Benjamin Netanyahu is claiming victory in the Israeli election but the issue is far from settled. It looks like his Likud party has gained only about thirty seats in the 120 seat Knesset and who becomes prime minister will depend on whether "Bibi "- as he is known to his supporters, or Isaac Herzog of the Labor party can cobble together the sixty-one votes in coalition with a host of minor parties needed to have a majority.
The one thing that looks absolutely certain is that whatever form of government finally emerges, it will lack stability. The Knesset is a cauldron of special interest parties, each with a limited agenda but a very wide variety of outlooks. Whoever governs will head a coalition of perhaps a dozen individual political parties and keeping to a firm course will be almost impossible.
If Netanyahu again becomes prime minister he will be serving a fourth term and will eclipse the record held by Israel's first premier, David Ben Gurion. Israel was formed by a United Nations mandate and was immediately attacked by it's Arab neighbours. The fact that it has continued to exist seems almost a miracle. Surrounding countries vow to wipe it from the map and today it seems particularly vulnerable with the entire Middle East aflame with religious war.
Netanyahu broke new ground just before the election when he reneged on his 2009 endorsement of a Palestinian state as a "two state "solution to its grievances with it's Palestinian citizens. Bibi is a hardliner and this seems to run in tandem with his continued support for settlement building on occupied Palestinian land. Many doubted his sincerity to that "two state "vow because under his rule the land necessary to create a new state was being gobbled up by new Israeli housing, in many cases dividing Palestinians from accessing their farming land.
Endless negotiations to settle the "Palestinian question " have included world leaders and the United Nations - and many times they have seemed close to success. This final rejection will certainly inflame the Arab world and drive a wedge between Israel and it's protector, the United States of America. Netanyahu's snub to President Obama when he addressed Congress without an invitation from the president has made that country's relations with Israel a new political issue. If Hilary Clinton wins the next presidency there is every chance that relations with Israel may cool along political lines - at a time when Israel may face more threats to it's borders.
Then there is the matter of world opinion. Israel came into being on a wave of sympathy when the Holocaust was revealed. It won applause as a brave little country when it won wars against mass attacks by Arab countries trying to drive it's people into the sea, but in recent times it's actions have been repressive. It rules with a rod of iron in the West Bank and Gaza by control of border access and there is considerable bias against Palestinians in the Israeli legal system. Hard line Palestinians are waging a terrorist war against the Israeli occupation and there are excesses on both sides, but the balance of Palestinian/Israeli deaths is such that Hamas may achieve bringing Israel before the ICC to face war crimes charges. Consensus between the two sides seems impossible.
Now that the eventual creation of a new Palestinian state is off the table it seems that all bets are off. The Palestinians have no reason for restraint. They know that the creation of new settlements on land they claim as their own will intensify and in a few years they will simply be misplaced foreigners, barely tolerated in what is fast becoming an exclusive Jewish state. They now have every reason to launch terror against their oppressor - in the sure knowledge that massive military force will be used against them.
Netayahu has nailed his colours to the mast and at least it is all now out in the open, but it is a dangerous decision. It seems that Israel is determined to make conditions so unpleasant for it's Palestinian citizens that they will move elsewhere. The more brute force is used against them, the more sympathy from other Arab countries and increasing displeasure heaped on Israel by the rest of the world. Israel may find itself alone - in a cold and unfriendly world.
The notion of two independent states was never going to be a total solution nor would it abate the hostility enemating from both camps - but it would have delivered at least some concept of fairness. By burning that bridge, Israel is taking a step into the unknown and placing it's fate entirely in the hands of it's defending military. That's a big ask for a small country that is a small enclave - and totally surrounded by mortal enemies.
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