Election equations -- Israel

7 AM results -- below this posting.



Israeli election results are bewildering even for those who think they
understand the political lay of the land, partly because it will take weeks
for a governing coalition to take shape.

Advocacy journalists and agenda-driven media outlets are confusing the situation even further for those abroad by claiming that Israel holds virtually all of the cards in Arab-Israel peace-making.

The importance of Tuesday¹s results notwithstanding, what Israel does ­ or
fails to do ­comprises only part of the peace-making equation.

CNN¹s Ben Wedeman¹s point of departure, ahead of our elections, was the
bogeyman of "Palestinian despair." Having "just been tear-gassed" by
Israeli soldiers while covering riots near the security barrier ­-- where
Israeli settlements have "increasingly encroached" on Arab farmland --
Wedeman implies that Israel does not, really, want a two-state solution.

The Palestinians are being offered "an ever smaller, ever more economically
unviable territory," Wedeman reports. And so they are left to seek a
"one-state solution" in which an eventual Arab majority will demographically
overwhelm the Jews.

The magnanimous, arguably reckless, territorial concessions Ehud Olmert has
just offered Mahmoud Abbas count for nothing.


IF YOU can get innocents abroad to believe that Israel has refused to offer
the Palestinians a viable two-state solution ­ you can also insinuate that
Israelis will reap what they sow. The new prime minister, London's Daily Telegraph informs, "will face one unavoidable reality: the area between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean will soon have more Arabs than Jews."

No one champions the idea of 3.5 million or so hostile Palestinians living
under the jurisdiction of five million Jews. The demographic clock is ticking, but not quite as fast as the Telegraph would have its readers
think.

Pity those who lack the back-story: The Arabs have been rejecting a
two-state solution since the UN¹s 1947 Partition Plan, and that rejection
created the refugee problem. The Palestinians have also consistently
rejected exchanging land for peace, and that rejection created the settlement "problem."

Perceptions are further skewed when the idea is implanted that the onus of
peace-making is entirely on Israel. Sky News said our elections "will shape
the future of peace in the Middle East." At stake was Israel's "final
borders," Asia News opined. The Times of India reported that Palestinians hope "President Barack Obama will help ensure that whoever becomes prime minister does not bury the already teetering peace process."

It's as if there were no Arab interlocutors to "shape" or "bury" events. But
there are. Diminishing their responsibilities presents only half the
equation.

Over-simplification is another way to guarantee skewed perceptions. In 1977,
the foreign media practically lynched Menachem Begin as an enemy of peace.
Yet he became the first Israeli premier to sign a peace treaty with an Arab
state.

Similarly, Binyamin Netanyahu has been pigeonholed as "hawkish." And while
it is true that Tzipi Livni is a "centrist," Israel's entire political
spectrum has shifted rightward in reaction to years of Palestinian
intransigence.

Avigdor Lieberman is all too simplistically tagged as being on the "far
Right." Reuters prefers "ultra-rightist." But the Lieberman phenomenon needs
context. Voters susceptible to populist or demagogic appeals do, from time
to time, catapult protest parties to power, only to abandon them when the
magic wears off ­-- witness the Pensioners and Shinui.

Isn't the Guardian¹s Jonathan Freedland oversimplifying in claiming that Netanyahu rules out "any compromise" on Jerusalem, and is "still refusing" to accept a Palestinian state? Is it not a gross exaggeration to claim, as an Associated Press dispatch did, that Netanyahu "opposes giving up land-for-peace"? Netanyahu told The Jerusalem Post that he would be delighted to find a formula that allows the Palestinians to govern themselves and Israel to live in security.

Regardless of whether our next prime minister is called Livni or Netanyahu -- something that is not clear this post-election day -- Israel needs an Arab partner with whom to make peace. Ultimately, of course, a deal is dependent on what happens in both polities.

That said, Israel must not shirk its half of the conflict resolution
equation. Our next premier must ensure that all coalition partners in the
new government are committed to what, is after all, a strategic imperative
for Israel ­ peace.

