By Uri Avnery, 11.2.06
ONLY AN earthquake can still prevent an overwhelming
victory for Kadima in the coming elections.
But don't rule it out.
In this election campaign, four earthquakes have already struck. First: the
Labor Party elected a Morocco-born left-wing leader. Second: Ariel Sharon split
the Likud and created the Kadima party. Third: Sharon was felled by a massive
stroke and left the political stage. Fourth: Hamas won a decisive victory in
the Palestinian elections.
After four such stunning
upheavals, what is to stop a fifth? But, truly, at the moment it is difficult
even to imagine an event that could possibly undermine the dominant position of
Kadima in the election campaign.
IT LOOKS like magic. What is it about Kadima that gives it such a
fantastic lead?
At first it was believed
that after the initial enthusiasm, it would shrink to normal proportions. The
forecasts (mine, too) said that in the end, a picture of three more-or-less
equal fingers would emerge, with the Likud, Kadima and Labor getting around 25
seats each.
According to the polls,
this is not the way things are going.
Next, it was said that
the massive figure of Ariel Sharon was keeping Kadima at the top. After the
Gaza disengagement, and especially after the melodramatic TV shows of the
evacuation of the settlements, his popularity had reached dizzy heights. So,
when he sank into a coma, it was expected that his party's fortunes would sink,
too, perhaps after a few days of emotional commiseration. After all, who the
hell is this Ehud Olmert? Nothing but an unpopular, second-rate political hack!
A party under his leadership is bound to decline.
But this has not
happened, either.
On the contrary, it
seems that the Sharon-party does not need Sharon. And the unpopular Olmert rose
overnight to an astonishing popularity.
(That, by the way, has
happened before. After the sudden death of Prime Minister Levy Eshkol in 1969,
he was succeeded by Golda Meir, at the time a very unpopular party politician.
On becoming Prime Minister, her popularity rating rose practically overnight
from 3 (three) percent to 80 (eighty!)
A few days ago,
something even stranger happened: Olmert lost several popularity points, while
those of Kadima actually rose. It seems that they would rise even with
Caligula's horse in charge.
At the moment, 48 days
before the election, the following distribution of seats in the next Knesset is
predicted by the polls: 40-45 for Kadima, around 20 for Labor, around 17 for
the Likud. The rest of the 120, some 40 seats, will be shared out among 9 or 10
smaller parties.
If this picture is
confirmed at the ballot box, Olmert will be able to form a coalition at his
whim. There are many possibilities: with the Likud and the rightist parties,
with Labor and the leftist parties, with both Labor and the Likud, with the
right and the religious parties, with the left and the religious parties. There
are at least a dozen different possibilities.
SO WHAT is the magic quality that protects Kadima from all
harm and makes it almost invincible?
It's not the first time
in Israel that a new party pops up on the eve of an election, positions itself
in the center and gathers votes from both left and right. Nor is it the first
time that a new party captures the public mood of the moment and succeeds
beyond expectation. One such was the new Rafi party of David Ben-Gurion, Moshe
Dayan and Shimon Peres, with its 10 seats in 1965. In 1977, the new Dash party
of Yigael Yadin and his bunch of generals won a surprising 15 seats. In the
last elections, the upstart Shinui party also got 15 seats. But none of them
even approached the expected success of
Kadima.
So what made Kadima jump
from nothing to 40, and retain this commanding position in spite of all blows
of fortune - the disappearance of Sharon, the breakthrough of Hamas, the
televised attack by police horses on the settlers of Amona on live television,
the assaults from left and right?
Well, it has
successfully attracted a mix of politicians from right and left that seem to
complement each other. Tsakhi Hanegbi, a right-wing hooligan turned
"statesman" complements the world-famous, supremely unsuccessful
Shimon Peres. Tsipi Livni, a right-winger from birth with a decent, rational
façade complements Haim Ramon, a left-winger from birth with a history of
political adventurism.
But Kadima is an entity
that stands above its constituent personalities: it represents exactly what
most Israelis feel at this point in time. It provides a focus for the Israeli
consensus of the beginning of 2006 - and that is the main point. This consensus
says:
- The huge gap between
rich and poor is very regrettable indeed, but not so important. Amir Peretz has
failed to make this the central issue.
-. The majority wants an
end to the conflict and detests the settlements. The Hamas breakthrough in
Palestine has not caused panic to break out. That's why Binyamin Netanyahu's
campaign has not taken off.
- The public does not
trust the Arabs and does not want to have anything to do with them. This is what
attracts it to the central idea of Kadima: that one can achieve peace
"unilaterally".
Clearly,
"unilateral peace" is a contradiction in terms. Olmert's most popular
promise - the winning formula, it seems - is "let's fix the permanent
borders of Israel unilaterally". That is, of course, utter nonsense.
Neither the Palestinians and the Arab world, nor the US and the family of
nations will recognize a border that is fixed without agreement. It will not
bring peace, but a continuation of the conflict for generations to come.
That's what logic says.
But in elections, logic takes second place to emotions. Olmert's promise to
"separate from the Palestinians" is only a more elegant rendering of
the vulgar phrase "get the Palestinians out of our sight" - and that
is the popular thing at this moment.
Olmert states fairly
where the permanent border that is to be fixed unilaterally, will run. The
principle is: a Jewish state as large as possible with as few Arabs as
possible. He intends to annex the "settlement blocs", Greater
Jerusalem, unspecified "security zones" and the Jordan valley.
Among the settlement
blocs he mentions Ariel, Modi'in Illit, Ma'aleh Adumim and Etzion.
Miraculously, that exactly matches the Wall-cum-Fence that is now being
constructed (confirming what we have asserted all the time: that the path of
the fence was not shaped by security considerations, but by the annexation
map.)
Olmert's map is, of
course, the same as that of Sharon. He only states it openly and in detail. It
annexes 58% of the West Bank. What it leaves to the Palestinians (altogether,
11% of pre-1948 Palestine) is chopped up into isolated enclaves, cut off from
the world.
Yossi Beilin, the
originator of the "settlement bloc" idea, has already announced that
his left-wing Meretz party wishes to join the future Olmert coalition. Labor
does not announce this openly, but that is clearly its hope. They will surely
argue with Olmert about the final location of the border, but they do accept
his general approach.
Once upon a time, a
jocular remark made the rounds in America: "What I hate most is racists
and niggers." Now the average Israeli wants "Peace without
Arabs". Kadima's "unilateral" approach reflects this position
precisely - and that's the secret of its success.