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ISRAEL ON THE EDGE:
CHARLES KRAUSE ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS
ABOUT THE ISRAELI ELECTIONS
May 31, 1996With the election of Likud party leader Benjamin "Bibi" Netenyahu as the next prime minister of Israel, the middle east and the world wait to see what the future of the peace process holds. During the campaign, Netenyahu had been openly critical of Prime Minister Shimon Peres for wanting peace rather than ensuring Israeli security.
The conservative Likud party leader must now shape a government. The Knesset, the Israeli parliament, is now divided between Peres' Labor Party, the Likud party and various religious parties makes Netenyahu's task that much more difficult. With barely a majority of the popular vote and not even a pluarlity of the seats in the Knesset, the Likud party and the future direction of the peace process hang in the balance.
Charles Krause, the NewsHour's special correspondent in Israel covering the election, took your questions on what the Netenyahu victory may mean.
What did the outcome of Wednesday's election mean for Israelis, Palestinians, the Middle-East, and America? What importance does the conservative Orthodox community now have in Israeli politics? Charles Krause answers to your questions are below.
A question from Mark Canel of Bowdoin, ME:
If Peres loses, is it a repudiation of the man, or his party?
Charles Krause responds:
This was a race between two men and two visions of Israel's future, not so much a race between political parties as in years past. For the first time this year, Israelis voted directly for prime minister, so the two major political parties, Peres' Labor Party and Netanyahu's Likud Party, were less important and, in fact, both emerged substantially weakened because most of the money and media coverage centered on the race for prime minister.
The real question is whether the outcome was a repudiation of Peres the man or of the ideas he stood for. My sense is that it was a combination of both: Peres is not a beloved figure in Israel. He has lost four previous elections and is viewed as something of a Richard Nixon figure, a brilliant defense and foreign policy analyst but also a schemer and someone whose word cannot be trusted. Indeed, it was that theme - that Peres could not be trusted to negotiate peace and also provide for Israel's security - that ultimately cost him the election.
A question from Evelyn Kolovson of Greenwich, CT:
What role did Rabin's assassination play? His widow has been a very outspoken critic of Netanyahu. She said Pere's loss is an insult to her dead husband. What do you think she meant, and can the wounds be healed?
Charles Krause responds:
There was a debate at the highest levels of the Peres campaign as to how prominently the campaign should use the Rabin legacy to promote Peres' candidacy. The decision was made to downplay the Rabin assassination in favor of a strategy that stressed Peres' qualifications to govern on his own. Whatever the merits of a policy-oriented campaign rather than playing to emotion, there are those within the Labor Party, including Leah Rabin, who think Peres and his advisors made a huge mistake. Obviously, he lost the election.
Although I have not talked with Leah Rabin, she has made no secret of the fact that she blames Netanyahu and the rhetoric he and his supporters have used against the peace process for creating the atmosphere of hate and fear that inspired her husband's assassin. Netanyahu's victory must rub salt into wounds that have clearly not healed. Whether Netanyahu will continue the peace process or look for ways to sabotage it remains to be seen.
A question from Steve Goldstein of NY, NY :
All the attention has been on the Prime Minister race, but the Knesset has been radically changed. What will that mean for Israelis?
Charles Krause responds:
The electoral "reforms"' that took effect for the first time in this election meant that Israelis could vote for both members Knesset and directly for prime minister. What that meant was that after choosing which candidate they favored for prime minister, they didn't have to vote for his party as in the past but could, instead, vote for him and then "split their ticket" to vote for another political party's list for the Knesset. Clearly that was what many voters did, as a result, the two largest parties, Labor and Likud, lost seats in the Knesset while smaller parties did better than ever before. The big winners were several ultra-religious parties that will have a great deal of influence in the new government, which means significant pressure not to curtail new settlements in the West Bank, little chance of expanding civil rights for women, Arabs and gays, among others, and generally a more religious, rather than secular, cast to Israeli life.
A question from Jenny Braun of San Diego, CA :
I have heard that Netanyahu is against Pere's peace strategy, but I haven't heard anything about his own peace strategy... what is Netanyahu's peace plan?
Charles Krause responds:
An excellent question which we attempted to begin to answer tonight with our interview with Zalmon Shoval, who is a former Israeli ambassador to Washington and close foreign policy advisor to Netanyahu. Shoval seemed to be saying that Netanyahu will be more flexible than his campaign rhetoric might have suggested, but there was no peace strategy put forward during the campaign and none put forward tonight by Shoval. Netanyahu is more concerned about security than anything else and will, I think, be reactive rather than proactive in the search for peace.
A question from Tom German of Morristown, NJ :
Security has been quite heavy in the past weeks. How has this effected life in Israel and how has it effected your job as a reporter?
Charles Krause responds:
One answer is that the heavy security presumably stopped a terrorist attack, so I suppose-although it would be impossible to prove - that all Israelis, and all reporters in Israel, are alive today because of the security. Another answer is that the heavy security meant that thousands of Palestinians who work in Israel but live in the territories were unable to enter the country and lost their wages as a result. Many of them may deeply resent the Israelis for this and it may simply increase the hatred that already exists. (We plan to go to Hebron Saturday to examine this question; our report should air Monday night).
As for the daily lives of Israelis (and reporters) the security presence was visible but not intrusive; we spent the better part of a day with General Ariel Amit, the man in charge of security in Jerusalem, and I must say that my experience confirms that this is a country with superb security forces. He drove us in his Jeep through Arab sections of Jerusalem all by himself in uniform, without a gun. There was no apparent security around us or the vehicle. Yet I am absolutely sure that we were being followed and watched and guarded; indeed, even though the security was invisible, I'm quite sure I've never been so secure in a war zone in all my years of covering wars and revolutions in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. As is often said, nothing is as it seems in this part of the world.
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