Postelection Prospects in Israel

...Otherwise, we have to find another solution...

...The only thing one can say for sure is that in Israel history wastes little time in taking a leader’s true measure...

...But she was a principal advocate, too, of peace talks with the moderate PA leadership in the West Bank...

...To negotiate with the Palestinian Authority today,” he said, “is to negotiate with ghosts...

...Recently a number of senior Jordanian political figures, including former Prime Minister Abdel Salaam alMajali, have expressed views supporting a return of the West Bank to Jordan...

...And it is also the only way to ensure demilitarization of the West Bank...

...Abu Mazen...

...The country faces daunting challenges, among them possible military confrontations with Iran and a deep economic crisis, yet the electorate gave more votes to a 50year-old woman with limited experience as a political leader than it gave to her rivals—two of them former prime ministers...

...That had to give way, she said, to Israel sharing the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River with a Palestinian state...

...Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasir Arafat and Prime Minister Barak—and Ben-Ami as well—participated in those intensive July 2000 talks that collapsed after two weeks...

...Livni steadily drew away from her Right-wing origins once in office and publicly rejected Likud’s dream of a Greater Israel...

...He will have to find a way of displaying a measured firmness toward Israel’s enemies while staying within the good graces of the international community...

...Such massive intervention by third parties with clout is necessary, in Ben-Ami’s view, when the contending players do not have the political strength to reach a settlement of historic proportions by themselves...

...During the Gaza war Livni adopted an aggressive stance in government debates, pushing for a ground operation and objecting to a cease-fire Defense Minister Barak proposed early in the clash...

...The dove is on the window sill,” she declared during her election campaign...

...In return, Israel would annex an equivalent amount of West Bank territory on which settlements exist...

...Livni was vulnerable to charges that she was too inexperienced for the job and was plainly keen on demonstrating that she is tough enough for the hardest decisions...

...In spite of taunts that “she’s just a girl,” she scored a stunning personal victory in her scrap with the boys in the election sandbox...

...ALOT OF WATER will have to flow through the Jordan River before that, or anything substantive, happens...

...Up for resizing is Netanyahu...

...In an Israel Radio interview former Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, a professor of modern history who quit politics after Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s government was swept away by the second intifada in 2000, pointed out the unreality of pursuing a peace agreement with the Palestinians at the present time...

...In exchange, Jerusalem would ask Damascus to announce an end to the state of war between the two countries, and to withdraw from its alliance with Iran and Hezbollah...

...The two-state concept, he argues, was never a natural one for the Palestinian nationalists, who “have no tradition of building state institutions...

...Negotiating with Ghosts Postelection Prospects in Israel By Abraham Rabinovich Jerusalem The collapse of the Left in Israel’s February 10 general election, the lackluster campaign that preceded the voting, the calls for a national unity government that followed it—all reflect a sense among Israelis of every political persuasion that the chances of movement on the Palestinian issue are too remote to warrant serious consideration...

...But other challenges, especially Iran, have also evoked the need for a broad consensus...

...We need a third side, led by the United States but including moderate Arab countries and other nations...

...Two months later, the intifada erupted...

...Meanwhile, the new Israeli government will seek ways to avoid far-reaching concessions without seeming intransigent...

...Today he gives the impression of being more mature and pragmatic, as evidenced by his efforts to form a national unity government...

...He proposes a transition period until the Palestinians can produce an authoritative leadership capable of enforcing agreements...

...She was born into the heart of the Right-wing establishment, the Irgun led by Menachem Begin...

...Rather, it was imposed by Arafat...

...THE MOST impressive political figure to emerge from the election campaign was Livni...

...To encourage their moving in this direction—and as a gesture to President Barack Obama—he would have Israel begin removing some West Bank roadblocks and settler outposts...

...Lieberman would similarly yield to the Palestinians East Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods conquered in the Six Day War, to reduce the number of Arabs living in Israel by 250,000...

