|
from Stratfor.com
The two main parties in Israel’s coalition government, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima and Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s Labor, struck an 11th-hour compromise on Wednesday that prevented the collapse of the center-left government. Hours before a bill was to be introduced in the Knesset that could have led to the dissolution of parliament and thus early elections, Kadima agreed to hold primaries to elect a new party leader (who would also be the country’s new prime minister) by Sept. 25, and Labor backed away from supporting the parliamentary move toward early elections.
With Olmert refusing to step down because of the lack of progress in the bribery investigation he faces, Barak and his party could not afford to be seen as supporting a tainted government. Ideally, Barak would like to take advantage of Kadima being weakened and Olmert’s exit and have his party emerge as a senior partner in the center-left coalition. But that requires a fresh election — one in which his party gains more seats than Kadima. That is not an option, because Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, according to opinion polls, is likely to emerge as the single largest party in the Knesset in a fresh vote. Thus, for now, Barak will have to be content with having forced Olmert to agree to hold primaries for a new Kadima party leader, and sustain his current position.
The most significant implication of this deal is that it allows the two parties the opportunity to retain their government for some time to come. The current government, with a new prime minister at the helm in the fall, could remain in office for the remainder of its term, which ends in 2010. That is a reasonable time frame in which the country can make some decent progress in the ongoing strategic peace negotiations with Syria and the tactical-level talks with Hezbollah and Hamas. We are not saying that both initiatives would necessarily be derailed under a Likud-led government, but there is no substitute for regime continuity in such matters.
The same day that the Israeli government steered out of a troubled domestic political situation, a new chapter in the fragmentation of the Palestinian political landscape reportedly was unfolding. The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the military wing of Hamas, the Izz al Deen al Qassam Brigades, has split into two groups after an attempt to depose its military commander, Ahmed al-Jabari.
The crisis within the Hamas military wing stems from a long-standing disagreement between al-Jabari and Hamas’ political leadership in Gaza. These simmering tensions led to a recent incident in which the police force in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip attempted to arrest members of the movement’s armed wing suspected of criminal activities, which led to a gunbattle between Hamas-controlled security forces and the group’s militia. The report added that rival commanders and their factions operate in many areas in Gaza.
Schisms between various factions in the Islamist movement have intensified since the group won the 2006 elections. But a rift within its militia could have significant implications for Hamas’ integrity, which is already engaged in a power struggle with its secular rival Fatah and has to deal with rival militant Islamist groups. In many ways, internal splits within Hamas’ military wing were bound to happen, given the group’s ideology.
Hamas is torn between being a resistance group and a governing party. Additionally, the siege of Gaza has forced Hamas to negotiate truces with Israel. Whenever a militant group enters the corridors of power and tries to turn its armed wing into a security force, there will always be factions (motivated by ideology, interests or both) that will not be happy with what they see happening around them.
At a time when Fatah does not appear to be in a position to regain control of Gaza, Hamas’ hold over the territory is in the process of eroding. For Israel (already benefiting from the Hamas-Fatah split), schisms within Hamas are only more good news. It means that the Islamist militant threat on Israel’s southern frontier has become far more manageable.
That leaves the Jewish state to focus on Hezbollah on its northern frontier as the only serious non-state actor threat. Here is where the negotiations with the Syrians are extremely important, as they could lead to an agreement in which Damascus will rein in the Lebanese Shiite movement. And that is why today’s deal between Kadima and Labor was not just another domestic political compromise, but an agreement of geopolitical proportions.
|
