Israeli politicians need partners in Middle East

Last month, Israel held elections for its new government. Sixty-three percent of Israel’s eligible voters cast their ballots. Now, a new coalition must be formed.

Unlike our two-party system, Israel, like England, has a Parliament (or in Hebrew, a Knesset) with a coalition government. The Knesset consists of 120 seats. In order to govern, a party must form a coalition of at least 61 seats.

In this last election, 12 parties won seats in the Knesset. Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon formed a new party called Kadima, now headed by Ehud Olmert. Kadima won the most seats, 29. The Labor Party was second, winning 19 seats.

Some of the smaller parties include Likud, the former leading party which lost a great deal of support, various religious parties, a new Pensioners Party pushing for workers and retirement benefits, and the United Arab Party, which represents the many Arab citizens of Israel and their particular concerns. Kadima and Labor will join to form a government, along with some of the smaller parties.

Kadima and Labor are discussing their top priorities for ruling. For Kadima, withdrawal from large portions of the West Bank is critical even if done unilaterally. For Labor, social programs such as increasing the minimum wage and restoring necessary social programs are critical. All smaller parties joining the government will cooperate with this mission statement.

At this point, it seems likely that the new coalition will have about 75 seats supporting this platform, a sizable number to begin a new government.

Regarding foreign policy, Kadima is moving toward its mission of withdrawing from a large area of the West Bank. This is clearly the mandate given to the new government in this last election. Israel is a democracy. In order to preserve the strength of the Israeli democracy and to end its occupation of Palestinian-occupied territory, Israel will soon work on a plan for unilateral withdrawal.

Unfortunately, Israel has no partner on the Palestinian side with which to negotiate.

Hamas, the duly elected winner of the last Palestinian election and a recognized terrorist organization, does not recognize Israel and refuses to sit down with Israel to discuss peace. The former Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, is calling for negotiations, but the new prime minister, Hamas’ Haniyeh, continues to affirm the Hamas platform, which does not recognize Israel and calls for continued violence against Israel.

Haniyeh previously headed Hamas’ security wing, which spied on and executed Palestinians it viewed as insufficiently committed to its cause. Given that there is no partner for Israel to work with, Israel will withdraw from most of the West Bank and end its occupation of this Palestinian territory just as Israel ended its occupation of the Gaza Strip last summer.

At present, Israel has a peace treaty with only two of its neighbors, Egypt and Jordan. Both peace agreements resulted in Israel giving back all lands which were contested. A few years ago, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon and, according to the United Nations, pulled back to the proper boundary lines returning all of Lebanon’s land to the Lebanese.

For Israel, the critical issue is not more land but more peace. When life is valued by Israel’s neighbors as much as Israelis value life, fighting will cease.

The tactics employed by terrorist organizations including al Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and other Islamic extremist organizations show a devaluation of life for themselves and certainly for others. These terrorists extol death for the sake of God instead of extolling peace for the sake of God and for the sake of humanity and for the love of life. It is a sad world we live in when daily we awake to new reports of suicide bombings in Iraq, and Israel, and Egypt, and elsewhere.

We in America are now talking about building a 700-mile fence between us and our Mexican neighbors. Fences can be put up and they can be brought down. Israel is building a fence between the Palestinian West Bank and Israel. This is a security fence. Its route can be changed. The fence can even be dismantled entirely. However, lives cannot be revived once a suicide bomber has attacked innocent civilians.

Fences, even land disputes, are not the issues preventing peace between Israel and her neighbors. The problem is that there are not enough partners for peace in the Middle East. When the Palestinians and other Arab countries want to put an end to war and violence, Israel will be, as it always has been, a moderate and compromising voice for life and for peace.

Rabbi Barry Krieger is the rabbinic facilitator for the Hillel organization at the University of Maine in Orono. He may be reached at bkrieger56@aol.com. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine people who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.