With the Jasmine Revolution sweeping the MENA region, Israel finds itself for the first time, in a LONG TIME, not at the heart of international criticism. Obviously most Jews and Israelis embrace this unique timeout, however, there are a few guys like me who think the Israeli government could use this time for some personal self-reflection. I happen to believe that Israeli domestic reform is crucial to rejuvenating the nearly dead peace process. Mostly, I think there needs to be some electoral reform. The current style of government is too party oriented, and younger individuals aren’t getting a chance to prove their worth or share their ideas about moving forward with the peace process. While I know that probably no matter what the Israeli government does it won’t be able to reconcile with Hamas, it should do everything in its power to better its positioning in the international community, and that starts with helping itself.
I recently got the chance to meet up with Jerusalem Post reporter, and author of the new book Virtual Caliphate, Yaakov Lappin. Yaakov and I have had an open discussion about Israeli and Middle Eastern politics dating back to my time spent at the University of Haifa. Here’s what he had to say about some of the questions I had about domestic Israeli reform, the peace process, and a possible war with Hamas:
FPA ISRAEL BLOG: For the first time in a long time, Israel is not under the gun in the media, a result of the Jasmine Revolution. The way I see it, this might be a good time for Israel to work on some domestic issues with out facing international scrutiny. Electoral reform comes to mind for me, as I think the current style of government in Israel incites corruption, Avigdor Liebmeran appears to be its latest victim. Is this need for reform realized and vocalized in Israeli politics and within society? Do you think there is a need for this reform?
LAPPIN: Within Israel, the call for reforms to the political system has been
issued continuously by a variety of legal, political, and social sources, and there is near universal recognition of the need to institute changes.
The debate is now focused on what those changes should be. The drive for reform is unrelated to external or regional events, or foreign media coverage of Israel. Current challenges include the harmful side effects caused by proportional representation, such as a plethora of parties, unstable coalitions, and the existence of small parties that pursue narrow interests and which exploit their ability to blackmail coalitions.
Recently, the Israel Democracy Institute submitted a report to the Knesset, composed by former Supreme Court Judge Meir Shmagar, which called for the following steps to redress these issues:
* Financial rewards for political parties that hold internal primaries
– aimed at punishing parties that are ruled by lone individuals or committees in an undemocratic fashion
* Increased oversight of party membership to prevent fraud
* Raising the required percentage of vote that parties need to enter the Knesset from 2% to 4%, in order to flush smaller parties out of the system, thereby allowing greater government stability. With regards to the system’s vulnerability to corruption, senior echelons in the police have publicly expressed their concern over this issue, both at the level of local government (there are many mayors and local officials under investigation for corruption, often involving real estate tenders), and at the level of central government. On the other hand, law enforcement and the courts have proven themselves able to investigate a serving prime minister (Ehud Olmert), force his resignation, and place him on multiple trials. Additionally, there has been no hesitation in investigating, prosecuting, and imprisoning former senior ministers, such as former finance minister Avraham Hirschson, who is currently a prison inmate after his conviction of public embezzlement. Former president Moshe Katzav will soon begin a 7-year jail term for rape.
All of this means that the general public has developed a zero tolerance approach to improper conduct by elected representatives, and that police and prosecutors are able to patrol all levels of government with full confidence. A highly critical and independent media is also contributing to the anti-corruption wave sweeping the country.
Some commentators have called for restructuring local government to minimize opportunities for bribery and foul play.
FPA ISRAEL BLOG: Do you think these reforms could also help rejuvenate the peace process?
LAPPIN: I don’t think so. The peace process is stalled due to a variety of reasons, not least of which is that the Palestinian people are divided into 2 hostile camps, making it impossible to negotiate with a single Palestinian representative.
Hamas does not recognize Israel, making peace talks irrelevent to the Gaza arena. Fatah, which rules the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, is refusing to come to the table at this stage. One of the reasons for this refusal could be PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s belief that he is too weak to conclude a peace treaty in defiance of Hamas and its Iranian patron.
Of course, within Israel, the opposition, led by Kadima, has been highly critical of Netanyahu, accusing him of failing to take peace talks with the PA forward. But domestic reforms would not, in my view, give Kadima better chances of being voted in. At the same time, the results of the last general elections were very close, and it was unclear at first who would form the government. Changes to the electoral system could ensure that such uncertainty following elections would not be repeated.
FPA ISRAEL BLOG: From my last few trips to Israel I have picked up on a feeling of exhaustion from the Israeli public in regards to the peace process. I also think there might be a feeling that it’s time for some of these older politicians to start listening to the younger generation a bit more. Maybe some reform that encouraged younger individuals to have a stronger role in politics might give a newer sense of hope for the peace process, on both the Israeli and Palestinian side, at least in the West Bank.
