Somebody has to write this. Oh, well, I am going to the WA King County Democratic Convention in a few hours, so I guess I can get this issue started.
Starting in the last day or two, the Israeli papers have been full of what appear to be material developments in Israel, namely the filing of a series of bills seeking to dissove the Knesset, aiming at new elections which are tentatively set for October 16, 2012.
Israel, of course, uses a parliamentary system where governments can fall at any time and elections to form a new one, or change the coalition that comprised to old one, or just put the old guys back in, can happen at any time. Benyamin Netanyahu, the current prime minister, is thought to be popular, but the problem in Israel and parliamentary states is that a government is not formed by an individual or by election of one, but by the creation of a group of political parties who form a coalition which holds a majority of seats in the parliament, here the Knesset, and historically in Israel, the very small parties which produce those last few votes to create such a majority have had outsized power over the process and the resulting government. It's also like this in Britain, but there are fewer parties and the width between extremes is less. And the practical exclusion of Arab parties from governing coalitions, parties which represent a large percentage of 20% of the nation, is an unusual element.
Some of these are accusations of just whom is plotting with this filer or that one, of course. Several such filings are threatened simultaneously. But the timing of the election, a year before the 2013 prior date when elections must be held, is causing what is just warming up as serious political consternation. Just what the rest of us needed to make things worse than they have been, because if one thinks that our elections are nasty, these are going to be beauts. Round one has already produced senior political folk expressing the untrustworthiness of Bibi Netanyahu for, I kid you not, messianic tendencies. If you start with that . . . .
The ostensible public reasons for calling the elections turns on a declaration by Israel Beitanu, the party led by Avigdor Liebermann, the Foreign Minister, that if there is not a resolution to the Tal Law that he finds acceptable, his party's position in the coalition which rules Israel at this time is off.
For those not following the matter, the Tal Law is one which with certain exceptions requires a form of national service for all Israeli young people, usually service in the military, the Israel Defense Force, and the issue is the exception, principally for both Haridi and other extremely conservative Jewish groups where men spend much of their time studying religious matters, and for Arabs, the resolution as to the Jewish groups heretofore exempted being the central issue.
Lieberman's party has phrased the matter politically as a requirement of equality of service, that ALL young Israelis should be required to put in some form of national service, with some forms of service not being military. Haridi have historically enjoyed exemption from such service for religious reasons. And actual Haridi service when it occurs has in recent times brought with it Haridi problems such as the objection of such to serving with women in the same service to the extent that some refuse to or resist attend official events where women are on the podium or performing, and the state has refused to issue earplugs for those who will come but don't want to be forced to listen to the women.
Another internal politcal Israeli crisis is also building, based on various High Court orders to demolish various settlements or portions thereof illegal for particular reasons such as being built on land owned by Palestinians, or without any permits from the Israeli government, there being a distinction between permit status and funding, which many of these have enjoyed with or without permits or even official government planning.
The government had negotiated the dates by which demolition had to be accomplished, but in the last few days, it has applied to the High Court for further delay because it is changing its policies from the narrow issues, thus described, which it previously used, in order to be able to take into account the wider effect of such demolitions and other policy issues, in which policy issues other settlements have been named.
Some of the opinion commentary in Israeli newspapers has been relatively clear that their view is that if the demolitions go forward, or others are ordered the government would certainly fall. Others point out that there may be an end to the Rule of Law. . . . . if High Court orders can be overturned by political governmental decisions that they should simply not be honored, for such reasons or otherwise.
And one must also recall the consternation that resulted last summer when the government's response to the Israeli demonstrations produced the unfortunate fact that more government money had gone over a long period of time in construction and subsides and such to the settlers and settlements east of the Green Line than west of it, at a time when there are severe housing shortages and high prices for residental users west of the same line.
Part of the problem with this issue is historical, in that for long periods of time, settlers were permitted, often with substantial governmental funding, to build in places they chose with tactical, water supply or other issues in mind, then there was a period of squawking about the illegality of it, and then there was a political settlement which legitimized whatever the settlement movement had done. A good bit of Gershom Gorenberg's "The Accidental Empire" discusses the political dance between the official government voices and ministers such as Yigal Allon who used his ministry to fund and set up some of these settlements before the 1967 war, leaked information to settlers for their tactical settlement purposes as to times and places, and so forth, and then set up the political compromises which legitimated such new, sometimes 'overnight' settlements. No small amount of Israeli military taking of Palestinian land for state purposes was done with such settlements in mind, before or after the fact. It's not a new dance, this one.
However, the group of cases which have been decided in the High Court finding that settlements or parts of them had been built and occupied, on land that belonged to Palestinians, has upset this deal, because the settlements or portions thereof involved have been ordered vacated and demolished. Heretofore, there were few, perhaps 'no' remedies for Palestinians who lost their lands in this fashion. The creation by the High Court of such remedies in this time, has changed the equation.
One of the consequences of this development has been a rather sudden reduction in the attention being given to the proposed war with Iran, and certain other matters often discussed here. For example, although the Fatah government in WB had sent an important letter to Bibi about peace discussions, no reply has been forthcoming, and none is now expected. Some I columnists have suggested that there was a response, but what it was was the legalization of three illegal outpost settlements, which has produced its own international brouhaha. The prospect of peace discussions, much less any deal, is also one which has been suggested would cause an immediate fall of the government.
One of the problems with an election at this time,of course, is an October surprise for the US, because it may be assumed that various Israeli pols will do or threaten various things in order to influence their own electoral process, to which some response by the US, in the last days of its own, may be required. Or a new government with new demands on the US appear, suddenly, demanding responses in the last two weeks of our own election cycle.
An insistence on attack on Iran may well be one, although Israeli polls seem to suggest that such an attack would be acceptable to Israelis if, perhaps only if, the US were part of it and not Israel going alone.
Something awful with settlements may be another, as settler instigations such as the recent one in Hebron, and the mowing down of orchards is continuing.
It is also not a peace making contributing factor that the ban by a large British grocery consortium of West Bank Israeli products, read "settler products", has also been recently announced, with the BDS movement that has generated this being widely accused of being not anti this Israeli government but anti semitic generally.
The struggle with Egypt over gas is also continuing, as is gossip about the fate of the current peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, in light of the Egyptian election process and the possibility of Islamicist success in that area with resulting insecurity for Israel. A host of awful possibilities.
Or perhaps none. It is possible that this is also a pattern of bluffs between the Israeli parties, and a Tal law settlement will make it all go away. There has recently been conversation in Israeli papers about the bluffing elements of the handling of the Iran matter. That remains to be seen.
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Comments invited on the usual rules of my diaries. You all know them. I am hopeful that comments will consider the various political isses both in Israel of elections at this time circling around these issues or others commeters may nominate, and/or what the effect of such elections would be on US elections. The coincidence is just too good, and I don't believe in such coincidences.
And yes, I usually link everything, but when I passed twenty five articles to link, it became idiotic. Go look at the Israeli papers for the last week. Some of the oddest parts of this are in JPost because of a conference it is holding, and reporting, but Ha'aretz is not better. Happy reading.