###########################################

As of 7 AM: Kadima has won 28 Knesset seats, the Likud—27, Yisrael Beiteinu—15, Labor—13, Shas—11, United Torah Judaism—5, Hadash, United Arab List-Arab Movement for Renewal and the National Union—4 each, The Jewish Home, Balad and Meretz — 3 each.

The right wing bloc holds a clear majority of 65 Knesset seats compared to the center-left’s 55.

The votes of IDF personnel have not all yet been counted.

Voter turnout was 65%

Today Israel Votes

See below for my election predictions
######################################################################


Tuesday - Our broken system


Think of Israel's political system as a homeostatic device. When working properly, the country's temperature is, say, a comfortable 22.2 degrees (72°F). Some citizens might want it hotter, others cooler, but the apparatus is programmed to find most people's comfort level. However, when majorities consistently demand a change in temperature, yet the system is unresponsive - as if the thermostat was broken - you're looking at a dysfunctional political system.

Political scientist David Easton argued that a system is endowed with the capacity to gauge its own state of health. It senses public opinion swings, levels of voter participation, even violence, and takes corrective measures to restore equilibrium.

Israel's political system has been getting feedback that should have alerted it long ago that citizens are dissatisfied. Its homeostatic failure is worrisome.

The signs of discontent are blatant: Though over 30 parties are competing in today's election, many voters are saying, "There's no one to vote for." Few Israelis will wake up Wednesday morning feeling they'll have a real voice in the 18th Knesset.

Only 15 percent, according to the Israel Democracy Institute (IDC), trust political parties. The percentage of voters going to the polls plummeted from 87 percent in the 1949 Knesset elections to 63.5% in 2006. Those going to the polls today will be doing so with little zest. Perhaps 20-30% will be making up their minds at the last minute. Fewer and fewer strongly identify with any party.

In this environment of discontent the populist Israel Beiteinu seems poised to practically double its Knesset representation on the strength of a demagogic appeal to have those who are already citizens formally pledge allegiance.

Alienation, apathy and lack of participation extend well beyond electoral politics to encompass institutions such as the media and judiciary. The IDC's 2008 Democracy Index reported that only 35% consider the Supreme Court to be safeguarding our democracy. By these same criteria, the media receives a 37% rating. A staggering 90% of those surveyed believe the system is riddled with corruption.

WITH many Israelis relating to today's election with a combination of lethargy and cynicism, something clearly needs to be done to fix our dysfunctional system.

But what? To the extent that citizens feel their elected officials lack accountability, and that voters have no real representation in the corridors of power, part of the solution is electoral reform.

This newspaper has consistently championed, in broad outline, the Magidor Commission report, which recommended that the Knesset be elected by a hybrid method of district and proportional representation. The country is anyway administratively divided into 17 districts by the Interior Ministry. Key to reinvigorating the system with faith and legitimacy is giving people the sense that they have an "address" for their grievances - that they are someone's constituents.

No such reform, however, is possible so long as small parties with narrow parochial interests stand in the way. They are intent on blocking alterations to the system that gives them their disproportionate clout.

Yet the major parties, all of which ostensibly support electoral reform, can't afford to antagonize the smaller factions, whose support they need to cobble together a governing coalition majority. Only if these big parties collaborate could the threshold of votes required for Knesset entry be raised as a first step toward creating more stable governments, which are the prerequisite to fundamental electoral reform.

And yet most of us intuitively realize that fixing the way we select our elected officials alone is not enough. That to return faith and legitimacy to our politics - repairing the system's homeostatic capabilities - Israel's political, judicial, media, business and spiritual elites need to come to their senses and start acting responsibly. They need to approach power not as an end in itself, but as a means of fulfilling their fiduciary duties to the people.

Their failure to do so has paved the way for counter-elites like Avigdor Lieberman to exploit what American historian Richard Hofstadter described as a paranoid style of politics: overheated, over-suspicious, over-aggressive and grandiose.