LAPPIN: It’s important to separate the 2 issues in my view. After 2000, when Arafat rejected the Camp David proposals for a Palestinian state, and launched a wave of lethal suicide bombings, the majority of the Israeli public felt it had been deceived, and that the basic premise of the peace negotiations, land for peace, had been proven to be a falsehood.
The notion of unilateral disengagement was also discredited after Israel left Gaza in 2005, and rocket attacks from the Strip only intensified.
So when Netanyahu says that Israel won’t leave the West Bank until it is clear that rockets won’t fall on Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion airport, the majority of the Israeli public backs his stance. Years of suicide bombings and rockets have convinced the majority of the Israeli public that peace is out of reach for the time being.
On the second issue, of corruption in politics, there is definitely an unmistakable sense of embitterment with politicians among the general public, who are fed up of hearing about corruption and investigations into alleged and proven wrongdoing by elected officials.
FPA ISRAEL BLOG: Lets switch gears for a moment. I’ve read a few interviews with some Israeli officials over the last week or so, and everyone is asking the same thing…do you think Israel is about to take another stab at Hamas?
LAPPIN: Israel faces 2 options when it comes to Hamas:
1. Containment through deterrence, while undermining the Hamas regime through non-military means, and attempting to intercept arms shipments from Iran.
This policy is based on the eventual hope that Fatah would once again rule Gaza in the future after the collapse of Hamas.
2. Instituting regime change by military force
Since Hamas came to power in a violent coup in 2007 and removed Fatah from power in Gaza, Israel has consistently stuck to the first option. Despite thousands upon thousands of rockets leveled at its south from Gaza every year, Israel is reluctant to invade Gaza and carry out full scale regime change, because of the high cost such a war would entail,
the uncertainty of who would replace Hamas, and the current wave of instability and protests washing over the region.
Israel has used force to try and maintain deterrence against Hamas, so far with very mixed results. The months that followed Operation Cast Lead in 2009 were relatively quiet due to the deterrence achieved by that
operation, which was launched after life in the south of Israel became paralyzed by Palestinian rockets.
But as time has gone by, that deterrence has decreased, and the south of Israel has again faced rocket attacks from Gaza. In the meantime, Hamas is amassing long-range Grad rockets and is in possession of the Iranian Fajr missile that puts Tel Aviv in range.
It is also importing sophisticated technology from Iran such as the shoulder-held anti-tank missile that was used to target a school bus in Israel last week, leading to the death of an Israeli teenager.
Israel recently unrolled the revolutionary Iron Dome rocket shield system – the only one of its kind, which offers southern cities and towns very good protection. The system allows the Israeli government more time to decide how to handle escalations in the security situation.
Since coming to power, Hamas has acted in accordance with its jihadi charter and has allocated huge resources to terrorizing residents of southern Israel with rockets. At the same time, Hamas has found itself bound by the constraints that come with sovereignty over a territory, so it has declared ceasefires in between rounds of fighting to allow its armed forces time to recuperate and to avoid massive resentment by the Gazan civilian population.
Hamas’s control over the Strip is being challenged by a coalition of small Salafi al-Aqaeda affiliated groups who are also armed with rockets and who strike at Israel routinely, in defiance of Hamas ceasefires. One of these groups recently kidnapped and murdered pro-Palestinian Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni.
Armed clashes between Hamas security forces and these global jihadi groups take place on occasion, when Hamas feels its rule is being blatantly challenged.
FPA ISRAEL BLOG: So in your professional opinion, should we expect to see a clash with Hamas on the scale of Operation Cast Lead?
LAPPIN: I try to stay clear of predictions, because the situation is so variable and volatile, and can change from day to day. What I can say is that from a long-term national security perspective, the status quo is intolerable.
The existence of an Islamist jihadi enclave on our southern border, which has become a satellite proxy of Iran, an Iranian rocket base, and a hive for a plethora of jihadi organizations cannot be tolerated by Israel indefinitely.
If the Hamas regime continues to exist in its present form, and continues to consolidate its power, while amassing a rocket and explosives arsenal, and if it does not reform its ideology, charter, and policy of targeting Israeli civilians in the south, I believe Israel will be forced to activate the regime change option. This is a very unattractive option for reasons we mentioned, but with every new round of fighting, it is being weighed with increasing seriousness.
In a regime change manuever, ground troops would need to take control of all of Gaza, and make their way through dense urban battlefields, unlike in Operation Cast Lead, where ground troops played a limited role and did not advance into Gaza City.
Another point worth making is that the Iron Dome system has made the ground invasion of Gaza an easier option, since Hamas would be severly limited in its ability to strike population centers in the south with long-range Grad rockets. That takes the pressure off of military planners.