...For it to have any chance, he maintains, the polarization of the Palestinians themselves must first be rectified so that Israel can face a single Palestinian entity at the negotiating table...

...Our problem with the Palestinian national movement is that it is a dangerous volcano and difficult to come to terms with,” says Ben-Ami...

...There could be a different result next time, BenAmi believes, given a new mind-set and the involvement of Arab nations as honest brokers alongside the U.S...

...We can either slam the window shut or let it in...

...I can be a better prime minister than any other candidate...

...He is not only prepared to accept a Palestinian state, but would have it annex the parts of Israel abutting the West Bank that are inhabited exclusively by Israeli Arabs...

...Here Benn suggests muting differences by dividing the peace process into interim steps Netanyahu is capable of taking “while issuing a vague declaration about adhering to some general formula for ending the conflict...

...Abraham Rabinovich writes frequently for the New Leader on the Middle East...

...That goes for judgment, for long-term thinking and for the backbone to make a decision, stand behind it and go all the way...

...Before entering politics she was head of the Government Corporations Authority...

...But she continued to serve under him when he ignored her call...

...He, in turn, appointed her foreign minister...

...Livni seized on the slogan as crass chauvinism, a sentiment shared by many women, who voted for her in greater numbers than did men...

...A unified Palestinian government in which the [PA mitigates] the maximum positions of Hamas might lead to a twostate solution,” he says...

...But Netanyahu’s repeated refusal to negotiate over Jerusalem, and his insistence that existing permanent settlements be permitted “natural growth,” appear likely to clash head-on with Washington...

...But negotiating with the moderates is almost like negotiating with the extremists, because Abu Mazen can’t come to an agreement that the extremists might term traitorous,” says the professor...

...Although the late King Hussein publicly disclaimed any Jordanian rights to the West Bank in 1988 and ceded them to the PLO, this was forced on him by the Arab world, BenAmi notes, very much contrary to his own desires...

...A possible approach has been put forward by Aluf Benn, the diplomatic correspondent of Ha’aretz...

...Though specific agreements were never revealed, she claimed considerable progress was made over the year in those talks...

...When Sharon broke from Likud and formed Kadima, he placed her in number three position on his Knesset list, right behind Olmert...

...The first time he tackled the prime minister’s post, he was dismissed by many as a callow populist spouting an outdated ideology...

...The alternative he envisions also has two states, except Palestine would not be one of them: “I don’t dismiss the [Palestine-Israel] idea...

...Overnight it would substantially ease the country’s demographic problem...

...It would be a waste of time...

...Likud ran campaign advertisements saying simply, “Too big for her”—the “her” clearly referring to Livni and the “too big” a reference to the job of chief decider in a country where decisions are sometimes existential...

...The differences between Israel and the Palestinians are not soluble by direct negotiations,” he says...

...After completing her Army stint she served in Europe with the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, and then became a lawyer...

...Livni watchers could see something new in her face in a relatively brief span of time, not so much steeliness as determination and self-assurance...

...But all other Rightwing parties likely to be in Netanyahu’s government share his feeling about retaining a “united Jerusalem...

...Following the failed 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Livni acted both boldly and deferentially when she publicly called on Olmert to resign...

...The closer I got to the decisionmaking center,” she said last month, “the more it became clear to me that I could do it well...

...He might also evacuate one or two Golan Jewish settlements...

...The only previous female prime minister in Israel, Golda Meir, reached that position in the 1970s after decades in the political trenches...

...Livni has been transformed by her proximity to power since former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, then Likud’s leader, appointed her as a backbench Likud minister in 2001, only two years after she was elected to the Knesset a virtual unknown...

...Benn’s scenario has Syria waiving immediate recovery of the rest of the Golan in exchange for American support...

...Ben-Ami insists it was no white dove Livni saw, only a grubby gray pigeon more likely to soil the nearest park bench than bring tidings of peace...

