We Will Wait for the Coming Israeli Elections

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Arab rulers generally, and some Palestinians, have waited for decades for the results of American and Israeli elections, hoping whoever wins might offer them, regarding Palestinian national rights, something to save a little face and enable them to justify their policies toward Israel before their own peoples. They stay constantly preoccupied, along with many Arab media outlets, with analyses and predictions about the results, and with every prediction, hearts flutter or freeze in welcome or fear of what is coming. It is clear decades have not brought what Arabs wish for, and frustration remains their lot with the results of every electoral round, even when whoever they pleaded for wins.

Manifestations of Electoral Hope

A friend from the Palestinian city of Nablus called me in 1981, saying the PLO leadership had asked him to form a group to meet Shimon Peres, and that my name had been proposed to be part of it. I asked for clarification, and he said the leadership saw the necessity of searching for peace with “Israel,” and that Shimon Peres was among the “doves” one could talk to. I refused to join him. My friend gathered eleven people and carried out the task, but Israeli media exposed the meeting, leading to a statement issued against them by the Fatah movement, while the leadership abroad took refuge in silence, as though it had nothing to do with the matter.

Shimon Peres headed the Labor or leftist alliance’s list in the 1984 elections, and Palestinian leaders worked hard at the time to encourage voting for his list, in cooperation with Palestinian leaderships from Palestine occupied in 1948.

Palestinians were intensely and forcefully active in soliciting votes for Shimon Peres, and such activity certainly requires money. This means the Palestinian people secretly bore a sum of money so that Peres, who won 44 seats, could win.

The “dove” could not form a government, and was forced to form a national unity government with Likud, led by Yitzhak Shamir, with the two alternating the premiership.

The Palestinian leadership spared no effort in the 1988 elections for the alliance to win, but the Likud bloc topped the lists and formed the government. Relief came in 1992, however, when the alliance, led by Yitzhak Rabin, classified as a dove, won.

The Arab regimes and the Palestinian leadership sighed with relief at the time, on the assumption that Rabin would offer real concessions and push the negotiating process forward. But the joy did not last, because the new leadership became even more active in confiscating land and building settlements, especially after signing the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Arab media was no different from the Arab rulers, focusing heavily on tying the fate of the Palestinian cause to Israeli elections.

One Palestinian leader said he would retire from political work if Benjamin Netanyahu won the 1996 elections, expressing in his statement the extent to which the Palestinian leadership tied its fate to the Israeli ballot box. Netanyahu won, but the leader did not retire, and it was never known what he did instead of retiring. Barak, classified as a dove, won in 1999, but offered Arabs nothing, and withdrew from South Lebanon under the pressure of the Lebanese resistance.

Arab media was no different from the Arab rulers, focusing heavily on tying the fate of the Palestinian cause to Israeli elections. And despite also focusing on the importance of the so-called Israeli left camp winning, this left has disappointed everyone’s hopes during its periods in power, never living up to Arab calculations.

A Message of Weakness

How could an Arab understand the Israeli situation if Israelis tied their fate to the death of an Arab or Palestinian ruler? If the fate of the Palestinian cause is tied to the Israeli ballot box, then “Israel’s” leaders understand there is no need to rush toward resolving the Palestinian cause, or offering something to Arab and Palestinian leaders to preserve some of their dignity and support their political standing before the Arab masses.

“Israel” does not see Arab leaders doing what is necessary to wrest Palestinian rights, or developing deterrent capabilities that would force it to make concessions regarding the Palestinian people’s national rights — all it sees is diplomatic activity in international forums, meetings and conferences producing pale, unenforceable statements, media preoccupation with Israel’s traditional practices against Palestinian land and people, and attention to internal political balances within “Israel.”

Over long years, Arabs have given the United States and “Israel” assurance that they will not change their situation, and are instead waiting for the other side to change its own.

Arabs do not bother themselves thinking about what could influence American and Israeli policy — they instead hope Americans and Israelis will bother themselves with the trouble of changing their leaderships through the ballot box to suit Arab standards. Consequently, Americans and Israelis find no reason to think of pity or sympathy for Arabs. Arab affirmation constitutes an affirmation of Arab weakness, and an affirmation that Arabs have decided to remain weak, hoping this might draw out mercy.

This constitutes a unique case in diplomatic history, in that weakness, and the accompanying weeping and pretend-weeping at the doors, is the first, and perhaps only, tool Arabs use to obtain rights. To be clear, this discussion does not include the resistance factions, who stay up night and day preparing for confrontation, and who disturb “Israel’s” sleep.

Someone might say states wait for the results of other states’ elections when they have relations with them or show them hostility, and there is no harm in Arabs doing the same. It is true states watch election results, and a state may wait for a certain side to win in another state to gain benefits, ease tension, or for any other reason, but it does not tie its own fate, or the fate of the cause under discussion, to that ballot box.

