In just under two months after the Israeli general elections were held, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu whose Likud Party party won the largest number of seats – 30, in the country’s 120-seat parliament − has been able to able to cobble together a bare majority of 61 seats to retain leadership of the Government of Israel.
The country does, of course, have a tradition of multiple parties contesting elections which normally succeed in the splitting up of the seats among them, so that government is formed only on the basis of a pulling together of a narrow majority in which the Prime Minister makes, to not necessarily his, or his party’s own volition or liking, extensive commitments. Netanyahu’s efforts have continued this tradition, insisting that it reflects the nature of the variety of opinions and inclinations in the country, which required to be satisfied.
Netanyahu did, however, and particularly towards the end of the campaign, find himself resorting to making a strong effort to appeal to anti-Palestinian sentiment, particularly on the issue of the establishment of a Palestinian state. This has permitted him to find, as a major pillar of his new parliamentary alliance, the conservative Jewish Home party; and readers may recall that Netanyahu’s deliberate refusal to concede a Palestinian state, became a source of concern among the Western powers who now accept this as an inevitable reality.
It was not surprising also, that towards the end of the March electoral campaign, Netanyahu also insisted on his opposition to the negotiations going on between the United States, other Nato powers and Russia, and the government of Iran on the issue of its domestic efforts to create a nuclear weapons capability.
This has cooled relations between the US Government and Netanyahu, though President Obama has insisted that this provocation on the Israeli Prime Minister’s part, could not have its desired effect. In other words, the Western powers saw the Israeli leader’s effort as no more than campaign rhetoric and playing to right-wing sentiment like that of Jewish Home.
Political and diplomatic sentiment outside Israel suggests that Netanyahu may find it necessary to continue to provoke resentment to the continuing discussions with the Iranians, given his majority of only one seat; and there is a recognition that while the Israeli leader struggles to maintain his coalition, there are significant issues in the Middle East presently which require continuing systematic efforts towards resolution, and which, at this time, probably require going beyond a dominating recognition of Israel’s concerns.
The powers probably recognize that Netanyahu will feel himself forced to stall on the issue of a proper recognition of the status of Palestinians in Israel itself, and an appropriate restitution for damage done to Palestinian areas and properties during the last confrontation within Israel itself. And they will probably be taking into account also that there is a possibility that, in the context of his one-seat majority, Netanyahu will be constantly constrained to be looking over his shoulder at the sentiments of coalition parties more to the right than his own on the issue of a Palestinian state.
In the same sense too, the Western powers and their effective partners, including Russia, probably consider that at this time, their concerns over the Middle East cannot necessarily be dominated by the probably temporary dynamics of the Netanyahu coalition. For wider concerns have raised their heads in the area since the Israeli March election.
First, the natural diplomatic coalition between the United States and its most sympathetic Middle Eastern partner, Saudi Arabia, has become somewhat frayed. The Saudis have, as is now obvious, taken a negative attitude to what they have deemed to be an American manipulation of the oil market through that country’s increasing production of shale oil, and they now seem determined to adopt an autonomous, and what seems to be a long-term, strategy to respond. And as has become clear, this has become a major global concern.
Secondly, the Saudis again, traditionally America’s most stable partner in the area have, under the new monarchical leadership begun to take a greater interest in events and circumstances in the area, including relations with an Egypt going through its own convulsions. For the new Egyptian military leadership, though also a long-term ally of the United States and in spite of its current dominating strength and American support, is not as yet showing how it can stabilize the country without using the armed forces as their dominant instrument. And this must give both the Saudis and the Americans cause for concern.
Third, the United States, at least under the Obama leadership, seems determined to ignore any sentiment, some of it emanating from the Saudis, against finding an agreement with Iran. Clearly the Saudis intuit that what appears to be President Obama’s line of action, this implying a persistent diplomatic rapprochement between the US and Iran, and a more balanced relationship in the Middle East that would include the US, and both Saudi Arabia, Israel, and that country, is not necessarily what they would feel to be acceptable.
The fact of the matter is, of course, that the US probably recognizes an emerging balance of power, not necessarily always harmonious, among those countries, particularly as the Obama administration observes the prospect of a crumbling Iraq, dominated by almost uncontrollable, so-called Islamist forces, determined to make an opposing geopolitcal arrangement in the Middle East.
In the face of all that, Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu will be having to calculate the extent of the stability of his own coalition, if it is to play a role, that will be taken into account by its traditional major ally, in circumstances which it always considers crucial to its own survival.
