THE ISRAELI ELECTIONS PROMISE LITTLE CHANGE AND NO HOPE FOR THE FUTURE OF THE REGION.

By Miko Peled

The results of the Israeli elections hold little promise for Israeli Palestinian peace. The leaders of Israel’s main political parties are the same people who have managed the conflict thus far, and although Israel once again stands at a crossroads, none of them show any inclination to bring about significant change.

Ehud Olmert, head of the “Kadima” party, is a non-charismatic career politician. He secured his position as front-runner in the new Kadima party through his loyalty to Sharon who chose him as deputy PM because he posed no threat to Sharon himself. In some ways Olmert is similar to his proverbial archrival, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both were mayors of their respective capital cities, both were unlikely candidates for a top job and both of them are uninspiring politicians with little vision and fundamentalist conservative political views.

One could easily be deceived by Ehud Olmert recent announcement, that a government lead by him would define the borders of the State of Israel, something that has never been done. On the outset this sounds revolutionary. However, he also declared that he would follow Sharon’s example of unilateral withdrawals and unilateral decisions on Israel’s permanent boundaries. He claims that he will bring peace and stability to the region but in fact he is offering more of the same. Any Israeli decision regarding borders will inevitably have an effect on the fate of the Palestinians. If this is done without negotiating with the elected Palestinian leadership, it will lead to more violence.

For more than thirty years Israel has been building huge metro centers on Palestinian land in the West Bank. Complete with malls and schools and multi unit apartment complexes where only Jews are permitted to reside. Claiming there is no partner with whom to negotiate peace, Israel ignored the Palestinians who called for peace based on the Two State Solution and went on its way to populate the West Bank with Jewish Israelis and erase the old 1967 boundaries. There can be little doubt that was done by design.

No Prime Minister was as blunt or violent as Ariel Sharon in doing this. Over the past five years he orchestrated an unprecedented level of death and destruction while erasing any chance for a future Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza. The combination of destruction of the Palestinian economy, society and political system together with the confiscation of lands, construction of settlement and the wall that further segregates the Palestinians from their lands and from Israel, have finalized the status of Israel/Palestine as a single geo-political entity.

Israeli politicians from what is referred to as the “Zionist parties”, i.e. everyone but the Israeli-Palestinian parties in the Knesset, are either unwilling to see this reality or are engaged in willful deceit. Amir Peretz of Labor represents the former while Ehud Olmert represents the latter.
Israel is in fact, and has been since 1967 a single state that governs two separate nations albeit using two separate sets of laws, one for the Jewish Israelis and the other for the Palestinians. The Jewish population in Israel, which today represents about half of the entire population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, lives in a free democratic and racially homogenous political system. The rest of the population, i.e. the other 45% is Palestinian. About one million Palestinians live within Israel. They are segregated geographically and are limited in their freedoms. They live under surveillance of Israel’s secret internal security services and although they are a national minority, under Israeli law are defined as “Non-Jews”. The approximately 3.5 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza live under strict, totalitarian Israeli military occupation with some very limited self-governance. They enjoy no rights and no representation and are at the mercy of the Israeli army and secret security services.

Under the current state of affairs, no Palestinian in Israel/Palestine is free. Palestinians are regarded as either enemies or a fifth column. Now that Israel has obliterated the lines that divided the West Bank and Israel proper, the chances of a Palestinian State being created have too been obliterated. Israeli society and Israel’s leaders live and operate in a racially segregated country where ethnic discrimination is rampant. A recent comprehensive study published by Israeli professor Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan into textbooks used in Israeli schools demonstrates that even the education system in Israel is severely contaminated with racist overtones.

Once again Israel and the Jewish people stand at a crossroads. By erasing the 1967 boundaries Israel erased any chance for creating a viable state for the Palestinian people. By doing so, Israel also crushed the Zionist dream of an ethnically homogenous Jewish State. Now Israelis must decide whether they want to rule over 4.5 million disenfranchised Palestinians, and to live eternally by the sword, or whether they will share the land with the Palestinians in a secular, democratic state where race and religion give way to freedom and democracy.