On Eve of Elections, Israeli Leaders Play Into Hands of Palestinian Militants

By Ira Chernus, AlterNet. Posted February 2, 2009.

Why would Israel’s prime minister and foreign minister take such a hard-line stance against Hamas, a stance that is likely to smash the fragile hope for peace, even as Hamas pushes for an extended pause in fighting?  The most obvious answer, again, is internal politics.  

Since both are leaders of the Kadima party, they may not care much about the Hamas response to their words at all. They are probably much more concerned about their real enemy:  the right-wing Israeli Likud party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who sums up his position bluntly:  "No matter how strong the blows that Hamas received from Israel, it's not enough." Likud is slightly ahead of Kadima in polls taken just ten days before the election. 

The fierce Israeli electoral contest may also explain yet another setback for the peace process. In the middle of the delicate negotiations, Defense Minister Barak’s office sent out a press release about plans to develop “Area A1,” a strip of land connecting Jerusalem with the booming town of Ma’aleh Adumim, one of Israel’s largest West Bank settlements: "Ma'aleh Adumim is an inalienable part of Jerusalem and the State of Israel in any permanent settlement. A1 is a corridor that connects Ma'aleh Adumim to Mount Scopus and therefore it is important for it to remain part of the country.”  

A statement from the Ma'aleh Adumim Municipality claims that this "contiguous construction between our city to the capital Jerusalem will be the Zionist response that will prevent the division of Jerusalem." 

Ha’aretz reporter Amos Harel adds:  “The other side of the coin, of course, is that this sort of contiguity will prevent Palestinian construction between East Jerusalem to Ramallah, and will make it difficult to reach agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on the question of permanent borders. This is why the U.S. has strongly opposed this sort of Israeli construction for more than a decade. Israeli governments have avoided construction in this area, mostly because of U.S. pressure.” 

Why buck the U.S. pressure now? Perhaps Israelis are afraid of the new U.S. president and his new Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, who has previously criticized the settlement policy. Leaders of Barak’s Labor Party, struggling to improve its position in the upcoming election, may want to show voters that it too will resist peace pressures from their American friends. 

But that won’t be enough to satisfy more conservative Israeli voters. A recent editorial in the right-leaning Jerusalem Post excoriated Kadima for being ready to give away virtually the whole West Bank.  The Post acknowledged that Kadima agrees with Labor on developing A1: “Large settlement blocs like Ma'aleh Adumim, which abuts the capital on the east, would be annexed to Israel. In return, the Palestinians would take possession of an equal amount of land in southern Israel.” But for the Post’s audience, that is a meaningless concession in a program that’s otherwise far too liberal. 

Which raises the possibility that internal Israeli politics may not tell the whole story. Livni has made no secret about why she opposes the Hamas truce offer: "An arrangement with Hamas will give it legitimacy” in the world’s eyes, she says. She would rather see a policy that “will at the end of the day bring about an end to the Hamas regime.”  At a recent campaign rally, Livni voiced the deeper concern that lies beneath her fear of Hamas:  “Peace is in our self-interest. The prevention of a binational state is in our self-interest.” 

Labor’s support for the A1 development shows that, as it extends one hand in peace to the Palestinians, it too would use the other hand to block the path to peace. As for Netanyahu and Likud, they are campaigning on a pledge to destroy Hamas and resist the U.S. goal -- much of the world’s goal -- of a viable independent Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel. 

Whatever the Israeli leaders’ motives, the signal they send to moderate Hamas leaders is to think twice, or even three times, before taking any risks for peace. With so much to lose as they struggle against their own hard-liners, Hamas moderates may easily feel that they have little to gain.  

See more stories tagged with: israel, palestine, gaza, hamas, likud, kadima, israeli elections

Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin.

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