Israel’s election won’t break its political paralysis
Neither Netanyahu’s allies nor a potential coalition of opposition parties can muster a majority. And neither offers a fundamental change of direction on the Palestinian question.
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A billboard featuring Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (right) of the Likud party and the leader of the centrist Yashar party, Gadi Eisenkot, ahead of the Oct 27 election.
PHOTO : AFP
Too frequently, questions in the Middle East are determined by the sword, not the ballot box. Israel was long seen as an exception, where governments and policy choices are formally decided in elections. So, as the people of Israel head to the polls on Oct 27, the temptation is to assume that everything hangs in the balance.
In purely technical terms, this is true: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could well lose the vote and give way to a new government which may abandon his policies of waging total war against most of the country’s neighbours while orchestrating and encouraging a gradual, violent land grab of Palestinian lands.