Recently astonished by Barack Obama historical victory in the Presidential Election in the US, we are again confident about the power of democracy, as an amazing tool that allows societies to change and politics to take place. Again, we have seen Iraqi people being able to elect their representatives in the Parliament, with an increasing number of women getting involved, and a couple of days ago we saw another important election in the middle east: the Israeli one.
Regarding the latter, few has been told
both in Israel and in the global newspaper; one reason for that might
be the preeminent role given to the Gaza escalation of last month that
heavily caught the attention of the media. It is impossible to talk
about Israeli election without referring to what has happened in Gaza,
and in general to the Middle East conflict. Going back in time ,we have
seen one of the largest military operations against Palestinian
infrastructure since the first Lebanon war. An operation that stirred
an outcry of public opinion for the number of civilian casualties but
at the same time decreased the Hamas level of threat towards Israel and
the other Palestinians. Under this lense ,it is worth highlighting few
of the circumstances that led to this situation, namely the continuous
firing of rockets towards Israeli cities and the violent way in which
Hamas overtook the power after Israeli unilateral withdraw from Gaza.
Recalling to this last concept, it is easy
to see how things differ among the two players: on one hand , Hamas was
democratically elected and then enforced its power through the physical
elimination of its opponents, tortures and summary killings of Fatah
members are well documented; on the other hand Israel is facing another
round of elections with an high degree of uncertainty where political
and sexual scandals are "a la page".
In this literally explosive mix it is worth
to spend some words about who will be the likely next Israeli Prime
Minister; as the elections closed, the victory was given to Tzipi Livni
of Kadima who conquered 28 seats in the Parliament, immediately
followed by Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud with 27 seats.
With such a great level of uncertainty, it
is difficult to say which type of goverment will come out, however
there are two possible scenarios: a wide coalition goverment led by
Tzipi Livni including all the parties close to the center following
Angela Merkel model, or a right wing goverment coalition led by
Netanyahu which can easily reach the quorum needed for ruling the
country. With the country most likely going right i t is interesting to
make some considerations about the future of the peace process, if
there will be any. It is most likely that the Obama administration will
push for a solution of the conflict as fast as possible, partially to
compensate his silence during Gaza operation and to rehabilitate the
image of America in the eyes of the arabic masses; at the same time
Hamas is repairing its infrastructure and appears very weak in the eyes
of Palestinian population in the West Bank.
Given those two conditions and a little bit
of hope, there might be an important chance for the peace process
again, even with a right wing coalition at the Government. In this
particular moment the one who seems to have the strongest credentials
for leading Israeli public opinion and neutralizing fanatics seems to
be Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawk who opposed to Gaza withdrawal. No
other leader could lead Israel towards an agreement without provoking
enormous tensions among the population and dividing the country.
A chance for peace is there, we will see if
leaders will have enough braveness to go in that direction.
Written by Michele Rimini