Whatever the result of Israeli coalition wrangling, the next Israeli government is almost certain to put war on the top of its agenda, writes Nicola Nasser* The dust of Tuesday's voting battle has settled and the battle to form the next Israeli government has just begun. With Benyamin Netanyahu poised for premiership and Avigdor Lieberman, leader of a "racist and fascist" party (as condemned by Talia Sasson of the Meretz Party), very well positioned to be the king or queen maker of the next ruling coalition, the Palestinian people and the whole region will have to brace for an Israeli war government. First on the agenda of the new government will be the approval of 2.4 billion shekels requisitioned Monday by outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to re- equip the army after the war on Gaza, as well as an extra military funding allocation of one billion shekels. Ironically the Israelis went to early elections as a way out of a government crisis, but the narrowly-won victory of the Kadima Party and the inconclusive results of Tuesday's elections have plunged Israel into political limbo, with both Tzipi Livni of Kadima and Netanyahu of Likud claiming victory while the balancing role has been given to Lieberman and his anti- Arab platform. The electoral tie sets the stage for weeks of agonising coalition negotiations. But what is more important, in view of historical experience, is that whenever Israel is in an internal crisis it has resorted to war as a way to unify its ranks. The present crisis is no exception and it doesn't bode well for the Palestinians and the region. By Israeli basic law, the president must consult with all parties as to who they prefer as prime minister. Who the majority of Knesset members recommend is given the nod. The law, however, doesn't oblige the president to nominate Kadima only because it was the winner in the polls. It's now up to President Shimon Peres to decide whether Livni or Netanyahu should have the first shot at forming a government. The number of Knesset seats needed for a majority is 61. With 99 per cent of the votes counted early Wednesday, the Likud-led right wing and religious parties have more than 63 seats. The Kadima-led centre and leftist parties, together with the Arab parties, got less than 58 seats, which makes Kadima's electoral victory moot. Haaretz on 8 February published a "coalition calculator" predicting three coalition scenarios based on a weighted average of six polls released at the end of the week: first, a "Netanyahu-led right-centre coalition" including Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, Labour and the National Union with a total of 66 Knesset seats, or 76 seats if Shas is added. Second, a "Netanyahu-led Lieberman- free coalition" including Likud, Kadima, Labour with a total of 65 seats, or 75 seats with Shas. The third, described by Haaretz as the "Dark Horse", was a "Livni- led coalition" (if Kadima edges Likud, which did happen) including Kadima, Yisrael Beiteinu, Labour and Shas with a total of 69 seats. However, the third possibility was almost ruled out by Tuesday. Livni said she would not join any government led by Netanyahu. Lieberman was on record Tuesday night saying that he would recommend Netanyahu to Peres to lead a "right-wing government". Shas, which came fifth in the elections, was the party that brought the Kadima-led government down over its objection to "negotiating" the future of Jerusalem, which in turn led to early elections and accordingly will not join Kadima in a new coalition. Moreover, Mohamed Barakeh of Hadash and Ahmed Tibi of the United Arab list, Taal, both confirmed that they will not recommend Livni to Peres for the premiership, neither would they support any ruling coalition that includes Lieberman and his party: "We will sit in the opposition," according to Tibi. Similarly, Ehud Barak of Labour is not to be taken for granted as a partner to Kadima in view of his statements that his party would not join a new ruling coalition if it did not get 20 seats in the Knesset and it got only 13. However, Barak's chances seem better with Likud whose leader Netanyahu publicly denied Lieberman the post of defence minister and praised Barak for his military performance in Operation Cast Lead against Gaza, hinting he could award Barak the post. WAR ON TWO STATES: While much is uncertain, right and left wing Israeli rhetoric could not hide the fact that Israel's latest elections, from a Palestinian and Arab perspective, were competed amongst the right, the centre right and the far right, or between extremists and ultra-extremists. Kadima was a breakaway from Likud in the first place. Yisrael Beiteinu was an offshoot of Likud. Palestinian blood is on the hands of Netanyahu as much as it is on the hands of Livni and Barak. Does it really matter, then, if they differ on launching an all out war or limited wars on the Palestinian people, or on which is better, to finish them once and for all in a military blitz or to exhaust them to elimination by prolonged or gradual "small" wars? While all the major winners in the 10 February election are in consensus on the imminent resumption of war on the Palestinian Gaza Strip, Netanyahu's political platform promises an immediate political and colonial-settler war in the West Bank as well as for a planned attack on Iran that could embroil the whole region in a much wider conflict, unless the new US administration of Barack Obama decides to avert such a far-reaching threat by making good on its campaign promises of dialogue with Tehran and exploits what Iranian Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani described, during the opening session of the Munich Conference on Security Policy 6 February, as "the golden opportunity" for the normalisation of US-Iran relations. This ominous outcome of the Israeli general elections does not mean, of course, that the former cabinet of Ehud Olmert was a government of peace, as it was proven otherwise by the two wars it launched in less than 30 months, on Lebanon in 2006 and the recent 22-day war on Gaza, let alone carrying on the war Olmert's predecessor, Ariel Sharon, launched on the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank in 2002. However, while the election outcome makes it very clear that resuming the war on Gaza will top the agenda of the next government, the spotlight is focussing away from Netanyahu's plans for the West Bank, which is tantamount to an all out war on the so-called two-state solution and the so-called "peace process" to make it happen. Netanyahu rejects the "Annapolis approach" and advocates instead a protracted "economic peace" approach as a necessary stage for creating the conditions for political peace. More specifically, he rules out negotiations on the final status issues of Palestinian refugees, Jerusalem and colonial Jewish settlements as "non-negotiable". Netanyahu remains opposed to the land-for-peace concept at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli signed accords within the framework of the Oslo process. During his campaign he warned against giving up any occupied territory to the Palestinians, claiming it would be "grabbed by extremists", and said he will not be bound by