Only a combination of structural reforms accompanied by elite responsibility and a renewed commitment to civic virtue can mend the system and give us elections that produce what Israel urgently needs: governments with a mandate and a capacity to lead.
##################

Here's what my gut tells me will happen. No statistical analysis was involved. This is not the outcome I want. Voting in my neighborhood of Talpiot in Jerusalem was very light.


Kadima - 26
Likud - 26
Yisroel Beiteinu - 19
Labor - 11
Shas - 11
UJC - 5
Meretz- 5
Habayit Hyahudi - 4
Meimad/Green - 2
National Union -2
Arabs - 9
===================== 120

Compassion perverted: Shalit & a Gaza Cease-fire

Monday - Misguided compassion


This week's news cycle began with a flurry of rumors that a deal for the release of Gilad Schalit, a Hamas hostage for over 950 days, might shortly be wrapped up. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak held an unusual Saturday night meeting to discuss Schalit and a Gaza cease-fire.

The troika met again prior to Sunday's cabinet meeting. Afterwards Barak updated President Shimon Peres on the Schalit-cease-fire negotiations between Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad and Egypt's Omar Suleiman. Peres will need to grant 1,000 pardons to the imprisoned terrorists who are reportedly to be exchanged for Schalit.

The surprise appearance in Cairo Saturday of Mahmoud Zahar, a top Gaza-based Hamas leader, spurred rumors that Schalit's fate would be announced by Tuesday. Zahar is now in Damascus with Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal. Hamas "inside" and Hamas "outside" are at odds over the parameters of a cease-fire deal and conditions for Schalit's release. Even within Gaza, military wing head Ahmed Jabari has reportedly taken a comparatively harder line in the negotiations brokered by Suleiman.

Meanwhile, Olmert told the cabinet that he is the one in charge of efforts to free Schalit, and that those who leaked the rumors that generated Sunday's headlines both exaggerated the chances for progress and damaged the prospects of freeing our soldier.

SCHALIT RUMORS touch an emotional nerve in the Israeli psyche every time they come to the fore. Hamas has hardheartedly refused to allow the Red Cross to visit him, so no one can credibly guarantee that he is alive and well.

Knowing what we know about Hamas's malice, the idea that our young soldier has been their hostage for so long fills Israelis with dread. We shudder to think about his physical and psychological well-being. So when Israelis deliberate what blood ransom to pay for our soldier's freedom, the quarrel takes place within Clal Yisrael - the House of Israel - where no one has a monopoly on compassion for Gilad and his parents, Aviva and Noam.

Hamas is supposedly offering a one-and-a-half-year tahadiyeh, or temporary cease-fire, in return for a complete lifting of restrictions on what can go into Strip. The first phase of this arrangement would see a partial opening of the crossings and a cease-fire. Next, Schalit would be released in exchange for the terrorists.

The Rafah crossing into Egypt from Gaza would, reportedly, be staffed by Mahmoud Abbas's PA, in the presence of Hamas, and with EU monitors on the scene.

The Egyptian package also includes plans for talks between Fatah and Hamas to reestablish their unity government - like the one which existed before June 2007, when Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza. In its quest for international acceptance Hamas needs Fatah, while a fast-fading Fatah is desperate for a rapprochement with Hamas.

How Israel would stop arms smuggling beneath the Philadelphi Corridor under the Egyptian-brokered deal is anyone's guess.

WE LACK confirmed specifics, granted, but how is this deal different from the one Israel has been rejecting since June 25, 2006 - the day Palestinian gunmen violated our border, killed the forgotten Lt. Hanan Barak and St.-Sgt Pavel Slutsker, and took Schalit captive? Why do Israeli politicians speak in code about the "painful" price to be paid if the deal goes ahead? Don't they have the moral fiber to name names?

Do Olmert, Livni and Barak really intend to free Hamas's top West Bank terrorists? The masterminds of the Hebrew University and Sbarro bombings? The engineer of the Pessah massacre in Netanya? What will they say to those who risked their lives to capture these fiends in the first place?

Moreover, the troika purportedly plan to parlay Israel's capitulation to Hamas into another gesture to "help Abu Mazen," this time by freeing one of the main arsonists of the second intifada, Marwan Barghouti, and wiping away his culpability for the slayings of dozens of Israelis.

