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MIDEAST: Waiting to See Who Blinks First

Analysis by Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler

JERUSALEM, Feb 16 2009 (IPS) - An indiscreet whisper following a hastily scribbled note around the Israeli cabinet table exposed the deepening political stand-off in the wake of last week’s inconclusive elections.

Who will blink first was the underlying message of the whisper and of the note – foreign minister Tzipi Livni or right-wing Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu? The two are gripped in a mighty power struggle over the formation of Israel’s next governing coalition.

A word in your ear – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Livni he intended to open the meeting with an on-camera statement urging a broad unity government built around the Likud and Livni’s Kadima who finished neck- and-neck in the poll.

Realising the microphones were already listening in, Livni chose to stay Olmert’s hand with an angry written retort: “I have no intention of being in a unity government headed by Netanyahu, don’t even hint that.” Her message became public when the cameras showed it on prime-time news. The incident reveals the battle lines of a stubborn political bargaining process that is unfolding in such unexpected ways that it’s still not certain who will lead Israel. Kadima won 28 seats in the 120-member parliament to Likud’s 27, but a strong rightist bloc that emerged from the vote had appeared to give Netanyahu the edge in putting together a governing majority.

Haaretz political commentator Yossi Verter compares Livni and Netanyahu to poker players, “each staring the other down, each knowing that the other also doesn’t hold good cards.”

Even without a good hand, Livni is playing it with unexpected skill. She’s adamant that because Kadima edged Likud she deserves the nod from President Shimon Peres to have the right to form the government. She’s even invited Netanyahu to join her, rejecting the idea that her party would be a “fig-leaf” to, in the description of one of her top lieutenants, “a stone age government” (a Netanyahu-led narrow government of nationalist, ultra- nationalist and religious parties). The weakness of the Livni gambit is that, without Likud, she can’t muster the numbers to form a viable coalition. Netanyahu, for his part, blusters about being the only one capable of putting together a government, even without Livni.

But his hand is not strong enough. On paper, he has a narrow majority, but he has no guarantees since his potential junior partners – notably the ultra- nationalist Israel Beiteinu party of Avigdor Liberman – refuse to line up solidly behind him. And, another complication, Netanyahu’s hope of prising away from Kadima several former prominent Likud party members and getting them to desert Livni, has also been stymied by the fact that his hand is not decisive.

Liberman, opportunely holidaying in Minsk, Belarus, holds the key to unlocking the tie, according to Israel Radio’s political savant, Hanan Crystal. “Liberman resolutely refuses to crown Netanyahu. If he decides to keep his lips sealed for the sake of a unity government, the Likud may have no alternative but to agree to a rotating two-year premiership between the two, even though Netanyahu has forbidden any mention of the dread ‘R-word’, rotation.”

All bets on who eventually will lead Israel are thus now off; the nerve- wracking poker game may not be resolved, even when later this week, Peres hears from all sides whom they recommend to lead the negotiations towards the formation of a coalition. Peres may even suspend his decision and urge Netanyahu and Livni to work out a solution acceptable to them both. The only certainty is the time frame: whoever Peres eventually entrusts with building the coalition will have a full 42 days to put it together.

The political uncertainty is propelling the outgoing Israeli government into another ‘who blinks first’ set-to – this time, with Hamas.

In a reversal of its previous position, the Olmert government is suddenly conditioning the emerging ceasefire arrangement that Egypt is mediating to end another inconclusive matter – Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza – on a long- delayed prisoner exchange. Hamas has always insisted that the prisoner issue and what it regards as the key element in the ceasefire deal – opening of all the Gaza border crossings with both Egypt and Israel – be negotiated separately.

Over the weekend, Olmert delivered a surprise when he announced that Israel would not agree to any ceasefire, or to the re-opening of the borders, unless the Israeli POW, Corporal Gilad Shalit (held captive since June 2006) is released. Hamas is demanding the release of 1,000 prisoners held by Israel. The terms of a cabinet decision regarding both a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange are being readied for a decision on Wednesday, sources in Olmert’s office confirm.

But this attempt to force Hamas’s hand may yet run into more uncertainty, a no-budge Hamas counter-bluff. Israel is banking on its perception that Hamas “desperately needs” the border crossings to open, and on Hamas realising that unless there’s a deal soon, it might not have anyone with whom to conclude it should Netanyahu come to power at the head of a narrow government. He could be held hostage by his far-right coalition partners who have opposed time and again any semblance of a ceasefire with Hamas. Because all parties are hostage to all others in this multi-faceted poker- game, the probability is that this will eventually help unravel the complex Gordian knot of both coalition-building and ceasefire-making. Or not…