Michael Carmichael
|
|
|
archived: 2 - 8 Apr, 2006 Back Next Junkie: TPJ is honoured to report that Michael Carmichael’s article “Israelestine” is being featured on the respected website Fountainhead. ________ ISRAELESTINE Abraham, Abimelech, Jerusalem, Al-Quds, Israel, Palestine, David, Goliath, Tel Aviv, Hebron – even though we are now ten thousand years away from the foundation of Jericho in northern Palestine (land of the Philistines) and over three thousand years from the building of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem and over two thousand years from the birth of Jesus and more than one thousand three hundred years from the vision of the sacred city by Mohammad – not to mention all of the other events of world history throughout the globe – the politics of the Middle East are still pivotal, and Jerusalem remains the axis mundi, the fulcrum of world events. While the results of the latest elections in Israel have been met with dismay and puzzlement in Europe, one fact is perfectly clear. A generational realignment has taken place in the political sphere of Israel mirroring the recent political realignment among the Palestinians. In this process, the Palestinian voters have become more militant, and the Israeli voters have become more accommodating. Barely two months ago, the Palestinians elected a larger bloc of the militant party, Hamas, than ever before. Depressed and disgusted after decades of deceit and repression, the Palestinians voted for a more assertive government when they marked their ballots for Hamas. Refusing to communicate with Hamas and withholding Palestinian funds for basic services have led to a global disintegration of credibility for the government of Israel and its primary partner in negotiations with the rest of the world, the United States. Now the people of Israel have had their say, and they want a withdrawal from the occupied territories. In the new political morphology of the Middle East, Bush’s America faces mission impossible. In the midst of the rapid and unpredictable political realignment that is sweeping through the Middle East, US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice has fought to maintain flagging American credibility with the Islamic peoples and cultures of the region, but her efforts have been in vain. Later this week, Rice is scheduled to appear in the north of England with UK Foreign Minister Jack Straw, a solid friend of the Israeli right and a stalwart ally of its now woefully obsolete Likud leadership. Rice’s visit to Straw’s home district in Blackburn is a vivid signal to the Israeli right that America is standing firmly beside its old ally in the rapidly transforming political quagmire in the Middle East. There is another dimension to Rice’s message. Rice is auditioning for the support of the crestfallen but immensely wealthy Israeli right for her campaign to succeed George Bush as president of the United States. Rice’s presidential campaign is now well underway – in spite of her latest disingenuous obfuscations uttered at the weekend in an interview with Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press. In Jerusalem, the multi-millionaire leader of Kadima, Ehud Olmert, has announced his intention to withdraw tens of thousands of Jewish settlers from the West Bank. While Olmert’s party did not win nearly as many seats in the Knesset as predicted, there was a general disintegration of the old Israeli right. Likud, long Israel’s strongest political party, was crushed. They came in fifth. Their leader, Binjamin Netanyahu was disgraced, discredited and distrusted by the disgruntled voters, and he is now facing calls from Likud’s grandees for his immediate resignation. Netanyahu was the closest ally of the cynical neoconservatives inhabiting the government of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice. Now he has been reduced to an inanimate political corpse in the cruel political arena of Israel. Today, everyone in Israel is waking up to the new political reality. The Israeli voters definitely want to withdraw the settlers from the West Bank, and they have voted for political parties advocating withdrawal. This is the decisive end of the dream of Eretz Israel, a greater Israel that was the biblical inspiration for the radical Zionists, both those in Israel as well as the legions populating the congregations of the evangelical right in Bush’s America. While Olmert narrowly won the largest bloc of seats in the Knesset, the real political power broker will be Amir Peretz, a Sephardi who now heads Labour. During the campaign, Peretz suffered vicious racist taunts hurled by his adversaries on the right. Although neither Olmert nor Peretz received as large a vote as anticipated, they will be cobbling together an alliance to support the withdrawal policy set in motion by Ariel Sharon shortly before