States take appropriate measures and actions to escape a predicament, control a situation, or gain a benefit and achieve an interest, and they will be pleased if a rival or peer wins an election in a way that eases matters rather than complicating them.

But the matter is different for many Arab rulers and Palestinian leaders, who accept helplessness and pin great hopes on others’ ballot boxes. In the West Bank, for example, there is a conviction among the leader and the ordinary Arab citizen alike that “Israel” will never give Palestinians any of their national rights, and that it continues implementing its traditional policies, yet nothing is done to change anything in the existing political and security equation, and security coordination with “Israel” continues, as though “Israel” were a banner of peace and love.

The governments’ policies toward Palestinians are Israeli policies, not partisan ones, and no party has a policy different from other parties regarding this matter.

They Are All Zionists

It is clear, from the performance of various Israeli governments across their different colors and coalitions, that traditional Israeli policies toward the Palestinian homeland and people continue, not subject to significant change. Every Israeli government confiscates land, builds settlements, kills Palestinians, pursues and arrests them, demolishes homes, uproots trees, and spreads terror everywhere.

The governments’ policies toward Palestinians are Israeli policies, not partisan ones, and no party has a policy different from other parties regarding this matter. There is a single Israeli policy the parties implement — Likud is no different from Labor, and Kadima is no different from the others.

There is consensus in “Israel” that the currently existing Mandatory Palestine is holy land, and that there is no state west of the Jordan River except the “State of Israel.” There is also consensus that annexing the West Bank and Gaza to “Israel” is not wise, and that it is better to grant people the authority to manage their daily civil affairs without them turning into an entity practicing an independent political, civil, and security life.

Those called “doves” have come to power and never delivered what Arabs expected, and those called “hawks” have come and done no more than others did. Parties may differ in their linguistic expressions, but they agree in their field actions.

Studying “Israel’s” Elections

It is necessary to monitor and study Israeli elections to understand the political shifts in “Israel” and what social, cultural, and economic shifts might lie behind them. Elections, in every state that holds free elections, constitute an important subject for understanding people’s general political moods, the shift in their various interests, and the extent of their trust in their leaderships, their performance, and their capabilities — which greatly helps in future planning and in making institutional shifts that accommodate the people’s emerging aspirations.

The political conduct accompanying the electoral process serves as a mirror of the issues occupying the public’s mind, and the outcomes they hope for from the coming term of government, and through it one can identify the institutional patterns that might emerge or disappear, and the plans that might find their way to implementation and those that might recede.

The state’s own apparatuses must attend to the matter of elections for what it can offer of an important database for strategic building and the tactical steps leading to the goal.

But this does not prevent other states with an interest in understanding political shifts from paying attention as well, in order to develop a more effective and influential foreign policy. For example, the United States pays great attention to elections that have taken place, and that will take place, in Arab countries that have witnessed revolutions, because this helps it set the plans and programs that help it develop or change its foreign policies toward these states in service of its own interests.

It is important for Arabs, Palestinians specifically, to study Israeli elections to identify some elements of strength and weakness among the Israeli public, and to know people’s interests, orientations, and the political and economic values that draw them — this helps Palestinians develop policies exploiting the gaps that might appear in the political system, and those that could relate to the social and cultural system of Israelis.

Whoever places his fate in his enemy’s ballot box is disappointed, and will find nothing from his enemy but contempt and disdain. Whoever does this has already decided he is nothing, or close to nothing.

For example, we see that 34 electoral lists contested the recent elections, a large number for a small state like “Israel,” larger than what democracy’s pluralism would suggest. Democracy opens the field for anyone who wants to contest elections to do so, but this large quantity of lists may not reflect the spirit of democracy so much as it reflects a kind of political fragmentation.

In “Israel” there are lists that received no seats in parliament at all, lists resembling others in their political platform, and a huge number of seekers of political leadership.

It is clear “Israel” is not only politically divided into this large number of lists — the lists multiply to a great extent according to the multiplicity of social origin and religious and cultural dimensions. This means the political division has deeper roots than itself, and if these are exploited, it is possible to cause further divisions, which would reflect negatively on “Israel’s” strength. So is there any official leader thinking of drawing up Arab or Palestinian policies to weaken “Israel”?

Whoever places his fate in his enemy’s ballot box is disappointed, and will find nothing from his enemy but contempt and disdain. Whoever does this has already decided he is nothing, or close to nothing, and has reassured his enemy that the laws of defiance do not overcome his laziness, submission, and surrender. So congratulations to an enemy who knows full well that its ballot box is a symbol of Arab disappointment.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “سننتظر الانتخابات الإسرائيلية القادمة” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.