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March 31, 2006
Olmert gets voters' OK
Kadima-led left-centre coalition probable.
PAT JOHNSON
The results of Tuesday's Israeli elections had something to please
– and disappoint – observers.
Kadima's leader, Ehud Olmert, who replaced the gravely ill Ariel
Sharon as prime minister, seems destined to hold his job, after
his party won an estimated 32 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. Labor,
under Amir Peretz, won about 22. The surprise third-place finisher
was Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party, which seemed likely
to carry about 13 seats, thanks to strong support among immigrants
from the former Soviet Union. Likud, which won the last election,
plummeted to about 10 or 11 seats. Coming out of nowhere, the Pensioners'
party, a grouping concerned with social programs and the welfare
of senior citizens, which held no seats in the last Knesset, seemed
destined to take between six and eight seats.
Among the likely scenarios is a Kadima-led government in coalition
with Labor and another small party.
Shimon Fogel, CEO of the Canada-Israel Committee, told the Independent
Tuesday that the Israeli results suggest consensus on two core issues.
"Number one, we have abandoned idealism and we're looking for
real pragmatism in how we deal with the various challenges in front
of us," Fogel said of Israeli voters. "Number two, [voters
have] said, almost as forcefully, that they are no longer willing
to relegate the range of social policy issues that are becoming
urgent in terms of the attention they need, to the back burner.
If they don't have a partner for peace, they'll take ownership of
their own destiny and create their own enhanced security situation,
but they are not going to wait in limbo forever to resolve conflict
issues at the expense of urgent social and societal issues, be they
health care, education or the gap between rich and poor. They voted
for conflict management and a sharing of the political agenda."
More than anything, Fogel said, he was struck by the diversity of
the electorate.
"You have Israeli Arabs who have won more seats than ever before
in this election," he observed. "You have new Israelis,
that whole wave that came from the former Soviet Union, scoring
an impressive victory. You have pensioners that have established
themselves as a presence with some profile within the Knesset. There
is such a rich diversity over there and the message that I think
it signals is that in the Israeli political system, everybody counts."
Carl Rosenberg, editor of Outlook magazine, was pleased with
the results generally.
"The idea of a coalition between Labor and Kadima is a little
more hopeful than I'd expected. I thought Likud might make more
gains," said Rosenberg. "In the future, I hope there will
be some sort of genuine negotiations between the Israeli government
and the Palestinian Authority for a two-state solution – an
end of the occupation and a return to pre-1967 borders."
Geoffrey Druker, a long-time community volunteer, said the emergence
of Kadima ends a long history of what he terms ideological tribalism,
in which support for Labor or Likud was almost genetic.
"The tribalism has been broken," said Druker. "Many
people in Israel used to vote traditionally for one party or the
other, almost regardless of what that party's record in government
was. What Sharon did was what they call in Israel the Big Bang.
He broke what some analysts are calling the tribalism, where your
loyalty was to the tribe, almost regardless of what's happening.
Kadima is basically a supermarket of people from the left and the
right, portraying themselves as centrists. It gives them a good
mandate to be flexible; tough on security, [while] keeping the door
open for some kind of a settlement.
"The question is, will Kadima survive its whole term? Will
it exist in the next election?" Druker asked. "As always,
it's going to be interesting."
Pat Johnson is editor of MVOX Multicultural Digest, www.mvox.ca.
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