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Hard Questions, Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher - July 23, 2012

mofaz-netanahu-split320x265.jpgAlpher discusses Kadima's political prospects, the link between Burgas and the Assad regime, what a post-Assad Syria's challenges for Israel, and the misdirected recognition of the college in Ariel.
Q. Now that Kadima has abandoned the Netanyahu coalition over the national service issue, what are the party's political prospects?

A. They appear to be very poor. The zigzag of joining the "national unity" coalition then leaving it 70 days later has hurt the image of party leader Shaul Mofaz, despite his principled stand on the issue of compulsory national service. Not that Kadima's scores in the polls were particularly good under Mofaz before the coalition adventure. But its share of the 120-mandate political pie dropped from 11 to 7 mandates in last Friday's Yediot Aharonot survey (Kadima has 28 mandates in the current Knesset).

The Likud has also suffered at least slightly from the crisis with Kadima. It has allowed itself to be painted as a pro-Haredi party for its refusal to agree on a compromise age (22) for compulsory service and penalties for those who don't serve. The latest survey shows the Likud dropping to 25 from 30 (it currently has 27 mandates), with 44 percent of Israelis agreeing that PM Netanyahu missed an historic opportunity and 49 percent arguing that all Israelis should serve from age 18. Labor, up to 21 mandates, is now far and away potentially the second largest party; if it could combine forces with remnants of Kadima or the nascent party of Yair Lapid (13 mandates), it could challenge the Likud were elections to be held now.

It was no surprise, then, that Labor leader Shelly Yacimovich, who stayed out of the national service fight, called last week for late November 2012 elections. Mofaz is angling for elections in February 2013. That increasingly seems like a more realistic date.

But Kadima's troubles are not limited to low poll ratings. Under Mofaz's weak leadership, the party, which began under Ariel Sharon as a coalition of breakaway Likudniks and Laborites along with committed centrists--all dedicated to unilateral withdrawal from Gaza--threatens to disintegrate back into those three component parts. One faction, made up mainly of former Likudniks, wants to rejoin the Likud; another is still loyal to deposed leader Tzipi Livni, who is reportedly toying with the prospect of teaming up with Lapid. That leaves a third group, "centrist" by Kadima's standards that seeks to maintain the party's integrity and rebuild, initially by choosing a new leader to replace Mofaz.

The problem is that under Knesset rules it takes seven MKs to split off and form a new faction or join another party in the current parliament. Livni, in her years as party leader, managed to rebuff poaching initiatives engineered by Netanyahu. Mofaz is weaker. Hovering on the sidelines are Haim Ramon and Tzachi HaNegbi, both of whom were forced to resign the Knesset due to legal problems (Ramon, for his famous uninvited French kiss to a young and unsuspecting female IDF officer; HaNegbi, for influence peddling). Both hope to come in from the political cold and regain leadership positions. At last report, HaNegbi had failed to muster seven MKs and lead a faction of Kadima back into the Likud, where he hoped to be appointed minister for civil defense, and Mofaz, in response, was threatening to expel four pro-Likud Kadima MKs from the party.

At a deeper level, Kadima's problems under first Livni and then Mofaz, and Labor's rejuvenation under Yacimovich, once again raise the issue of whether there really is room in Israeli politics for a centrist party. Kadima increasingly reminds political observers of the fate of Rafi in the late 1960s, Dash in the late 1970s and Shinui in 2005-6. As noted last week in these virtual pages, Ehud Olmert's hypothetical candidacy to lead Kadima is hardly the answer. The opposition needs desperately to field a leader with national stature, charisma and integrity who can challenge Netanyahu. Currently, Yacimovich is the only candidate. But she has yet to pass the test of an election.
 

Q. Is there a link between the terrorist atrocity in Bulgaria and the anticipated collapse of the Assad regime in Syria?

A. It was hard to avoid thinking about connections between the two issues when, last Wednesday, five Israelis were murdered in Burgas, Bulgaria and the four most senior security officials in Syria were assassinated in Damascus. The Burgas attack was almost universally attributed to Lebanese Hezbollah, a key ally of the increasingly beleaguered Alawite regime. Iran is the strategic patron of both the Alawites and Hezbollah's Shiites. While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu hastened to blame Iran and Hezbollah for the Burgas atrocity without any apparent proof, he was probably right.

