fugitive peace

Photo: Antônio Milena/ABr

Just when I leave, it gets exciting.

I finished my posting for The Economist in Jerusalem nearly three weeks ago (am now taking six months off, most of it in Israel). I went to the UK for two weeks and missed the Hizbullah prisoner swap and the Obama visit.

And now Olmert’s quitting.

After his announcement that he won’t stand in the Kadima primary in September, lots of opposition politicians are predictably predicting the party’s imminent demise. Neither Tsipi Livni nor Shaul Mofaz will be able to hold it together, they say. There’ll have to be elections anyway.

True, it’ll be hard. But the survival instinct is a wonderful thing. Kadima has something to work towards: the “framework interim outline shelf agreement” or whatever the hell it is they’ve been negotiating with Mahmoud Abbas. (Sorry, I can’t help being cynical, even though I hear in occasional conversations with people “close to the negotiations” that they’re actually going pretty well.) As long as they have that, they justify their existence — if not directly to the Israeli public, then at least to the Bush administration, whose backing can help prop up the government.

And the administration doesn’t want anything to stop this agreement being signed. A source of mine confirms that the report by Jim Jones, the American security coordinator, which says very harsh things about Israeli policy in the occupied territories, is going to be suppressed despite strenuous efforts by Jones himself to get it published. Presumably they’re afraid the Israelis are even less likely to make concessions to Abbas if it looks like they’re doing it under pressure.

What the agreement will actually say if Tsipi Livni takes over from Olmert is harder to guess; while he and Abbas get on just fine, she’s apparently a much tougher cookie in her branch of the negotiations. Even more doubtful is whether the Syria track will continue. But as long as peace talks themselves continue she can look like she is doing something, at least until a new US president takes office and gets his bearings, which could be a while.

Moreover, without corruption scandals exploding every other day, this coalition could be relatively stable. Neither Kadima nor Labour wants an election because they will lose seats in one. And Shas, which could bring the government down if it quits, probably figures it has more leverage and can get more subsidies out of the current arrangement than if it joins a new coalition led by a powerful Likud — especially with Netanyahu, the arch-enemy of subsidies, at the helm.

It’s ironic and sad that the only way to make an Israeli prime minister (and, while we’re at it, a Palestinian president) take peace talks seriously is to make his or her political survival hang by a thread. Which is why I’m kinda glad I don’t have to write about this stuff any more. And yet I can’t help doing it anyway…

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 1:13 am and is filed under Annapolis, Israeli politics, US politics, talks.