We all want Gilad Schalit back home. The question is one of price and consequence. Is it truly in keeping with Jewish compassion to purchase the freedom of one beloved captive at the almost certain cost of unleashing fresh acts of terrorism on our buses, in our cafes and malls, and on our roads - violence that would send many more innocents to their deaths?

Israel's elections -- Agenda for the next government

Friday - Red lines

Amos Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry's Diplomatic-Security Bureau, told this week's Herzliya Conference that Israel should try for a peace treaty with Syria within "the parameters at which we have arrived, but with vital additions which constitute red lines." Gilad believes that Israel needs to make peace with Syria because the two countries are on a collision course.

Gilad shuttles between here and Cairo meeting with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Gen. Omar Suleiman about a Gaza cease-fire, freedom for Gilad Schalit and such sensitive issues as smuggling underneath the Philadelphi Corridor. When he speaks, people listen.

Syria has the capacity to rain deadly missiles on Tel Aviv, Gilad said. A peace treaty de-linking Damascus from Teheran would therefore reduce Syrian support for Hamas and Hizbullah and improve Israeli security dramatically. But if a treaty isn't signed, Bashar Assad may provoke a war. The ensuing Israeli retaliation could bring down his Alawite government, to be replaced by a less cuddly, radical Sunni regime.

This summation of the obvious notwithstanding, Gilad's fleeting reference to "red lines" deserves elucidation. Demarking such lines - the point beyond which Israeli policymakers cannot safely go - is essential, both in order to build a domestic consensus and to help Israel articulate a coherent position in the international arena.

Red lines can translate into tangible ones. An Israeli-Syrian peace agreement could place our border along (1) the 1923 boundary; (2) the 1949 Armistice Line; or (3) the June 4, 1967 line. Presumably, Israel balks at handing over the former demilitarized zone, or pulling back to the 1949 demarcation. Other Israeli red lines would surely include ironclad guarantees for a demilitarized Golan and the unobstructed flow of water.

Talking about Israel's safety, what guarantee do we have that once a Syria-Israel peace treaty was in place - and the Golan abandoned - Damascus-Teheran relations wouldn't revert to normal; that Syria wouldn't continue to give Hamas leaders safe haven; and that it wouldn't go on funneling Hizbullah weapons? Should these doubts prompt red lines?

When Israeli strategists like Gilad speak in shorthand, assuming that "everyone" knows Israel's sticking points, they do the country no favors. They need to do a better job of defining them.

Far better if they helped build a consensus about those pesky red lines. Should Israel insist, for instance, that Assad recognize Israel as a Jewish state? That he visit Jerusalem? Assad is holding out a cold peace. What about holding out for a "warm" one?

RED LINES also identify minimum needs. Israelis generally assume that statehood is the Palestinians' red line. But what if their true red line is the one enunciated in December 2000 by Saeb Erekat: "The whole peace process hinges on Israel's willingness to withdraw to the borders of June 4, 1967… and come to terms with the refugees' right to return…"

Mahmoud Abbas today is still demanding: a total pullback to the 1949 Armistice Lines; the redivision of Jerusalem, and the "return" of millions of refugees, and their descendants, to Israel proper.

How are these red lines, representing the most "moderate" Palestinian position, to be reconciled with those of Israel's mainstream? It's hard to fathom.

Putting aside the issue of Hamas's control of Gaza, most Israelis would anyway insist on "1967-plus" - retaining strategic settlement blocs along the Green Line; a demilitarized Palestine, and control of the airspace and electromagnetic environment over Judea and Samaria. An IDF presence might long be necessary in the Jordan Valley to protect against threats from the east.

Israeli negotiators thus need to determine whether Palestinian red lines are indelible. It may be that they aren't. Just four decades ago, the Arabs declared: "No peace, no negotiation, no recognition"; today Israel has formal peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and is talking to the Palestinians.

ISRAEL'S NEXT coalition government needs to put defining this country's red lines high on its agenda. Our negotiators can then take those parameters, reflecting a national consensus, to the negotiating table.

