidates for
prime minister from Israel's three largest
parties are comprised of two ex-prime
ministers whose terms were cut short by
no-confidence votes and a former prime
minister-designate, Tzipi Livni, who failed
to put together a coalition government
after winning the Kadima Party primary
in September to succeed Ehud Olmert.
Furthermore, the dizzying array of
parties running for Knesset — 33 in all
— made choosing a party more difficult.
Finally, Israeli voters weren't altogether
clear on the differences between some
of the major parties and candidates for
prime minister. Kadima, the centrist party
that erstwhile Likud stalwart Ariel Sharon
created in November 2005 to advance
his plan for unilateral withdrawal from
the Gaza Strip, had moved away from the
notion of unilateral disengagement. Its
leader, Livni, had become Israel's most
visible proponent of negotiations with the
Palestinian Authority.
Livni tried to cast the election as a

choice between peace and war. "Israel
must, as she has in the past, combine
military might with diplomatic initiative
Livni said in her address Feb. 2 at the
Herzliya Conference.
But, she added, he who thinks Israel can
have "security without some kind of peace
process is fooling himself, fooling the
public and doesn't understand the world
we live in."
Meanwhile, Ehud Barak, the leader of
Labor, the one-time standard-bearer of
the left, built his campaign around his able
prosecution of the recent war in Gaza.
Benjamin Netanyahu, standard-bearer
of the party of the right, Likud, saw him-
self outflanked during the campaign by
Yisrael Beiteinu's Avigdor Lieberman,
whose criticism of the shortcomings of
the Gaza operation and hawkish rhetoric
against Israel's own Arab minority won
him the support of disenchanted right-
wingers.
"On this day, our country stands before
a choice on its future Netanyahu said at
the Herzliya Conference: to "end its era of
weakness and begin its era of strengthen-
ing:,

"Hope," he said, "stems from recognizing
what is happening."

For complete Israeli election results,
go to JNonline.us .