...It would also rid it of a population increasingly perceived as a latent fifth column, particularly after the mass demonstrations supporting Hamas held in Israeli Arab towns during the war in Gaza...

...Tzipi Livni, as foreign minister in Ehud Olmert’s government, met regularly with Palestinian Authority (PA) officials in the wake of the November 2007 Annapolis Conference calling for an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue leading to a two-state solution...

...Benjamin Netanyahu, who on February 20 was tapped by Israel’s President Shimon Peres to form a coalition government despite the fact that his Likud Party won 27 Knesset seats in the election and Livni’s Kadima Party won 28, has never supported any two-state solution...

...For instance, Netanyahu could attempt to reach an interim agreement with Syria that would have Israel withdrawing from the handful of Druze villages in the northern part of the Golan Heights whose residents claim allegiance to Syria...

...Her assertive performance as foreign minister, particularly during the fighting in Gaza, and her forceful election campaign gave voters the feeling that she is capable of leading the nation, even in times of serious trouble...

...During the election campaign, she proved an articulate candidate and never dodged tough questions...

...It remains to be seen whether he will abstain from gratuitous displays of muscle toward the Palestinians, and whether he will be able to engage them in a meaningful dialogue as he copes with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah...

...Livni’s mistake, according to BenAmi, is her assuming that the Palestinians consist of two distinct camps—the moderates and the extremists—and that she could strike a deal with the moderates, namely PA President Mahmoud Abbas (a.k.a...

...Not, however, if the Israelis and Palestinians are left alone at the table...

...but it is approaching its end...

...Instead, I see a Jewish state and a Jordanian state...

...His offering her a “full partnership”—including senior portfolios, veto power, and numerical parity between Kadima and Likud Cabinet ministers— reflected a desperate wish to avoid being trapped in a narrow Right-wing coalition like the one that prematurely ended his first reign as prime minister a decade ago...

...With constructive ambiguity, though, he has not explicitly dismissed the possibility of two discrete states if the Palestinians undergo a radical change in attitude and political structure...

...Oddly enough, the presumed bugbear of the probable new government, Avigdor Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beiteinu Party won 15 Knesset seats (61 are needed for a majority), is the most dovish of Netanyahu’s Right-wing partners on the Palestinian issue...

...We accepted his proposals, the Palestinians didn’t...

...The job is not too big for me and not too small for me,” she asserted...

...His latest book, The Yom Kippur War, is now available in paperback...

...But with a Jordanian solution, the Jordanian Army would remain on the other side of the Jordan...

...More telling than the Right-wing rhetoric Netanyahu returned to in the election campaign is his far-reaching effort to get the moderate Livni into his government...

...There was speculation when Sharon was felled by a stroke that Livni might succeed him, but she quickly threw her support to the more experienced Olmert...

...After two intifadas and the war in Gaza the Palestinians won’t accept demilitarization...

...With Syria, as with Egypt, it is possible to return to the 1967 borders because they are states that can ensure order...

...What he advocates now is an “economic peace” in which Israel would help bring prosperity to the Palestinians and hopefully make them more amenable to being good neighbors...

...From the perspective of Madrid, where he is currently vice president of a think tank, the Toledo Peace Center, Ben-Ami sees the possibility of a two-state solution steadily receding...

...It’s my size...

...The scheme is politically incorrect and of questionable legality, but in their heart of hearts most Jewish Israelis would welcome such a deal...

...After Israel and the Palestinians have drawn as close as they can in bilateral talks, says Ben-Ami, the intermediaries “would have to put on the table bridging recommendations that are nonnegotiable, like President Clinton did at the Camp David talks...

...Whatever the outcome of Lieberman’s proposal, it has succeeded in demonstrating that Israel’s Arabs, for all their identification with the Palestinians, object to living in a Palestinian state and insist on remaining in Israel...

...Subsequently her deference faded as she gained confidence...