Netanyahu's fig leaf Source: al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/940/re101.htm Even more than Lieberman, we should worry about Barak, warns Khaled Amayreh from occupied Jerusalem
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Defence Minister Ehud Barak is being courted by prime minister-designate
Benyamin Netanyahu to stay on in his new coalition government
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Israeli prime minister-designate Benyamin Netanyahu and Labour Party leader
Ehud Barak have reached an understanding that would pave the way for the latter
to join the Likud-led government, expected to be sworn-in next week.
According to the agreement, Barak will remain defence minister and his party
will receive a number of other less important portfolios, including
agriculture, infrastructure, industry, trade and labour and one minister
without portfolio.
Politically, the understanding stipulates that Israel will formulate a
comprehensive plan for Middle East peace and cooperation, continue peace
negotiations with the Palestinians and commit itself to peace accords already
signed.
The agreement also speaks of "acting against illegal Arab and Jewish building"
in the West Bank which may suggest that the next government will step up the
virulent practice of demolishing Palestinian homes.
Israel has demolished as many as 20,000 Arab homes under a variety of pretexts
since it occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in 1967. The
Israeli government is also planning to destroy hundreds of homes in occupied
East Jerusalem in what one Palestinian leader has described as "a decapitation
of Arab demographic presence" in the city. The Palestinian Authority still
hopes to make Jerusalem the capital of a prospective Palestinian state.
Israeli commentators argue that the Likud- Labour understandings are too
generalised to give a clear picture as to the exact partnership between the two
parties. However, the "constructive ambiguity" should give both sides a feeling
that they got what they want.
Barak had said repeatedly that he wouldn't join a right- wing coalition.
However, in recent days, he apparently changed his mind despite stiff
opposition within his party to joining the Likud coalition, which observers
here already label the most right-wing government in Israel's history.
The understanding between Barak and Netanyahu is not final, as it must be
approved by the Labour Party general assembly which was due to meet to vote on
the deal.
A solid plurality, perhaps a majority, within Labour is firmly against joining
the Likud-led government for ideological reasons, and also because many
traditional Labourites see Barak's acceptance to play a "second fiddle" to
Netanyahu as an expression of cheap opportunism.
This, labour leaders calculate, would seriously harm Labour's image as a
progressive party and prospective alternative to right-wing demagogy. Barak
himself used to condemn Likud as representing "swinish capitalism".
Ophir Pines-Paz is one of the most ardent opponents of Barak and any
partnership with the Likud. He says that Netanyahu will only use Barak and
whoever will join him from the Labour Party as "a mere fig leaf" to blur and
hide the true nature of the next government.
"It is completely natural for Barak to want to join the Bibi-Lieberman
government," says Pines-Paz, the only MK who left Olmert's government after
Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman joined it. "He doesn't have a problem
with their ideology. Perhaps you can remind me how many outposts Barak has
evacuated so far and how exactly he abided by the Talia Sasson on settlement
expansion," he said, referring to an official government report published on 8
March 2005.
The report, commissioned by former prime minister Ariel Sharon, was headed by
the former head of the State Prosecution Criminal Department, Talia Sasson.
On 23 March, Barak's opponents within the Labour Party accused him of "trying
to turn Labour into Yisrael Beiteinu" and of "acting as if he got 50 seats in
the Knesset, rather than suffering an electoral defeat."
According to Haaretz, seven Labour lawmakers including Pines-Paz sent an
unprecedented letter to Netanyahu and his foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman,
in which they declared that they won't be bound by the understandings reached
between Barak and the Likud leader.
"This is the first time in the history of the Labour Party that the chairman
has set up a coalition negotiating team without a thorough and extensive
discussion within the party and without getting the approval of any of the
party's organs. It is a gross violation of the party's constitution."
The rebels also warned Netanyahu of the consequences of Barak's actions. "You
should know that the negotiating team established by the Barak faction within
the Labour Party does not enjoy our backing or the backing of any authorised
party official. It is unfortunate that the party chairman chose to manage party
matters in this way. Given the circumstances, we must inform you that you can't
count on our support regarding any agreement that you may reach with Ehud
Barak."
Seeking to justify his decision to join the Netanyahu government, Barak told
fellow Labour lawmakers that his membership in the government would guarantee
that it won't go too far to the right.
However, this argument is viewed as largely disingenuous and lacking in
rectitude.
Barak has already shown he agrees with Likud on expanding settlements. Under
his authority as defence minister in the last government, settlement expansion
in the West Bank continued unabated despite commitments made to the Americans
to freeze expansion. According to prominent Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar,
several new settlements created recently were marketed as "merely new
neighbourhoods of existing settlements".
In some cases, the new neighbourhoods are more than five kilometres away of the
mother settlement. "Who wants to send his children to a kindergarten on the
other side of the fence, not to mention the cost of the infrastructure and the
services." Eldar asked.
In addition, there are signs that Barak is already trying to endear himself to
the extreme right-wing parties, such as the settler party, Habayt Hayahudi
(Jewish Home) as well as Shas and United Torah Judaism, formerly known as
Agudat Yisrael.
His role is clearly to act as a facilitator to the fascist- minded and
pro-settler parties, to "launder" their manifestly illegal settlements (illegal
even by Israeli standards) built on stolen Arab land.
Last week, Barak, as defence minister, decided to legalise a new settlement
Sansana in the southern Hebron hills, which even the Israeli courts declared to
be illegal. Similarly, he refused to uphold a court order to dismantle houses
built on stolen Palestinian land in the Ofra settlement in the northern West
Bank.
In light of this, it is not hard to predict how the Netanyahu-Lieberman-Barak
government, backed by settler and extreme religious parties, will function.
Using the words of one Israeli journalist, the next government will have a
modus operandi based on deception, subterfuge and prevarication. "It will be a
government that will claim to be committed to peace while in reality do
everything it can to make peace as elusive and as distant as ever." (end)
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