Israel's unpredictable election
After the fighting, the voting
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Tuesday, 10, Feb 2009 12:00
The Saudi-led Arab peace initiative is back on the agenda as the quickest route to peace in the Middle East. Its success depends on a positive response from Israel - which is why its parliamentary elections taking place today are so important.
Discussion of the peace process was put on hold from October when Tzipi Livni, leader of the largest party, abandoned attempts to hold her fragile coalition together.
Events since then have put the peace agenda further back than ever. You may have thought recent fighting in Gaza would have wrecked moderate Tzipi Livni's election hopes. But, as voting gets underway in notoriously fickle Israel, that appears less likely than ever.
Ms Livni's gave up negotiating with the populist Shas party in October, calling parliamentary elections which after a lengthy campaign are taking place today.
Then the polls gave her a narrow lead over Benjamin Netanyahu, the right-wing leader of the Knesset's chief opposition party Likud.
Things have changed since then. After eight years of provocation from militants in the Gaza Strip the country almost universally backed the military action against Hamas which left over 1,000 civilians, including 300 children, dead. The war has had an impact - today voters will determine how much.
Elections in March 2006 gave Kadima, Ms Livni's party, 29 of the Knesset's 120 seats. Labour under defence minister Ehud Barak had 19, with Shas and Likud on 12.
The most significant difference between Israel's political system and Britain's, or indeed the US', is the fractured nature of the landscape. Coalition politics is very different from two-way partisanship. The smallest of shifts can make a big difference.
Which is why, although the final polls placed Mr Netanyahu with a slight advantage over Ms Livni, most experts tend to treat them with a huge pinch of salt.
Apart from anything else, Mr Netanyahu's bid to become prime minister faces its own challenge. Yisrael Beiteneu's leader, Avigdor Lieberman, is being described as a far-right figure whose firebrand views on the war are pushing the Likud leader.
Mr Lieberman is especially strong when it comes to his passionate case against Arab citizens of Israel. His argument that citizenship requires loyalty is gaining traction; the problem is working out how much.
A further question-mark lies over how many voters will actually bother to turn their protest vote in the polls into a genuine cross in the polling station. There is a well-established tradition in Israeli politics where people tend to punish the government in the opinion polls, Peter Medding of Hebrew University in Jerusalem believes, without actually backing their anger up with electoral action come polling day.
"This part of the world can't predict beyond tomorrow," he told inthenews.co.uk.
"Harold Wilson said a week is a long time in politics. In this country an hour is a long time in politics. It is predictably unpredictable."
The bigger problem
Where does this leave efforts to secure peace in the Middle East? Looking ahead is far from easy. The composition of the government will have an enormous impact. If Yisrael Beiteneu comes third Mr Lieberman's case for a Cabinet place will be pressing - despite the damaging diplomatic impact his appointment could have, especially to relations with the Obama administration. More important is whether Israel will be able to pick up on the initiative. That is far from certain.
"The fundamental problem with the peace process, before you get to the Arab initiative, is the Palestinians don't have their act together," he said.
"Whatever arrangement you make with the Palestinians, you have to consider: can they deliver? Can they sign on the dotted line and stick with their word? That's a difficult problem."
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas is determined to tackle the problem, but faces legitimacy problems of his own: his constitutional term in office expired during the Gaza fighting and he is overstaying his welcome to secure a unity government. He was asked about this issue in his joint press conference with Gordon Brown in Downing Street yesterday and explained he was in a rush to hold elections. Just not yet.
Prof Meddings' assessment that there is "not too much love lost" between the West Bank supporters of Mr Abbas and the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip bodes badly for peace, which requires Palestinian as well as Israeli unity.
Peace is elusive, of course. And Israel's election will not in itself open or shut the gates to the Saudi-led proposals for peace. But the coalition which emerges will be the one which takes Israel forward in negotiations with Obama. This election matters - even if we can't be certain who's going to win.
Alex Stevenson