his sub-lethal stroke. Now diagnosed as chronically comatose, Sharon remains a ghost of the problematic past. His Israeli doctors now believe that Sharon will never recover and that he is doomed to linger on in a state of suspended animation until death eventually engulfs him when he will join that other recently departed kingpin of the political cauldron, Yasser Arafat. The political dinosaurs are becoming extinct, but their conflicted legacies live on in spite of the swiftly changing sands in the deserts surrounding Jerusalem. With the world focused on the new generation of leaders in Israel, only the Islamic Middle East is aware of the new and very capable generation of leadership swiftly emerging in Palestine. Since Hamas received a forty-one per cent (41%) share of the vote, many of the Palestinian leaders are from other parties. Already, there have been warnings of a cessation of the fragile truce. The official spokesman for Hamas is a man named, Mahmoud Ramahi. One of Mr. Ramahi’s first official statements following the Israeli elections was to point out that the governments of Israel always act unilaterally. “They said [Yasser] Arafat was not a partner for peace, then [Palestinian president] Mahmoud Abbas and now Hamas,” Mr. Ramahi observed only yesterday. While explaining the position of Hamas, Mr. Ramahi pointed out that there would be no negotiations involving his party, but they would accept the results of negotiations with the PLO as well as any referendum in Palestine. At this point, Hamas is sounding very mature. Hassan Kreishi, the Deputy Speaker of the Palestinian parliament, was elected as an independent who enjoyed the support of Hamas. Voicing a cautious optimism arising from Olmert’s post-election pledge to begin the withdrawal of Israelis from the occupied territories, Kreishi pointed out, “We chose our government, and they have chosen theirs. Now it's time to talk." Abdullah Abdullah is the Chairman of Palestine’s Foreign Affairs Committee. Mr Abdullah is a member of Fatah, the party of Arafat and Abu Mazen (aka Mahmoud Abbas). Making one of the most perceptive appraisals of the results of the Israeli elections, Mr. Abdullah observed, “Olmert's tone [in his post-election speech] changed because he received a slap in the face from the voters. Kadima did badly because the voters rejected the idea that the Israeli government can simply dictate its terms to the Palestinians. Secondly the voters gave the message that they reject the idea that there is a military solution to the conflict. They want a solution through negotiations." There you have it. Palestinian politicians of all stripes are now focused on the results of Israeli elections, and the Iraeli voters were motivated significantly by the results of the Palestinian polls. This is not a path to peace, but neither is it necessarily a path to war. A brief, perhaps, fleeting window of opportunity is now open for the Middle East, and the majority of the citizens of both Israel and Palestine are well aware of it. Let us hope for the best, while preparing for the worst. The state and nation of Israel and Palestine are awakening to the facts of history. Its two peoples are locked together in a divisive yet unmistakably dual destiny in a land that has just morphed into Israelestine. References
The New Israel: Plans to redraw border
on West Bank
Olmert seeks partners after indecisive
victory / Labour likely to be main ally as Kadima looks for support on
defining borders
Humiliation for Netanyahu
Amos Oz, This can be a vote for peace /
The rise of Hamas is in fact an opportunity for Israel's new government
to work with Arab states
Donald Macintyre: A moment of
opportunity in the Middle East
Ariel Sharon's unlikely bequest to his
nation
Europeans greet result with hope, but
Arabs sceptical
Small earthquake in Jerusalem
Youth contribute to success of group
promoting rights of the elderly
Settlers issue may prove heavy burden
Hamas warns of return to violence
The position after Israel's election __________________ Since 1968, Michael Carmichael has been a professional political consultant. Beginning as a Student Coordinator for Robert F. Kennedy, he has worked in five US presidential campaigns as well as over 100 major American political campaigns for federal and state offices. In 1985, he founded The Oxford Centre for Public Affairs in the United Kingdom. In 2003, he founded The Planetary Movement Limited, a global public affairs organization based in the United Kingdom. He has appeared as a public affairs expert on the BBC, European Business News, NPR and many European television broadcasts examining American politics and culture. In addition to his column for The Political Junkies, he is a regular contributor to the Moving Planet weblog. See: www.planetarymovement.org and http://planetmove.blogspot.com/
Last Update: 04/15/2006 |
