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.
Michele Rimini
