Israeli Electioneering With Bombs
By Jonathan Cook
30 December,
2008
Countercurrents.org
Livni and Barak pin their hopes on Gaza rampage
Of the three politicians who
announced the military assault on Gaza to the world on Saturday, perhaps
only the outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert has little to lose --
or gain -- from its outcome.
Flanking the Israeli prime minister were two of the main contenders
for his job: Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and the new leader
of Mr Olmert’s centrist party, Kadima, and Ehud Barak, the defence
minister and leader of the left-wing Labor Party.
The attack on Gaza may make or break this pair’s political fortunes
as they jostle for position against Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing
party, Likud, before a general election little more than a month away.
Until now Ms Livni and Mr Barak have been facing the imminent demise
of their ruling coalition as Mr Netanyahu and the far Right have surged
in the polls and looked set to form the next government.
Both have strenuously denied that the election has any bearing on
the timing of the Gaza operation. But equally they hope a successful
strike against Hamas may yet save them from electoral humiliation.
In the run-up to the election, observed Michael Warschawski, a founder
of the Alternative Information Centre in Jerusalem, “all Israeli
leaders are competing over who is the toughest and who is ready to
kill more”.
Mr Netanyahu, pushed out of the spotlight, has had to turn his fire
away from the two other parties and instead lambast easy political
targets: in recent speeches he has questioned the loyalty of Israel’s
1.2 million Arab citizens and demanded the resignation of the only
Arab government minister.
Mr Barak, an unpopular former prime minister but Israel’s most
decorated combat soldier, has the most political capital to gain from
the current military campaign. With his once-dominant Labor Party
languishing in the polls, he will take the credit or blame among voters
for the outcome in Gaza.
Ms Livni is in a more precarious position. Her glory, if the operation
proves a triumph, will be of the reflected variety. But as Mr Netanyahu’s
fortunes have grown, her political fate has become increasingly dependent
on a continuing centre-left alliance with Mr Barak. The two, it seems,
stand or fall in these elections together.
Nonetheless, the stakes for both are high. Mr Olmert’s popularity
nosedived over his mishandling of a similar venture in summer 2006,
when he approved air strikes on Lebanon and a limited ground invasion
that failed to crush Hizbollah.
A subsequent damning state inquiry, the Winograd Committee, ensured
that the usual corruption scandals that haunt most senior Israeli
politicians eventually caught up with Mr Olmert and forced him to
step down.
Mr Barak and Ms Livni presumably believe they have learnt the lessons
of Mr Olmert’s miscalculation in Lebanon. So far they appear
to be playing a cautious hand, wary of risking major Israeli casualties
in a large-scale ground war or of reoccupying the Strip.
They have also limited the operation’s goals to “teaching
Hamas a lesson” and creating “calm in the South”
-- code for quietening rocket fire from Gaza. Mr Barak, in particular,
has preferred bland slogans such as “now is the time for fighting”
rather than defining the rationale for the operation.
The timing of the Gaza attack offers Mr Barak and Ms Livni several
advantages.
First, a head of steam had built on both the Right and Left inside
Israel demanding that military action be taken against Hamas to stop
the rockets.
Days before the Gaza operation, even Meretz, a far Left party, issued
a statement favouring a military strike against Hamas. Protests so
far have been confined inside Israel to tyre-burning at the entrances
to Arab communities and a demonstration among a few hundred peace
activists in Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile, right-wing politicians who accused Mr Barak of treason
for allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza last Friday -- a ruse on his
part to wrong-foot Hamas before the air strikes -- look foolish.
According to reports in the Israeli media, Mr Barak had been planning
the attack on Gaza with his chiefs of staff for at least six months
-- about the time the original ceasefire was being agreed with Hamas.
Given their delay in launching the operation, Ms Livni and Mr Barak
face little danger of being accused in hindsight of the recklessness
or lack of preparation that blighted Mr Olmert’s escapade in
Lebanon.
Second, by launching the attack when many foreign reporters were away
from the region for the holidays, the government hoped to be able
to inflict the maximum damage on Gaza before the media could catch
up.
It will take some days before western reporters effectively renew
the pressure against Israel over its weeks-old decision to bar them
from entering the Strip. The result will be fewer investigations of
Israel’s choice of targets in Gaza, or the nature of the casualties,
and a greater emphasis on talking heads in studios in Jerusalem, at
which Israeli spokesmen excel.
Third, Israel has exploited the power vacuum in Washington. George
W Bush, the outgoing US president, has rarely exerted significant
pressure on Israel and is even less likely to do so in the dying days
of his administration.
The incoming president, Barack Obama, meanwhile, will not want to
precede his presidency with a major confrontation with Israel’s
powerful lobby. Most western governments, Mr Barak and Ms Livni hope,
will take their cue from Washington’s silence.
And fourth -- and most importantly -- their political rival, Mr Netanyahu,
has been silenced. His main platform had been insisting on a tougher
approach in Gaza.
In the current “state of emergency”, the parties have
agreed to suspend the usual election campaigning, leaving Ms Livni
and Mr Barak visibly in charge of the country’s security.
But as one Israeli commentator, Yossi Verter, warned, Mr Netanyahu
should not be written off as the Israeli population moves once more
on to a war footing.
“History teaches us that military campaigns which occur during
[Israeli] election campaigns … benefit the right-wing more than
any other camp.”
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in
Nazareth, Israel. His latest book is “Disappearing Palestine:
Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website
is www.jkcook.net.
This article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae),
published in Abu Dhabi.