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Bibi & Avi or Tzpi & Avi: Change We Can't Believe In

The real political story in this election is the rightward drift of the Israeli electorate embodied by the frightening emergence of the ultra right wing nationalist Avigdor Lieberman and his "Yisrael Beitenu" Party.
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So here we are once again, another political groundhog day in Israel resulting in yet another inconclusive national election. Neither of the two major political parties -- Tzipi LIvni's Kadima or Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, scored a major political knock out punch, leaving just one parliamentary seat separating the two claimants of victory (Kadima 30 and Likud 29), but neither garnering enough votes to win an outright majority in Israel's parliament.

And just hours after the polls closed, the doors to the political rug souk swung open with Livni and Netanyahu each trying to cobble together a coalition that will enable either to win a 61 vote vote of confidence in Israel's Knesset. The haggling already is intense, with each of the smaller prospective coalition partners demanding policy concessions, ministry portfolios and government funding. But as sloppy as the system is, it is, after all, the only true democracy in the entire Middle East, and for better or for worse, this is the parliamentary system the Israeli electorate must live with for the time being.

But the election has left Israelis with a conundrum of major proportions.

Although eyes are rivited on the two main contenders for prime minister (Tzipi and Bibi), the real political story in this election is the rightward drift of the Israeli electorate embodied by the frightening emergence of the ultra right wing nationalist Avigdor Lieberman (no relation to our Joe) and his "Yisrael Beitenu" (Israel is our Home) Party, whose party won 15 Knesset seats. Lieberman is nothing less than an ultra nationalist xenophobic whose major campaign platform called for stripping disloyal Israeli Arabs of their citizenship.

Although Livni has bragging rights as the surprising come-from-behind victor, the election arithmetic places Bibi in the driver's seat. Why? Notwithstanding Kadima's victory, Bibi has more natural allies on the right to cobble together the 61 vote coalition he will need to become prime minister.

The critical question for Bibi is whether or not he can afford to bring Lieberman's party into a right-leaning coalition and what message will that send to Israel's allies and the rest of the Arab world. If Bibi is first asked by President Peres to take a crack at forming a government, he must either convince Livni's Kadima to join a "national unity" government, along with the ultra-religious parties, or if Kadima balks, narrow his political base and form a right wing coalition with Lieberman. It's conceivable that he may ask BOTH Livni and Lieberman to join a national unity government, but other than putting him comfortably over the 61 seat threshhold, it throws utterly into confusion what a Likud-led national unity govenrment's policy will be toward negotiating a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

But the same holds true for Livni. If she is first called upon by President Peres to attempt to form a coalition government, she may have no alternative but to find a way to entice Lieberman into her coalition math and, perhaps try to bring Bibi's Likud along, as well. And then what would become of negotiations with the Palestinians and how would Lierberman's inclusion affect the Kadima's policy choices?

Whoever succesfully forms a coalition, the mood in Israel is certainly not condusive to any dramatic breakthrough with the Palestinians. Netanyahu talks of an "economic peace" with the Palestinians (translate not a territorial peace), while Livni is determined to press ahead with negotiations she was leading as foreign minister, but which has produced no dramatic breakthrough.

Time will tell how all this political equivalent of chopped liver sorts itself out.

But one thing deeply troubles me, and that is my concern that the true winner in this election may have been Hamas, the second time it has "won" an election that will have far-reaching ramifications for the cause of peace in the Middle East. Neither Livni or Bibi offered any long-term vision how to reconcile what Israel will do about Hamas' role after the recent Gaza fighting. For worse or "worser" the rightward drift of the Israeli electorate underlies a deep disenchantment, resentment and apprehension with the state of its external security embodied by the troika of terror that Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran pose to Israel's security. Indeed, as a result of the election it will take some pretty ingenious adventurers to discover what may have happened to that so-called Road Map to peace.

There is no longer any excuse to confront the hard choices that must be made now that the election is over. As jockeying continues among Israel's political parties, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict risks once again being subsumed by the internal divisions that beset and bedevil Israelis and Palestinians alike. That is why it is going to take far more than a governing coalition to emerge in Israel to produce the necessary leadership to prevent the loss of further hope for peace and stability. And even then, the omens point to darker times ahead. Rockets are still flying out of Gaza despite the tenous cease fire, and Hamas is stronger, not weaker, among West Bank Palestinians leaving Mahmoud Abbas Fatah Party and the Palestinian Authority faltering.

Sadly, both Israelis and Palestinians are increasingly caught in a vortex of radicalism that is marginalizing the so-called silient majorities on both sides who recognize there is no hope for peace without a two-state solution. That is why the dynamics of the equation must change, and can only change with creative, persistent diplomacy and, yes, new approaches that require hard choices.

Those choices begin with finding ways to break Hamas' seeming strangle hold preventing a two-state solution (perhaps through more diplomacy with Syria, Iran and Egypt and Saudi Arabia), while exploring ways for the new Israeli government to unravel the humanitarian crisis which has befallen the Palestinians (including the complete cessation of new settlement construction on the West Bank) to restore some hope for Palestinians gravitating toward Hamas.

President Obama's new and extraordinarily talented Mid East envoy, George Mitchell, is appropriately seized with the enormous challenges we confront from both sides. He has just returned from his assessment tour of the region, and certainly, he did not find much optimism, but George Mitchell is a proven diplomatic innovator.

I, for one, resolutely refuse to give up hope, as some have already done and who are trying to force us to so believe that a durable peace is impossible. With the Israeli elections now behind us, one thing is for certain, it will sure take some of President Obama's personal diplomactic audacity to bring new hope to the cause of peace, and Lieberman's emergence makes the need for American diplomatic audacity all the more compelling.

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