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· ANALYSIS
The current political situation is testament to both the fear of President Bush’s intentions in his last few months in power as well as to PM Olmert’s political skills. At the moment Olmert is presiding over talks with Syria in Ankara Turkey; talks with Hamas in Cairo, Egypt; and talks with Hizb’allah via Berlin, Germany. This is despite being under yet another investigation concerning the acceptance of illicit payments that he insists were legal and will be vindicated in the cross-examination of his main accuser on 17 July.
This, in turn, has led to pressure for general elections, and feverish, but so far unavailing, attempts by both Ehud Barak (Defence Minister and Labour Party head), and Tzipi Livni (fellow senior Kadima Party member and Foreign Minister), to force his resignation.
Unfortunately for both of them their respective positions are weak. It is no coincidence they get on well and have the same goals in mind. They both want to delay elections for as long as possible and believe the best way to ensure this is to force Olmert out of office. They both need to reinforce their positions within their respective parties, and prepare them for a difficult election period against the popular opposition Likud Party under Bibi Netanyahu.
Both Barak and Livni have alienated substantial sections of the senior membership of their respective parties, although they both have managed to garner the largest percentage of ordinary members’ votes in various polls of their membership. For example Livni has 39% of Kadima party members’ votes against her nearest Kadima leadership rival Shaul Mofaz with 25%. Nevertheless Olmert remains ahead of both candidates and that is why he is insisting on standing in the forthcoming Kadima party leadership primaries, which Barak insisted were held or he would vote for early elections.
Barak remains unpopular amongst the Israeli public, whilst Livni’s popularity remains consistently high. Both would be comfortable with having the other as a junior partner in either a reorganised present government, devoid of Olmert, or a newly elected one.
Netanyahu’s position remains the strongest, particularly as he has called for a national unity government under his leadership, which is highly appealing to the Israeli electorate at the moment given the threat from Iran and the need to deal with it in a unified manner and in the near future.
Only an indictment of PM Olmert is likely to force him to resign, as he himself has said he will go should any indictment be issued by the Attorney General’s Office. Attorney-General Mazuz is renowned for his caution, so Olmert has good reason to believe his position is not in any immediate danger.
· Syria is currently playing a waiting game. They are engaging in meaningless talks with Israel over the Golan Heights in order to restrain President Bush from doing anything before leaving office, and in order to wrong foot those members of Congress who wish to extend sanctions against them. It is a little more difficult to argue for sanctions when the party you are sanctioning is apparently in the middle of peace negotiations. They also hope their current policy offers an incentive to EU members especially, to curb the investigation into the late Lebanese PM Hariri’s murder, which continues under UN auspices.
· Iran is following the same path as Syria, simply waiting for President Bush to leave office. They have no intention of halting their nuclear weapons programme and wish to negotiate from a position of strength, which means as a member of the elite nuclear weapons club of nations. Sanctions are having little effect as oil and gas price increases have given the regime plenty of room to manoeuvre.
· Hizb’allah have attained all their internal political goals in Lebanon. They now have a veto over all decisions that they do not support and are the only real military power in the country. They are waiting to accomplish the final parts of their political platform, the return of all Lebanese prisoners from Israeli jails, in exchange for the bodies of the kidnapped Israeli POWs, as well as the “return” of the disputed Shebaa Farms area to Lebanon, despite the UN insisting it is Syrian territory. Syria has said it no longer considers the area part of its territory, which allows Syria to continue a proxy war against Israel through Hizb’allah, whilst simultaneously strengthening Hizb’allah’s internal position as the only group in Lebanon capable of standing up to Israel.
· Hamas believe that they too are on the verge of getting all their requirements met. They expect the siege to be lifted in exchange for a ceasefire, which in turn will strengthen their position within Gaza as the only serious political party there. President Abbas has agreed to negotiate from a position of weakness in order to reconstitute some sort of P.A. presence there and in anticipation of new elections next year in which he has recently said he hopes to stand. He, too, is waiting for Bush to stand down so that he can attempt to broker a better deal under a new U.S. President, preferably Obama. A prisoner exchange will further strengthen Hamas’s position as the only party capable of getting the Israelis to hand over Palestinian prisoners whilst simultaneously standing up militarily to the IDF and effectively defeating it through outmanoeuvring Israel on the political and humanitarian fronts. Israel has been incapable of bringing Hamas to its knees either militarily, economically, psychologically, or politically.
· The vital lesson learnt so far by Hamas is that as long as it remains intransigent like its paymasters Iran and Syria it will achieve all its most important immediate political goals because Israel is simply not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to prevent it from doing so. However, there will come a point in time when this will not be sustainable. Once Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power, or soon after it announces it has achieved its goal, its facilities will, in all probability, be attacked. This in turn will result in a sustained missile bombardment upon Israel from Hizb’allah and Hamas, which in turn will lead to a necessary military response. It will be at this stage that a military (not political, that is not possible) defeat of Hamas and Hizb’allah will be an absolute necessity.
· Iran might take a leaf out of Israel’s book and simply not announce, or ever admit, it is a nuclear power. But even then it is doubtful any Israeli government could tolerate such a permanent explicit threat to its survival. So, Israel, too, is also playing for time, waiting for the appropriate anti-missile missile technologies to be developed that will be able to cope with possibly the brunt of future mortar and missile bombardments.
A sophisticated and intelligent Iranian regime would stop just short of accomplishing nuclear weapons capability. The world would know that if necessary it could, within a very short period of time, become nuclear weapons capable, and would not want to provoke it. In this way Iran would benefit from the vast incentives offered by China, Russia, the EU and others, and be, to all intents and purposes a nuclear power as well. So far, however, there is no evidence that this is the current Iranian regime’s strategy. The 2009 Iranian Presidential election result will nevertheless be a good indicator as to the likelihood of war.
It is worth noting that were Russia to indicate to Iran that it would not stand in the way of an Israeli or U.S. attack the regime’s position might well change, the same would apply if China threatened to cease purchasing Iranian gas and oil. The likelihood of either scenario remains low at the moment.
· It is also possible that if international pressure is sustained and united against Iran, Israel will not feel it necessary to engage in any pre-emptive action, particularly if its restraint was sufficiently rewarded. There are no signs at present that this will be the case.
Links:
For the best English language news site on Israel:
http://www.jpost.com/
For a vigorous Liberal-Left position of the Israeli daily paper:
http://www.haaretz.com/
For a Centre-Left view on Israel, in occasionally appalling English:
http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html
For an insight into Arab and Muslim media coverage of the Israel-Palestinian issue, anti-Semitism, and other Middle East issues see:
http://www.memri.org/
For an overview of the media coverage of Israel see the BICOM (Britain Israel Research and Communications Centre) site. Below are the sites for -
News headlines with links to each site:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news
A written summary of the news:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/media-summary/cessation-of-hostilities-between-israel-and-hamas-begins-thursday-morning
The main issues behind the news:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/news-archive
Extracts from editorial and article Opinion:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/comment-and-opinion
A small selection of Quotes:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/quotes
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