To return to the new Peace Now website click here.

Hard Questions, Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher - July 9, 2007

Q. How does PM Ehud Olmert's coalition reshuffle affect his government's chances of surviving the next Winograd report? Q. Is Olmert now better positioned to deal more effectively with the Palestinian issue? Q. Meanwhile, Egypt appears to be taking its distance from Abbas in favor of a more balanced approach to Hamas in Gaza. What are the Egyptians trying to achieve?

Q. How does PM Ehud Olmert's coalition reshuffle affect his government's chances of surviving the next Winograd report?

A. Olmert seeks to project a new image of governmental stability and professionalism in order to raise his low popularity rating and remain in power as long as possible. But it is doubtful whether the recent changes will persuade the Israeli public to back him on the occasion of the next challenge to his authority or in new elections.

The reshuffle was occasioned by Ehud Barak's triumph in the Labor party leadership primary, preceded by the resignation of Finance Minister Avraham Hirschson, who is under investigation for financial improprieties. First Barak replaced Amir Peretz as minister of defense in a move generally supported by the public and the political establishment. But in order to gain sufficient support to win the primaries, Barak had been obliged to call upon Olmert to resign. Since being elected and becoming defense minister, he has repeatedly pledged that if, following delivery of the Winograd Commission's final report (anticipated in October), Olmert does not resign and is not replaced as prime minister, Labor will leave the coalition and campaign for new elections, thereby making them a near certainty.

Barak, whose primary campaign portrayed him as the man who could defeat opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu of the Likud in an election, has already reportedly consulted with the latter concerning an agreed date for elections in March 2008. Senior Labor and Meretz politicians are talking about elections by early 2008 as a near certainty. Already Labor is acting like an opposition within the coalition, voting, for example, against budget cuts on July 8 even though these were intended to provide extra funds for security and education--both Labor portfolios.

Parenthetically, it is not easy to fathom Barak's confidence that in the course of a few months in office he can win over the public and close the opinion poll gap between himself and Netanyahu, who is the frontrunner. This sense of doubt among the public and politicians alike promotes speculation that, when the Winograd report does come out, Barak will find a way to bury his commitment to precipitate elections unless Olmert resigns.

Replacing Hirschson (after an interim period during which Olmert held the portfolio temporarily) occasioned a chain of ministerial moves that appears to be a mixed bag in terms of the overall appeal to the public. Ronny Bar-On, an Olmert intimate, was moved from the Interior Ministry to Finance. A lawyer, he brings no previous economic experience to the job. To replace him at Interior, Meir Sheetrit was moved from the Housing Ministry. As in Bar-On's case, this is a step up for Sheetrit, who threatens to oppose Olmert for leadership of Kadima and had to be placated.

But Sheetrit was in the midst of implementing a long-awaited and much-needed program to rationalize the housing situation of the Negev Bedouin, many of whose villages are "un-recognized" and whose homes were built without licenses. If his successor, Zeev Boim (moved from Immigrant Absorption) does not proceed forcefully with this reform, yet more damage will be inflicted on Arab-Jewish relations inside the country.

Additional "musical chairs" appointments concern Immigrant Absorption, Tourism, Knesset Liaison and Negev and Galilee Development--the latter a position abandoned by president-elect Shimon Peres. But Peres left behind a second portfolio, that of deputy prime minister, which has now been filled by Olmert with a controversial appointment: Haim Ramon, who exactly one year ago, when minister of justice, perpetrated a minor sexual harassment offense for which he was convicted and given a light sentence of public service.

The appointment of Ramon drew fire from both public and political circles, including Ehud Barak. Criticism centered on Ramon's early return to minister status following his offense, and was amplified by the parallel case of President Moshe Katzav's sex offenses and the controversy over the plea bargain it fizzled into. Within the coalition, reservations regarding Ramon's appointment also focus on the probable nature of the tasks that Olmert will entrust him with: sensitive contacts on the Israeli political scene and involvement in issues related to the Palestinians. Both sets of issues are liable to create friction between Ramon and other senior ministers, particularly Barak and FM Tzipi Livni.

On balance, then, there is nothing in this governmental reshuffle that promises to extend the life of Olmert's coalition beyond early 2008 at the latest. Unless, of course, Olmert registers a surprising series of achievements on the Palestinian front that bespeaks the possibility of a peace process and, accordingly, bolsters public support for him and his government, regardless of what the final Winograd report has to say about his handling of last summer's war. All this, assuming Olmert and Barak can also deal effectively with looming threats of aggression or even war on the Gazan and northern fronts.

