The right wing smells blood. While the left and center parties are sitting still, wondering what will be the main issue of the upcoming general election (the economy? The peace process? government corruption?) on the right, new parties are being born and retired politicians along with their retired ideas are coming back from the cold, as if the year was 1998. The reason is simple: everybody reads the polls - predicting more than 30 MKs to the Likud and between 60 to 70 MKs to the right block - and everyone wants in.
In the Likud the big news are the return of Bennie Begin (son of the late PM Menachem Begin) who left the Netanyahu government angrily in 1997, in account of the Hebron accord. Begin said some harsh things about Netanyahu (“If I had to chose who to believe, Bibi or [MK Ahmed] Tibi, I'd have no reason to prefer the former”), but the electoral promise of this election presented him with an opportunity even he couldn't resist. Begin is an asset to the Likud, no doubt. He's remembered as a “clean” and honest politician, untainted by the Sharon-Olmert politics of recent years. However, his radical hawkish views might present Netanyahu with a problem later on.
Another new member of the Likud is Brigadier General Miri Regev, former spokeswoman of the IDF. The public opinion on her is mixed at best, because Regev is identified with the failure of the second Lebanon war. Another retired Brigadier General who expressed his will to join the Likud is MK Effi Eitam, who was elected to the Knesset as part of the radical Ihud Leumi Party. Eitam might bring Netanyahu a few votes from the right, but he also presents him with a problem – a Likud with Eitam will make it easier on Labor and Kadima to portray it as an extreme Right-wing party, making it lose ground in the center of the political map. This problem might be solved by a possible endorsement by Yuval Rabin, which was reported in the Israeli media this week. Yuval Rabin is the son of the late PM and hero of “the peace camp” Itzhak Rabin, and the perfect candidate to clear Netanyahu of any radical image.
Altogether, I believe Netanyahu has learned the lesson of his miserable first term in the prime minister office. He knows that in Israel you have to campaign to the right and rule to the left. Right-wing coalitions can't survive: the minute the PM starts any sort of peace talks, his partners will bring him down. It happened to Yitzhak Shamir, to Ariel Sharon (who lost control over his own Likud party) and to Netanyahu himself. This time, It is more than likly that Netanyahu will try to build a coalition with Kadima and even Labor. But first he has to win the election.
Israel Beitenu is the other emerging power on the Right. Its leader, Avigdor Liberman, promotes what looks like the only solution the Right has to offer to the Palestinian problem: he is willing to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank on one condition – an exchange of territories that will keep the big settlements under Israeli regime, while including in the Palestinian state a few Arab cities which are currently within the Israeli borders. Liberman is a dangerous man: his ideas harvest hatred between Jews and Arabs. He makes many Israelis delegitimize the Arab-Israeli citizens and their rights. He also has the habit of making insulting remarks and even threats towards Arab leaders in the region. With the current nationalistic and even racist atmosphere in Israel, he is getting stronger and I believe he can achieve up to 15 MKs in the next Knesset. It will be hard for him to go beyond that: he is a Russian immigrant, and racism works in many ways.
The rise of Liberman should also worry the Ihud Leumi party (the name means “national unity” in Hebrew). Ihud Leumi was a coalition of four extreme Right wing, mostly religious, parties: Mafdal (the national religious front), Tkuma, Moledet and a party of former Mafdal members. All four have decided last week to unite completely. Currently they are searching for a new name, and a national figure to lead them after Effi Eitam had left them (they weren't too happy with him anyway). The fact that another MK has left and formed his own party – MK Arie Eldad – won't make life easier on them either. “The ideological Right” - as all these movements are sometimes referred to – is experiencing problems gaining ground with mainstream secular voters. I see it as part of the crisis in the religious right and the settlement movement; Maybe I'll elaborate on this issue in the future.
As for the two Hasidic parties on the Right block – Shas and Yahadut Hatorah - nothing major is happening with them lately. Shas is running a bit low in the polls (around 10 MKs), and from what I gather, they are having problems with the secular Sepharadic public who used to vote for them in great numbers. But as I wrote before, Shas always under performs in the polls.
Update: Yuval Rabin was on “Meet the Press” on channel 2 today, just hours before the annual memorial service commemorating his father at Rabin square. He didn't deny the reports on him considering to endors Netanyahu, but avoided declaring any final decision. When asked how could he possibly support the man who played such a major role in spreading hate against his father and creating the atmosphere that led to his murder, Rabin answered that “things have changed”. Indeed they have.
Update #2: Dan Meridor, a highly popular former MK and minister for the Likud, who left the party because of differences with Netanyahu, announced his return to the Likud. Things are looking good for Bibi.
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