Israel heads into a political storm

Israel goes to the polls on February 10 in a collective state of mind which is highly disturbed and seemingly ill-prepared for the important choices which lie ahead. This is bad news for Israel itself, for its neighbours, and for the prospects for peace.

The Israeli electorate will be struggling to find answers to at least three important questions: How will the fallout from the war in Gaza affect Israel? What will Barack Obama's Administration mean for US-Israeli relations? And which of the three or four Israeli politicians competing for the post of prime minister - a mediocre lot by any standards - can best be entrusted with Israel's future?

Although much of the world viewed the war in Gaza as a criminal enterprise against helpless civilians, in Israel it produced an alarming surge of flag-waving nationalist triumphalism. Indifferent as ever to Palestinian suffering, the Israelis rejoiced at their army's ability to wreak havoc on an Arab society. Many wanted the ferocious onslaught to continue until Hamas was obliterated and Gaza itself was "wiped off the map".

As well as the deplorable mix of arrogance and paranoia, characteristic of Israel's relations with its neighbours, the war revealed a deep current of Arab-hating racism at all levels of society, even in what had previously been thought of as the literary and political Left. Expressed in political terms, the Israeli electorate has turned decisively to the Right.

The polls suggest two likely developments: first, Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, resolutely opposed to peace and to Palestinian statehood, has increased its lead over Tzipi Livni's centrist Kadima, itself hardly a model of peaceful intentions. Secondly, Avigdor Lieberman's Israel Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) - an ultra nationalist, even fascistic, party - stands a chance of supplanting Ehud Barak's Labour Party as the third largest party on the political scene.

Once the nationalist fervour subsides, however, Israelis are likely to face a painful awakening: the outcome of the war will probably be the very opposite of what Barak, Livni and Ehud Olmert, the discredited outgoing Prime Minister, had intended.

Israelis will be obliged to see that far from destroying Hamas, the war has strengthened it and given it legitimacy. All Israel's diplomatic agitation is unlikely to prevent some sort of contact between the European Union and Hamas - already on the cards, led by France - followed eventually by a US-Hamas dialogue, as the former US Secretary of State, James Baker, and other influential Americans now recommend.

Far from continuing its blockade on Gaza, Israel will face great pressure to open the crossing points. Far from forcing a defeated Hamas to free Corporal Gilad Shalit, Israel will no doubt have to agree to exchange him for at least one thousand Palestinian prisoners - if, that is, it decides at long last to pay the price of freeing him, rather than letting him rot.

In short, far from putting peace on the back-burner - as Israel's ultra-nationalists and land-grabbing settlers had hoped - the war has stimulated unprecedented international efforts to arrive at a comprehensive resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, involving a necessary Israeli withdrawal from the remaining territories captured in 1967.

Even more painful for Israel's warmongers will be the striking change of attitude in the White House. Israelis will have to come to terms with a US President anxious to restore relations with the Arab and Muslim world - relations which were severely damaged by George W Bush's war in Iraq, his blind support for Israel's wars in Lebanon and Gaza and his indiscriminate "Global War on Terror," which was widely seen as a war on Islam.

This week, Obama gave an interview to the Dubai-based satellite network Al Arabiya. "Now my job," he declared, "is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect. I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy."

Never has an American president used such language.

More specifically, Obama said: "I think it is possible for us to see a Palestinian State & that is contiguous, that allows freedom of movement for its people, that allows for trade with other countries, that allows the creation of businesses and commerce so that people have a better life&" Never has an American president delivered such an indictment of current Israeli policies and practices.

Obama's Middle East envoy, former senator George Mitchell, is already in the region, preaching a message of peace, reconciliation and territorial compromise. He has, to some extent, pre-empted the results of the February 10 elections. Israel's leaders - whoever they may be after the elections - will have to respond to a fundamentally changed political environment.

Israel's politics is chaotic and deeply fragmented. This is a result of an electoral system based on an extreme form of nation-wide proportional representation, inherited from the pre-independence yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine under the British Mandate), when a profusion of groups all wished to make their voices heard. The system ordains that the number of seats which each list receives is proportional to the number of votes it wins at elections. Any list winning as little as 2 per cent of the vote is entitled to a seat in the Knesset. The result is a large number of tiny parties, each representing special interest groups, often of extreme views.

To be able to govern, any one of the three or four major parties must do deals with others. It is easy to see how such rickety coalitions can greatly restrict the freedom of action of any Israeli government, especially when it comes to negotiating peace.

Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.