The Burgas attack took place on the anniversary of the Amia bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994, an atrocity that targeted Argentina's Jewish community and that is also widely attributed to Iran and its Hezbollah ally. Just as Amia was apparently part of the deadly secret tit-for-tat between Israel and Iran, so seemingly is Burgas. Former National Security Adviser Uzi Arad acknowledged as much when he described Burgas as Iran's response to the assassinations in recent years of Iranian nuclear scientists and officials and of Hezbollah's security chief, Imad Moughniyeh.

And while this would be Hezbollah's first suicide bombing in 15 years (if indeed it was a suicide bombing; the man carrying the explosive charge could have been a dupe), it was not for lack of trying: over the past two years, Iranian and Hezbollah agents have been apprehended all over the world, from Thailand and India to Kenya and, most recently, Cyprus, in the course of some 20 failed attacks on Israelis.

(Lest the tit-for-tat image be misunderstood, it is important to note that Iran and Hezbollah consistently call and strive for Israel's total destruction in the spirit of militant Islam. Israel's secret war against them is essentially defensive, and is seen by the United States and even Sunni Arab states as legitimate.)

At the broadest strategic level, if the Alawite regime in Syria falls, and regardless of what then happens there, both Iran and Israel's immediate northern neighbor, Hezbollah, will suffer a major setback. In calculating its response to the Burgas attack (Netanyahu promised one), Israel must factor in this seemingly inevitable achievement. Conceivably, one of Iran's and Hezbollah's objectives at Burgas was to provoke Israel into attacking Hezbollah inside Lebanon, thereby playing into Syria's hands by diverting attention from the civil war there and possibly complicating the American and Israeli response to Iran's nuclear program. That would be a mistake.
 

Q. Yet post-Assad Syria hardly promises an easier life for Israel. . .

A. Indeed. Syria is liable to fragment in ways that resemble Iraq after the American conquest in 2003--but without an American occupier trying to restore order and secure chemical weapons and missile depots. As the regime in Damascus falls, we might still witness a desperate Alawite attempt to distract attention by attacking Israel, the transfer of chemical weapons from Syria to Hezbollah, and/or the advent of cross-border terrorism from Syria.

Then too, the majority Sunni parts of Syria that border on the Golan Heights could fall under the sway of jihadi elements, pitting Israel against militant Islam on all fronts (Gaza, Sinai, Syria, Lebanon) save Jordan and the West Bank, not to mention the challenge posed by the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the moderate Islamist government in Turkey. Israel's capacity to interact with the Arab world will be reduced. So, incidentally, will Russia's: Moscow will lose its last serious foothold in the Middle East if and when Assad falls. Interestingly, due to its problems in the Caucasus, Russia shares Israel's concerns over jihadi Islam even if it does not see eye-to-eye with Israel on other regional issues like Iran's nuclear program.

This same Islamization factor could negatively affect US interests, as well. Assuming this is the coming reality, Israel will need desperately and urgently to find ways to dialogue constructively with the United States about the region and, inside the region, to communicate with equally concerned pro-western parties like Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates. Iran, where Jerusalem and Washington agree on strategy but appear to differ critically over timing and tactics, is more a potential loose cannon than an answer.

Increasingly, progress toward a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears to be the only option for stabilizing or even aggrandizing Israel's regional position. Sadly, the Netanyahu government--particularly after Kadima's departure--is not there.
 

Q. Is recognition of a college in Ariel as a university a symptom of this misdirection?

A. Absolutely. Last week, the government completed its manipulation of the academic system to recognize a college in Ariel in the heart of the West Bank as Israel's eighth research university. Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, who claims he can't find funding for the demands of the social justice movement, suddenly came up with NIS 50 million to launch the new university.

Israel doesn't need this university, for two reasons. First, ignoring Ariel's location and settlement status, there are other colleges far more worthy of this "promotion". Basically, in order to make the case for Ariel, the government had to completely corrupt Israel's system for ranking and funding its institutions of higher learning.

Second, by creating an Israeli university in the occupied West Bank, the Netanyahu government is handing the world on a silver platter grounds for boycotting all of Israel's universities, colleges and more. The prime minister apparently doesn't care. His coalition is moving ahead with its project of solidifying permanent Israeli control over the West Bank and East Jerusalem through settlement activities, as if the world doesn't matter. It is mortgaging Israel's future to the settlers and (see above) the fanatic ultra-orthodox Haredim who are convinced that studying Torah and praying will make up the difference for Israel's legitimacy and security.