Binyamin Netanyahu may be best suited to help us identify our red lines at home; Tzipi Livni might be more credible at marketing them abroad.

Crystallizing red lines is not about throwing down the gauntlet, it's about knowing our own minds.

The danger lies not in revealing our hand, but in not having one.

Iran at 30 - Happy birthday NOT

Wednesday -- Dark anniversary

The Islamic Republic of Iran was established 30 years ago. That black day in history should, perhaps, have been marked last month; for in January 1979, after a year of demonstrations by his Islamist opponents, the shah - sick with cancer and abandoned by the Carter administration - left Teheran for exile.

Arguably, this month is the proper anniversary because it was in February 1979 that the Iranian military stood down and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ended his exile, returning from Paris to a tumultuous Teheran welcome.

As he was helped down the steps of the plane, Khomeini showed nary a flicker of emotion. He went directly to a cemetery where his "martyred" followers were buried. Millions clogged the route to get a glimpse of the 76-year-old cleric; it took three hours to make the 40-km. journey.

Shapur Bakhtiar, the interim prime minister appointed by the shah, said Khomeini was welcome but would have to respect the rule of law. Khomeini ordered him to resign. He went into exile. In 1991, Khomeini had him killed by Hizbullah.

Sixteen days after Khomeini's triumphant arrival, PLO chief Yasser Arafat became the first foreign visitor to pay him homage. The two men held hands; Arafat beamed and snuggled ever closer to Khomeini, whose revolutionary guards had been trained in PLO camps in Lebanon. When the cameras left, Khomeini lectured Arafat on the need to drop his nationalist facade and make the Palestinian struggle against Israel part of the larger worldwide jihad. And on February 17, he turned the former Israeli embassy in Teheran over to Arafat.

It took Khomeini a while to pacify all of Iran. A revolt by the Turkomans had to be put down; former generals and officials loyal to the shah had to be executed. And over the coming years the revolution would consume its own. Revolutionary committees were established to purge the government and military of bourgeois supporters whose religiosity was suspect.

Khomeini ordered thousands of executions. Well into the late 1980s and beyond, there were always new internal enemies to slaughter.

Some say that the true anniversary of the Iranian revolution should be marked on April 1 when, after a nationwide referendum, Khomeini proclaimed the Islamic Republic.

IRAN'S FALL into the benighted hands of Shi'ite extremists turned out to be a geo-strategic blow of historic proportions to Western interests. The mullahs not only created a theocracy at home, they exported their pernicious fanaticism abroad. The November 4, 1979 takeover of the US embassy, and the 444-day hostage crisis, profoundly undermined customary international law.

A share of the country's vast oil wealth has been put at the disposal of its imperial goals - endowing the regime's quest to build a nuclear bomb, funding terrorist movements and establishing proxies such as Hizbullah.

American policymakers misjudged Iran's willingness to behave pragmatically in what came to be known as the Iran-Contra affair. In 1985, the Reagan administration secretly sold Iran $30 million worth of weapons to defend itself against Iraqi aggression, in the hope that a new leaf could be turned over in relations between the two countries - and as ransom for US hostages held by Iran's Lebanese allies. Rather than warn the US away from such folly, Israel played an instrumental role in facilitating the scheme because Jerusalem also misjudged the depth of the mullahs' intransigence and loathing of the "infidels."

Khomeini died in 1989 and was replaced by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who now controls the ruling 12-man Council of Guardians. On Monday, when Iran launched into orbit its first domestically made satellite - reportedly a civilian version of the Shihab 3 ballistic missile - the supreme leader obtained further, tangible proof that international sanctions are little more than a nuisance to Iran's imperial aspirations.

PRESIDENT Barack Obama says that if Iran is willing to unclench its fist, it "will find an extended hand from us." But the mullahs are playing hard to get.

Today, diplomats from the US, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and China are scheduled to meet in Frankfurt to discuss Iran's drive for nuclear weapons. The US needs to convince them that - whatever the new administration's tactical differences from the previous one - Washington will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran.