BARAK AND SHARON - TWO GENERALS FROM TWO PARTIES HAVE MORE IN COMMON THAN DIFFERENT

While the Labor "Doves" are busy running ads in Arab papers showing dismembered corpses in Palestinian Refugee Camps -- with the caption "Sharon" -- the reality is that Generals Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon are more two of a kind than anything else. Indeed, the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla in 1982 though blamed on Sharon have Barak written on them as well, though he has worked hard to pretend otherwise. The reality is that General Barak was one of the key Generals who perpetrated the Lebanon war along with Sharon and in fact secretly advocated finding some excuse to expand the war to Syria and push the Syrians totally out of Lebanon. And a more hidden reality, discussed in the article below, is that in some ways, with General Barak as Prime Minister and the choice now limited, at a crucial moment in Israel's history, to Generals Barak and Sharon in the upcoming election, Israel has become a "military dictatorship in parliamentary disguise." These two articles, the first by an Israeli Professor at Tel Aviv University, the second published in Lebanon, help put the Barak-Sharon election and the Israeli scene in much clearer perspective.

COUNT THE BLANK BALLOTS
Tanya Reinhart*

"This dangerous and power driven general is now being packaged as our savior the knight of peace. And those who don't want him, are stuck with Sharon."

Never was Israel further from democracy as it is in the coming elections. In the polls, 60% of the voters wanted another candidate to run against the two generals, but the political system, blatantly ignoring anything known about the will of the majority, forced a choice between only two candidates, neither of whom nears the majority of 50+%, required by law.

Less than a month ago, we were still at the peak of the war hysteria which Barak and his close military circle have generated. "I have not yet managed to understand from Arafat that he is willing to acknowledge the existence of the state of Israel" - he declared. The spirit of 1948 was thick in the air: war with the occupied Palestinians, with the Israeli Palestinians, and "if necessary" - with Syria and the whole Arab world. For the first time in his cadence, Barak looked glowing and focused, like someone who has finally reached self realization.

This dangerous and power driven general is now being packaged as our savior the knight of peace. And those who don't want him, are stuck with Sharon.

We reached this state through a long process of neglect of the basic values of democracy. Formally, the elections system of Israel is similar to that in France. There too, the law states that the (presidency) elections can be decided on the first round only with absolute majority, namely, if there is a candidate who got more than 50% of the votes. But there, there are always more than two candidates. The underlying assumption is that the elections are the time at which the society determines its way for the next few years. If no candidate has gained in advance the support of the majority, there should be a second process of discussion and convincing, towards the second round.

But in Israel, there is already a tradition of forcing a decision in the first round. In the last, 1999, elections massive pressure was exercised on the other candidates to withdraw before the first round. This time this was already guaranteed at the start, with a hasty decision process,in a military style.

Still, even under such circumstances, it would not have been possible in France to force the voters to elect in a single round one of two hated candidates. Assume that one candidate got 35% of the votes, and the other - 40%. The other 25%, who object to both, casted a blank ballot. The result is that no candidate got the required 50%, and a solution should be found in another round.

But in Israel, at the eve of the 1996 elections, when Peres feared the blank ballots which awaited him following his 'grapes of wrath' attack on Lebanon, he enforced a regulation stating that the blank ballots are "disqualified", namely, they are not counted in the total of which 50% is required. Thus, with just one arbitrary law, the most essential principle underlying this system of elections - that an absolute majority is needed to decide in the first round - has simply vanished.

In practice, it is because of this regulation that Peres lost the elections. 5% of the voters, from the left, voted nevertheless blank. Had their votes been counted, Netanyahu too would not have passed in the first round. Nevertheless, the regulation stayed, like so many illegal regulations, so easy to pass in Israel. In the present situation, those who do not accept the predetermined choice generated by the power system face a clear verdict: "disqualified" - out of the political game!

Why should Barak worry about the smashing lack of support he encounters? The winner will be the one who can get the peace-voters, and on this front, Barak believes he is omnipotent.

It is possible to pull out of one's hat a new peace process. As in the case of Syria, Barak can even instruct his aids to spread rumors about dismantling settlements. As long as it's all only in the media, and not in any written document - why not? In any case, all that is being discussed is yet another "framework" agreement for three to six years. Possibly, Arafat can be forced again to sign, shake hands, and be photographed in peace positions, as he was trained to do so well during the years of Oslo. To ease his way, the same lies about 67 borders, or division of Jerusalem, can be recycled once again.

It is a bit hard to believe that it will be possible, indeed, to sell the same lies again after Syria, after Camp David, after the attack on the Israeli Arabs, after Barak's "There is no partner for peace" declarations, and while in the territories, the Israeli army continues to starve, torture and assassinate the Palestinians.

But Barak knows that he is very well covered. At his service there is a government that has long given up its right to be informed of his plans, and three loyal peace parties - One Israel, Meretz and Hadash (CP)- which will each explain to the slice of population it is in charge of, that this time it is really peace and we must vote Barak. He also has obedient media that will recycle happily the praises of his new peace offers, and a battery of intellectuals who will prove with a magic wand that we are only imagining that the king is naked.

If Barak chooses indeed this scenario (rather than opting directly for war, avoiding altogether the nuisance of elections), it is possible that, as the jubilees of the elections peace fade away, we will find ourselves again with a single ruler who consults only with the army, and who will, perhaps, try to argue that he is not subjected to the parliament decisions because he was crowned directly by the people. And then it will just turn out that after all, 'there is no partner to peace and Arafat does not respect agreements', and we will go back to 1948.

But before we complete this transition into a military dictatorship in parliamentary disguise, it is still possible to go back to the spirit of democracy and the law. It is necessary, first, to annul the shameful regulation disqualifying the blank ballots, and let the voters decide. If there is no candidate with a 50% majority, the process should be reopened, so we can have real elections.

*The author can be reached at Tanya@MiddleEast.Org

SHARON AND BARAK - BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Michael Jansen

"The race is, in fact, between two 'hawks.' The Israeli press has dubbed the campaign the 'battle between the generals' and characterized the rivals as 'carbon-copy' candidates."

[The Daily Star (Beirut)- January 5, 2000]:
The Israeli prime ministerial race between Labor's Ehud Barak and the Likud's Ariel Sharon is being portrayed by some as a straightforward contest between "left" and "right," "doves" and "hawks." But this characterization is false.

First, the race is essentially a struggle between two desperate opportunists for whom the Feb. 6 poll is a "last chance." It is the last chance for Barak because he will be finished as a politician if he loses the election. During his 18 months in office he has failed to deliver on the promises he made to the Israeli electorate of peace with the Arabs and domestic reform. As a result he is seen by an overwhelming majority of Israelis as a "serial fumbler" with a record almost as dismal as that of his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu. Latest polls put Barak as much as 20 points behind Sharon.

It is the last chance for Sharon because he is 72 years old and the Likud has a number of younger men eager to secure the top job. Sharon is determined to win the premiership in order to vindicate himself after being blamed (albeit indirectly) for the 1982 massacre of more than 2,000 Palestinians at the camps of Sabra and Chatila. In Sharon's view, Netanyahu "stole" the Likud leadership and the premiership in 1995-96.

Second, the race is, in fact, between two "hawks." The Israeli press has dubbed the campaign the "battle between the generals" and characterized the rivals as "carbon-copy" candidates. Both Barak and Sharon emerged from the military establishment, Israel's sole national institution, which is "hawkish." Sharon was Barak's patron. Barak drew up the plan for Israel's invasion of Lebanon which Sharon executed. Barak projects himself as a dove only because he is supported by Labor and the left. But while promising peace, he has expanded Jewish settlements in the territories ­ the major obstacle to a deal ­ and deployed heavy weaponry against the Palestinians.

Until the eruption of the Palestinian intifada in late September, Barak managed to create the illusion of a "dovish" image by using the media to leak "generous" peace proposals which were never spelled out clearly to either Palestinians or Israelis or put on the table. Engulfed in a cloud of speculation about Barak's real intentions, both sides are confused. This is why Shimon Peres, whose rating in the polls is higher than that of the prime minister, tried and failed to gain support to challenge Barak.

Sharon is an ideological right-wing hawk who takes a pragmatic line when in power. This does not always go down well with the right, which was infuriated when he used the army to force Israel's settlers to evacuate their colonies in the Sinai during the 1980s. Today he is promising to keep all the settlers in their settlements and hold onto Jerusalem while achieving peace deals with the Palestinians and Syrians ­ impossible pledges to honor. Aware that Sharon is not a man to be trusted, the head of the National Religious Party, Yitzhak Levy, threatened to stand against him. Levy only decided against it because his own party refused to back him.

Third, the two generals are determined to keep their "hawkish" image because the Israeli political spectrum has, over the past two decades, made a decisive shift to the right. Hawks have a greater appeal with the electorate than doves. While the society has drifted rightward, it has developed deep fissures between secular and religious, rich and poor, the Western or Ashkenazi establishment and the Oriental or Sephardi underclass, new immigrants and old.

According to Israel Shahak, the maverick Israeli analyst and commentator, there is also a major rift between young and old, with the young being the most right-wing section of the populace.

Furthermore, the broad groupings have fractured into bitterly opposed and competing factions, the sharpest antagonism being between disadvantaged Sephardis and the 1 million recent Russian immigrants. Thirty parties contested the May 1999 Knesset election and 15 secured seats. Since then, several Knesset members have broken away from the parties with which they stood and joined others. No wonder that Israeli commentators consider this Knesset the most "hopeless" ever when it comes to taking the hard decisions which will determine Israel's borders, polity and relations with the world. There is a suspicion that the society is so factionalized that it cannot decide on anything.

On the foreign-policy plane, the body politic is divided between the "peace camp," represented by Barak, and the "national camp," by Sharon. The former tries to project it as the only alternative to war, while the name of the latter suggests that rivals are not patriotic. The "peace camp," which is prepared to make territorial concessions to achieve peace, consists of the leftist Meretz Party, Labor, a moderate religious party (Meimad), the Center Party (former Likudniks), One People, and the three Arab groupings. All the Jewish parties in this grouping draw their membership from the slender Ashkenazi majority in the society. The combined strength of the "peace camp" is, in theory, 50-52 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, but can really muster only 40.

In principle, the "national camp" rejects ceding land for peace, but in practice it is prepared to "give" something: Gaza plus 40-60 percent of the West Bank as against the 95+ percent which Barak is said to be offering. This camp is made up of the Likud, the two small Ultra-Orthodox religious parties, two Russian immigrant factions and the so-called National Union. This bloc can count on the support of 43 Knesset members. The balance of power is held by a center-right party, Shinui, with six seats, and the right-wing Sephardi ultra-religious party, Shas, the third largest party in the Knesset with 17 seats. These two parties are wild cards on the Israeli political scene. Shinui used to be a moderately liberal party which has moved to the right, but many of its voters belong to the peace camp. Shas is a frankly right-wing populist party which has aligned itself with Sharon in this contest. But Shas' spiritual mentor, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, has been a long-standing supporter of the peace process and of Israel's withdrawal from occupied territory.

Therefore, if Barak manages to secure a peace deal before election day on Feb. 6, Shinui voters could be expected to cast their ballots for him, while Rabbi Yossef might switch generals and recommend a "vote for peace."

But nothing can be predicted with certainty. The reaction of the voters will depend on the nature of a deal and whether the arrogant Barak, a disastrously poor communicator, can sell it. In spite of the intifada, recent polls reveal that 51-60 percent of Israelis still support the peace process. However, there is no guarantee that this will be reflected in the way they vote when they enter the polling station. During the campaign, ultra-hawk Sharon will try to convince the voter that he can reach a better deal than dovish-hawk Barak, while Barak will make the point that there will be no deal with the Palestinians or the Syrians if Sharon takes power.