Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is stating that he believes that there could be a breakthrough in the peace process in 2005. I’ve always been pessimistic about the chances of peace between Israel and Palestine, but I’m inclined to agree with him.
The death of Yassir Arafat has created a sea change with the Palestinian leadership. Interim leader Mahmoud Abbas has been criticizing the intifada as a mistake and has been reaching out to other Arab states to try to gain some leverage, including apologizing to Kuwait for the Palestinian’s support of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of that country.
At the same time, the terrorist groups operating out of Palestinian territory are not willing to end their campaign of bloodshed against Israel. Hamas, Hizb’Allah, the Islamic Jihad, and even Fatah have said that they’ve no intention of heeding Abbas’ call for a peaceful struggle and will continue to attack Israeli civilians.
The wild card here are the Palestinian people themselves. If they embrace Abbas’ call for peace, there’s a chance. If they embrace terrorism (which seems all too likely), then the bloody intifada will continue and the Palestinian people will continue to reap what they’ve sown.
However, the chances for a peaceful solution are stronger now than they have been in quite some time. Sharon’s pullout plan has cost him politically, but the hard-line members of Likud and the ultrareligious parties are losing influence as the conflict continues to drag on. Israel has realized that the price of maintaining settlements is paid in blood, and that they are not defensible from a security standpoint or politically. The security barrier has dramatically slowed the rate of attacks against Israelis. The death of Arafat has allowed saner heads to take control of the Palestinian Authority. Any of these would be positive moves on its own, but together they leave the potential for an exit strategy for both sides.
The blood of all those who have died in the recent intifada is on Yassir Arafat’s hands for not accepting the deal placed on the table at Taba in 2000. Even Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia saw Arafat’s refusal as being an act that damned the Palestinian people. Now that Arafat is burning in Hell, the Palestinians have a chance to rectify that mistake and return to the peace table rather than engaging in more pointless and self-destructive bloodshed. If the Palestinian people desire peace rather than war, they will not allow this opportunity to be missed as well.
One thing to note–
The power of the ultra-religious parties is growing. Both Shas and United Torah Judaism have the chance to join Sharon’s new coalition. Keep in mind here.. that the Ultra-Orthodox community makes up only a minority of settlers.
Most settlers come from the religious zionist camp (which tends to be modern orthodox) and most tend to be Ashkenazi jews as opposed to Sephardic. Their party is by and large Mafdal (the National Religious Party), which has been marginalized by walking out of the Sharon coalition. The other major settler party is the far right National Union, which is a secular party, but very conservative. They also have been marginalized.
Meanwhile now that Tommy Lapid decided to once again show just his Shinui party hates the ultra-orthodox he irresponsbily walked out of the coalition to cover up for the fact that Shinui his not delivered on any of its promises. As far as Uzi Landau and the Likud rebels go, if they were going to jump, they would have done so already.
We’ll see what happens. UTJ represents the two main ashkenazi haredim groups (the litzvak and hassidic) and is not explicitly Zionist. Shas represents the sepharidic haredim and as such has almost no interest in settlers (since there are so few sephardic settlers). They both want massive amounts of money for their schools and social programs (which will cut into Netanyahu’s rollback of the welfare state). They will also refuse to allow reforms for civil marriage and recognition of Conservative and Reform Judaism in Israel (which is what much of Labor wants).
I don’t see this coalition at all being viable. I believe elections could be not too far off in the horizon. It remains to be seen who will be the new leader of Labor, I am guessing Mordechai Vil’nai and I think he’ll be a more viable hope than Amram Mitzna was.