Q. Is Olmert now better positioned to deal more effectively with the Palestinian issue?

A. The presence of Barak and Ramon in the government certainly points to the possibility of it dealing with the Palestinians more creatively and decisively. But we have already noted the potential for friction between Ramon and other ministers precisely over jurisdiction regarding Palestinian issues and contacts. Barak, for his part, is responsible for any progress toward realizing Olmert's commitment to remove outposts and checkpoints. He has already indicated he needs three months to review plans left behind by his predecessor, Peretz, regarding outposts, and he is likely to prove equally cautious regarding reduction of checkpoints, particularly in the volatile Nablus/Jenin area. While Palestinian tax money is being transferred and the release of 250 Fateh prisoners has been approved, Barak is likely to predicate additional concessions on evidence that Fateh and the Palestinian security forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas are reforming their ranks.

So far, this is not happening in any substantive way. Leaders of the Fateh younger generation like Sufian Abu-Zaida are already warning that the absence of genuine reform within Fateh will eventually enable Hamas to take over the West Bank as well as Gaza.

Q. Meanwhile, Egypt appears to be taking its distance from Abbas in favor of a more balanced approach to Hamas in Gaza. What are the Egyptians trying to achieve?

A. Cairo's first reaction to the Hamas takeover of Gaza was total condemnation, withdrawal of Egyptian military and diplomatic personnel and unqualified support for Abbas. But the Sharm al-Sheikh summit of two weeks ago, where President Mubarak indicated an intention to resume contact with Hamas, bespoke a rethinking of the issues on Egypt's part that surprised both Abbas and Olmert. In particular, Egyptian policymakers were receptive to Hamas' explanation that its violent coup was directed at what it described as the hard-line Fateh position of Gaza security chief Mohammad Dahlan and his American-backed attempt to oust Hamas from power by force, rather than against the Hamas-Fateh unity government or President Abbas per se.

Now, Cairo appears to be seeking a middle way. It is sending its military liaisons back into Gaza but keeping its diplomats in Ramallah. It is not endorsing Hamas' call for a new unity government but rather working on facilitating some sort of new framework for contact between Hamas and Abbas, even as senior Egyptians publicly criticize Abbas' leadership in the current crisis.

Egypt wants to reopen the Rafah crossing between Sinai and Gaza, but only in coordination with Israel, Abbas and Hamas--a tall order. Meanwhile, some 6,000 Gazans are stuck on the Egyptian side of the crossing because Hamas refuses to allow them back into Gaza via Kerem Shalom on the Egypt-Israel-Gaza border.

Egyptian government spokespersons insist that Egypt does not view Hamas, with its affiliation with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and links with Sinai-based terror, as a strategic threat. Rather, they define Hamas as a "major concern", and express particular recognition of the need to prevent the flow of Islamists from Gaza into Sinai. In this regard, the Egyptians indicate a readiness to beef up their military force posted along the Sinai-Gaza-philadelphi strip border in order to prevent smuggling of weapons and infiltration of terrorists; they blame Israel for delaying agreement. In Israel, on the other hand, there is a strong sense that the Egyptian problem along philadelphi is not quantitative, but rather qualitative and motivational.

One indication of the way the Mubarak regime now differentiates between its problems with Hamas in Gaza and its far more confrontational attitude toward Hamas' parent movement, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, was explained on July 6 by Wahid Abdelmagid in the UAE's al-Ittihad newspaper. "Egypt", notes Abdelmagid, "has . . . maintained an ongoing dialogue with representations of the `Palestinian Brotherhood' [Hamas] while refusing to accept the need for a similar dialogue with the `Egyptian Brotherhood'--that is, the main body from which the Palestinian Brotherhood has branched off". Egypt prefers to view the Palestinian Brotherhood as primarily a manifestation of Palestinian nationalism rather than as a direct threat. Hence "Egypt prefers to contain the threat that Hamas represents, rather than waging war against it or initiating a confrontation with it".

To this, adds Urayb al-Rintawi of Jordan's ad-Dustour, we must add Cairo's disappointment with the alternative to Hamas--Fateh and Abbas. Cairo "fully realizes that President Abbas' path of reviving negotiations [with Israel] and implementing his own `peace project' is at a dead-end and will lead nowhere."

Is it realistic for Egypt to seek to remain on good terms with all parties in and around Gaza and conciliate among them? Probably not, in view of the substantive differences dividing Fateh and Hamas. Nor is it possible to ignore the general decline of the Mubarak regime and Cairo's failure to maintain its traditional inter-Arab leadership posture.

True, the Saudi bubble of alternative leadership appears to have burst. The Saudis, who sponsored the now defunct Palestinian unity government at Mecca, appear to have lost both interest in and the capacity to follow up on this and additional regional initiatives. Riyadh displays little of the diplomatic depth that has long characterized Cairo's approach to regional issues. But the Arab state crisis of governance goes deeper than the Saudi-Egyptian rivalry. Five Arab League members--Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan and Somalia--are literally falling apart. The challenge posed to the Arabs by Iran and militant Sunni and Shi'ite Islam goes unanswered. Neither Egypt nor Saudi Arabia appears to be up to the challenge of leading the Arab world out of this crisis.