Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘likud’

According to exit polls, Likud is estimated to have won 34 seats in Knesset in today’s election, with Labor in second place at 18 seats. Shinui is in third place with 16 seats.

More definitive results will probably take a few hours, as polls are closing any minute now and ballots need to be counted. But the Likud win is fairly predictable, and the key question may not be answered for days or even weeks: who will join Likud in a coalition government. Will Sharon be able to convince Mitzna to reverse his position and bring Labor into a unity government with Likud? Will he be forced to look to the religious parties or the far right for support? This is what will truly determine the character of the government and the policies on key issues.

Update: With over 90% of the vote counted, the tally is Likud with 37 seats, Labor with 19 seats, and Shinui with 15 seats. Other notable parties are the ultra-religious Shas party with 11 seats, and the leftist Meretz party with 7.

Shinui leader Tommy Lapid re-stated his desire to join a unity government with Sharon, but only if religious parties are excluded from such a coalition. Mitzna still hasn’t wavered on his promise not to join a Likud coalition, although predictions are that he may change his mind in the coming weeks.

Sounds ludicrous, I know. But, according to strategic consultant Kalman Gayer (as reported in Ha’aretz), Yasser Arafat wanted a Likud Prime Minister to win in 2001, and wants one to win again in 2002:

On the eve of the 2001 elections, strategic consultant Kalman Gayer reached the conclusion that “Arafat prefers a leader from the Likud and not from Labor to head the Israeli government.” His analysis was based on three strategically important events that occurred in swift succession: In May 2000 the Barak government decided on a unilateral pullout from southern Lebanon; two months later, the Camp David summit was held, and failed; and two months after that, on September 29, the intifada began.

Arafat reached the conclusion that he would achieve his political goals by means of terrorism, Gayer wrote. The escalation in terrorism and the suicide bombing attacks worked in Sharon’s favor.

When you think about it, it makes a strange kind of sense. Arafat was getting too close to the point where he would have to either accept a peace deal, or turn down something eminently reasonable. The next step at Camp David in 2000 with Ehud Barak was going to necessitate a willingness on Arafat’s part to make some concessions and to accept the premise of statehood in exchange for peace. But he couldn’t do it. He was too much of a coward, and he realized that his people were not ready to accept it. Things were moving too fast, and Arafat saw them spinning out of control – if he signed a peace treaty he’d be an international hero but a traitor in the Muslim world, and that wasn’t the legacy he wanted. Hence the strategic decision to put a grinding halt to the peace process and start a wave of terror and violence that has cost far too many hundreds of lives so far.

But Arafat also knew that, faced with an Israeli leadership willing to make major concessions for peace, the Palestinian side would look bad for turning down these concessions. He needed a scapegoat. He needed an Israeli leader he could villanize. Someone who he could blame for all of the violence, and who the international community would readily see as a hard-line extremist. He needed a Likud Prime Minister. Preferably one with as hard-line a reputation as possible.

Ariel Sharon has been Arafat’s dream come true.

So why, then, is he still so popular amongst Israelis? Why did they just vote him back in as leader of the Likud party (effectively giving him another mandate as Prime Minister)? Why, when everything in Israel is a disaster is Sharon enjoying unprecedented popularity?

This is what the Ha’aretz article attempts to explain. It’s an interesting read. Check it out.