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 Recent commentary from National Journal: Legal Affairs: Smearing Linda Chavez—The Poison of Partisan Thinking (January 25, 2001) Some of Chavez's critics would have beatified Hillary Clinton had she done the exact same thing. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Media: The Dynamics of Personal Destruction (January 25, 2001) We just love precedents, and the Ashcroft hostilities sure look like the Guinier hostilities of eight years ago. By William Powers Social Studies: How to Build A Better Cigarette—And How to Snuff It Out (January 19, 2001) Guess who wins when a few self-dealing interests repair to back rooms and do the country a favor. By Jonathan Rauch Legal Affairs: A Character Assassin Should Not Be Attorney General (January 19, 2001) John Ashcroft smeared Judge Ronnie White for his own partisan, political purposes. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Media: Seven Rules of Inaugural Coverage (January 19, 2001) When a President is inaugurated, a funny thing happens to most media people. They turn soft and gooey. They act a lot like Larry King. By William Powers Political Pulse: A Cabinet That Can Make Wheels Turn (January 19, 2001) President-elect Bush is reviving the idea of a "management team" for the federal government. By William Schneider More from National Journal. |
Political Pulse 
Israel's Unappealing ChoicesPolls show many voters would rather choose between two men who aren't running by William Schneider ..... JERUSALEM—On Feb. 6, Israeli voters are facing the most critical choice in their nation's history. It's a choice most voters are not happy with—a discredited prime minister vs. a dangerous alternative. One thing is clear: The voters are ready to deliver a thorough repudiation to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who has been in office less than two years. Polls show Barak getting only 20 percent to 25 percent of the vote. The reasons? Mounting fear and insecurity after four months of Palestinian terror. Unpopular concessions that have failed to satisfy Palestinian demands. Constant zigzags in policy. Plus a personal style widely criticized as arrogant and aloof. Barak's opponent, Likud Party Chairman Ariel Sharon, is leading Barak by 18-20 percentage points. A blowout. Until you consider the fact that Sharon's support ranges from only 40 percent to 45 percent. A third of Israel's voters dislike both alternatives. Sharon frightens a lot of them. He is the hawks' hawk—brutal, provocative, and unpredictable. Commander of the disastrous 1982 Lebanon war. Forced to resign as defense minister after a commission of inquiry found him indirectly responsible for the massacre of some 800 Palestinian refugees by Lebanese Christian militia. Architect of an expansive Jewish settlement policy in the West Bank. Sharon sparked the current round of violence with a provocative visit to Jerusalem in September. He is nicknamed "the bulldozer"—and not only in reference to his physique. Sharon's campaign slogan is plastered on billboards all over Israel: "Only Sharon can bring peace." It boggles the mind to see Sharon running as a peacemaker, but that is exactly what he is doing. "No real peace can be attained without concessions," he told a kickoff rally last week in Jerusalem, "and we will reach a peace based on compromise." What kind of compromise? Sharon says he would refuse to dismantle any settlements, share control of Jerusalem, accept any Palestinian "right of return" to Israel, or transfer control of the Jordan Valley. "When I spoke of 'painful concessions,'" he told a religious newspaper last week, "I meant we won't now reconquer Nablus and Jericho," towns ceded to the Palestinian Authority in an early stage of the Oslo process, a shorthand for the peacemaking deal struck in Norway in 1993. He added: "The Oslo accord is an agreement that no longer exists." Sharon says he wants to replace Oslo with another long-term interim arrangement that moves gradually toward peace. That plan may be why he is leading in the polls. The election is shaping up as a referendum on Oslo. According to Israeli pollster Ron Dermer, only 24 percent of Israelis would choose to continue the Oslo plan. That's the Barak vote. On the other hand, fewer than 20 percent want to scrap peace efforts entirely. That's the right-wing core of the Sharon vote. But Sharon is also getting a sizable chunk of support from those who want to stop Oslo and try a different approach to peace—roughly half the voters, according to Dermer. Barak is painting himself into a corner by maintaining that there is no alternative to Oslo. But Sharon's hold on the peace issue is very weak. His tack only works against Barak. Under Israeli law, a candidate can withdraw from the race and be replaced by another contender up to four days before the election. As the polls continue to show Sharon trouncing Barak, pressure is mounting from the Left for Barak to withdraw in favor of former Prime Minister Shimon Peres. A Peres vs. Sharon race would be too close to call. "Let Peres win" is a slogan promoted by activists on the left. That belief is odd, because Peres isn't usually seen as a winner in Israel. Voters have rejected him five times. But Peres stands a much better chance of beating Sharon than the discredited Barak. As a Likud leader remarked, "We could run a broomstick in this election and still defeat Barak." Maybe Peres, too. Sharon is reportedly preparing ads depicting Peres as the architect of Oslo. The real story of this election is the collapse of the Left in Israel. The Left's cause is the peace process. The Left had always worked under the assumption that Palestinians wanted peace under a system of two states, Israel and Palestine. Israel's Left now feels betrayed by the Palestinians. They no longer have a partner for peace. The Right is not entirely happy with Sharon as its standard-bearer. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is first in the hearts of Likud activists—in spite of, or perhaps because of, his defeat by Barak in 1999. Netanyahu surprised everyone when he announced he would not run this time because he wanted a new Knesset (parliament) as well. Netanyahu apparently believes that Sharon will find it impossible to form a new government from the existing Knesset. That will force new parliamentary elections, and Netanyahu will make his move. If Peres enters the race, the Right might put pressure on Sharon to withdraw in favor of Netanyahu. It says something about Israeli politics that the two candidates running are the least popular choices, even though neither of them has lost an election for prime minister. Voters seem more enthusiastic about two tarnished veterans, Peres and Netanyahu. Barak's failure has made both of them look good.
What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. More from National Journal. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. William Schneider is the Cable News Network's senior political analyst. He is also a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and a contributing editor for the Los Angeles Times, National Journal, and The Atlantic Monthly. His column appears every week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C. For information on National Journal Group publications, see NationalJournal.com. Copyright © 2001 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. |
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