Caught Between Barak And A Hard Place

After Bibi Netanyahu was given the opportunity to form a government there was an assumption that this would be accomplished in short order. But so far, Labor has turned down Netanyahu's offer to join a unity coalition, and Kadima has made no agreements to join either. They're basically calling Bibi's bluff and forcing him to honor the promises of his far-right coalition partners:

Kadima narrowly beat Likud in the elections, making it the largest party in Parliament by one seat, but Likud commands a larger bloc, which includes religious and right-wing parties. Mr. Netanyahu could quickly form a government with these partners but would prefer a broader, less hawkish coalition.

His success will depend on how committed he is to the religious and rightist parties that endorsed him to become prime minister, and what, if anything, he has promised them. Both Ms. Livni, now the foreign minister, and Mr. Barak, the defense minister, have said they will head into opposition before legitimizing a government that includes elements of the far right.

Seems to me that Netanyahu is in a spot. If he rejects his far-right partners and secures Kadima's support, he will have sold out his base. If he creates that far-right government that clearly is his ideological preference, he risks alienating large swaths of the country and the Obama Administration. Thus we have him mouthing the language of peace while rejecting any moves toward it.

Israel's hard-line prime minister-designate, Binyamin Netanyahu, promised Sunday to work with the United States to promote peace in the region as he sought to forge a moderate government with his chief rival -- but did not reach a deal.

Netanyahu's crucial meeting with the centrist Tzipi Livni was intended to persuade her to ally with him in forming a new government and avoid an unwelcome coalition with ultra-nationalists to his right.

But after their meeting, Livni said the two remained at odds regarding talks with the Palestinians.

"We didn't reach any agreement. There are deep disagreements on this issue," she said. "This evening did not progress us on the core issues in a way that we can talk about a joint path."

I give Netanyahu six months, provided he can actually get a government assembled at all. He's just not that good a politician and he proved that in the 1990s. And his global partners are dwindling, especially with his retrograde stance on settlement expansion.

In related news, Joe Lieberman met with his namesake in Israel, Avigdor Lieberman, and had nothing but kind words for him. This is the guy who MARTIN PERETZ calls an unrequited racist. Joe Lieberman just gets classier every day...

The End Of The Two-State Solution?

The Israeli elections turned out pretty much the way it looked early on. Tzipi Livni earned a narrow victory, but because there are 64 votes in the Knesset on the far right, Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud have a better chance of forming a government. Even if Livni can woo one of the far-right parties, they would represent a check on any move toward peace with Palestine, since they could react by collapsing the government. The result is that Avigdor Lieberman, who even Marty Peretz calls a neo-fascist and who thinks Arabs in Israel should offer loyalty oaths to the state, is arguably the most powerful figure in Israeli politics, and the two-state solution looks dead.

With Lieberman emerging as kingmaker in the new government, logically speaking, there are only three other plausible future relationships of Israel and the Palestinians:

1. Apartheid, with Israeli citizens dominating stateless Palestinians and controlling their borders, land, water and air. Apartheid would be accelerated under Lieberman's baleful influence. Over time, this outcome would break down, since it will be unacceptable to the rest of the world over the coming decades).

2. Expulsion. The Israelis could try to violently expel the Palestinians (and possibly Israeli-Palestinians as well), creating a massive new wave of refugees in Jordan or Egypt's Sinai. (This option would almost certainly end the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and might well push the Arab states into the arms of Iran, creating a powerful anti-Israel military coalition and a huge set of threats to the United States.)

3. One State. The Israelis could be forced over time, by economic and technological boycotts, to grant citizenship to the Palestinians of the occupied territories.

Since President Obama sent out George Mitchell to attempt to kickstart the peace process and get back on track to a two-state solution, both have now had the rug pulled out from under tham by an Israeli public moving to the far right.

The war in Gaza raised the profile and power of extremists on BOTH sides. Hamas is now more popular and Fatah viewed with more skepticism among the Palestinians, and the hardliners within Gaza have been strengthened.

If the Israelis offer Palestinians citizenship in a single state, they will quickly be overcome by demographics and lose the Jewish state. And if they try to deny citizenship to Palestinian refugees, they will be running a modern apartheid state and gradually lose all credibility. And yet they are determined to go on this suicide mission. Perhaps America would remain willingly blind to this injustice for a time, as Matt Yglesias suggests, but the rest of the world wouldn't, and that would increase global tensions, and at some point America will have to come to a reckoning if Israel refuses to do so.

This is why the two-state solution has such support in both parties, because then we wouldn't have to choose. But as Israel drifts right, that choice will have to be made eventually.

Believni?

In a mild surprise, the exit polls are showing that Tzipi Livni will win the Israeli elections.

Channel 1, Channel 2 and Channel 10 polling of voters as they left the ballot box all pointed to victory for Kadima, headed by Tzipi Livni.

The Channel 1 poll gave Kadima 30 seats, Likud 28 seats, and Labor 13 seats. Yisrael Beiteinu is predicted to win 14 seats, according to the poll.

According to the Channel 2 poll, Kadima will hold 29 seats, Likud will take 27 seats and Labor 13 seats. Yisrael Beiteinu will have 15 seats in the new Knesset.

The Channel 10 poll indicated that Likud will take 28 seats, Kadima will hold 30 seats and Labor 13 seats. Yisrael Beiteinu will have 15 seats.

However, upon further study, it looks like the right and far-right parties have more seats than the center-left parties, which means that, although Livni may have more seats than Benjamin Netanyahu, she may not be able to form a government, and President Shimon Peres may let Netanyahu do so. If Livni can somehow convince a section of the far-right to be included in the coalition, she almost certainly could not make any moves toward a peace deal, because the far-right coalition member would collapse the government. As Yglesias says, for the Palestinians the result would be "leaders will either be too weak to make peace or else too opposed to peace to bargain with." Which is EXACTLY what Israelis say about Fatah and Hamas.

The Middle East is kind of a mess. In case you didn't know.