Olmert's commitments. "I will not keep Olmert's commitments to withdraw and I won't evacuate settlements. Those understandings are invalid and unimportant." In January, Netanyahu said there were other "models" for the Palestinians short of complete sovereignty. He will complete the construction of the "separation wall" and maintain Israeli control over most of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the main settlement blocs, and the Jordan Valley, relegating Palestinians to a series of disconnected Bantustans. A WAR REFERENDUM: The drift to what Israelis themselves describe as "right-wing" policies -- the crystal clear outcome of the 10 February election -- is indication enough that Israel is in a crisis that has been brewing since its unconditional withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000, followed by its inconclusive war on Lebanon in 2006 and exacerbated by its unilateral withdrawal from the Palestinian Gaza Strip in another inconclusive war this year. All prove that the erosion of Israel's military "deterrence", which it used to boast of since its creation in 1948, is an irreversible historical trend that dictates a change of strategic balance from peace based on force and the exploits of force to a peace based on justice and international law. The erosion of the Israeli "deterrence" and the inconclusiveness of its military performance since 1973 created the ongoing crisis that brought the Likud to power for the first time in 1977 to end Labour and so-called left's historical monopoly of government, ushering in an era where none of the major parties could anymore wield enough popular support to score a "conclusive" electoral victory since, the latest elections proving that this trend is here to stay for a long time to come. However, instead of drifting towards peace based on discarding their strategy of military force, which led to the occupation of Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese territories, Israeli decision-makers are yearning to restore their lost military deterrence in order to continue to impose their will by force. Towards this end, they have made war and warmongering supposedly legitimate tools of electoral campaigning, as illustrated by Operation Cast Lead that dominated the 10 February elections campaign. Those elections were "Israel's War Referendum", according to the editorial of The Washington Times on 9 February, and were "A Promise of War," according to Jackson Diehl in The Washington Post on the same day. "The past four Israeli elections have been won by a candidate who promised to end Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. Tomorrow, for the first time in decades, Israelis may choose a prime minister who is promising to wage war," Diehl said. This development in the Israeli political system and the ominous outcome of the elections do not bode well for the Palestinian people or for regional stability and peace. Judging by the statements on record by the four major contenders for the premiership (Netanyahu, Livni, Barak and Lieberman), and the political platforms of the five main parties (Likud, Kadima, Labour, Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas) of the 33 party lists who competed for some of the 120 seats of the Knesset among an estimated five million voters, "security and defence", Hamas, the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip and Iran, were the key issues. The so-called "peace process" was written off or at least sidelined to the back burner. AN EXISTENTIAL CONFLICT: While all the election winners were in consensus on how to deal with Iran ("by all means" according to Netanyahu), concurrence among their strategies for how to deal with Hamas was less clear. Livni's lone subscription to the "Annapolis process" may blur the fact that she was a member of the tripartite leadership with Barak and Olmert who were responsible for the bloody onslaught on the civilian infrastructure and civilian population of Gaza, more than 70 per cent of the inhabitants of which are displaced refugees from the 1948 Israeli onslaught on their very existence in their original homeland. In a key speech last Monday Livni promised more attacks and ruled out any chance of a negotiated settlement with Hamas. "If by ending the operation we have yet to achieve deterrence, we will continue until they get the message," she said, insisting to ignore that since 1973 this deterrence has been irreversibly eroded, not by regular Arab state armies but by Palestinian and Lebanese popular resistance to military occupation. Abraham Diskin, a political scientist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was right when quoted by The Guardian 4 February as saying that the "conflict is an existential problem, both on a personal and a national basis", but he was only partially right when he stated that only "Kadima failed" to address it as such. While Netanyahu admitted that Operation Cast Lead was not a success because it was an unfinished mission, Barak's public admission 8 February that he was running for defence minister, not prime minister, was also an admission that his military campaign in Gaza was a failure, both in its own terms as unfinished and as a means to improve his electoral prospects. "It was a miscalculation: brutal discourse and brutal policies always strengthen the far right -- Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman," co-founder and former director of the Alternative Information Centre in Jerusalem, Michael Warschawski, said Tuesday. Neither Netanyahu nor Lieberman nor Barak seem receptive enough of the lessons of recent history -- the defeat of the Israeli strategy of military deterrence twice since 2006 -- to address the conflict as "existential" for both sides, continuing to approach the Palestinian people as a headache that can be gotten rid of. Netanyahu is on record: "We must smash the Hamas power in Gaza... There will be no escape from toppling the Hamas regime... I'm sorry to say we haven't gotten the job done. The next government will have no choice but to finish the job and uproot... the Iranian terror base." Lieberman, who is on record as saying that if it ever came to regional war, Israel had only to bomb the Aswan Dam to flood the Nile Valley and devastate Egypt, has hinted at an "atomic" genocide. He denounced the unilateral Israeli ceasefire in Gaza as a sell-out of the military. His preferred strategy is total war against the Gaza Strip: "We must continue to fight Hamas just like the United States did with the Japanese in World War II." In an opinion piece entitled, "Kahane Won", Gideon Levy reminded Haaretz readers two days ahead of the election that Lieberman was a member of Kahane's Kach Party in his youth and wrote: "Rabbi Meir Kahane can rest in peace: His doctrine has won. Twenty years after his Knesset list was disqualified and 18 years after he was murdered, Kahanism has become legitimate in public discourse... If Kahane were alive and running for the 18th Knesset, not only would his list not be banned, it would win many votes, as Yisrael Beiteinu is expected to do." * The writer is a veteran Arab journalist based in Birzeit on the West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
