Israel PM eyes right wing votes
2012-12-20 22:02
Jerusalem - Israel's rush to push ahead new settler homes
may have sparked global anger, but for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu it is
a way to counter the rising power of the hard right ahead of a January vote,
commentators say.
With less than five weeks left of campaigning until the 22
January general election, Netanyahu's government has this week pushed ahead
with plans to build nearly 5 700 new settlement homes, most of them in annexed
east Jerusalem.
World condemnation has poured in with UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon warning Israel was on a "dangerous path" and
Washington denouncing the planned construction as a "pattern of
provocative action”.
And the EU on Thursday slammed Israel's
"unprecedented expansion of settlements around Jerusalem," describing
it as "extremely troubling”.
But in Israel, commentators were unanimous that the
proposals were Netanyahu's way of winning rightwing support in the face of the
rising popularity of Jewish Home, a hard-line national religious party led by
his former office chief, Naftali Bennett.
"The torrent of construction plans... is not just a
punitive step against the Palestinian Authority for its application to the UN,"
Maariv newspaper said earlier this week.
"Senior Likud sources admit these construction plans
have a direct relationship to the current election campaign."
New homes
Israel began approving new settler homes en masse on 30 November
as a punitive step the day after the UN
General Assembly voted to recognise Palestine as a non-member state in the face
of strong US and Israeli opposition.
"This is our campaign. Until now, it has worked
excellently," a Likud source told Maariv.
Although Netanyahu's rightwing nationalist Likud Beitenu
list, grouping his party with the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu, is in pole
position to form the next coalition government, recent polls show growing
support for Jewish Home under its new leader.
"The campaign of construction permits in Jerusalem,
which has been conducted in the past two weeks from the Prime Minister's office,
is an election campaign to all intents and purposes, which is intended to take
over the agenda and stop the spill-over of seats to Jewish Home chairman
Naftali Bennett," wrote Maariv commentator Mazal Mualem.
"This is a simple campaign, and for the time being a
successful one," she wrote, noting that it was unclear how many of the
plans would ultimately be implemented.
Poll
According to a poll on 18 December by Channel 2 television,
Jewish Home could win enough votes to become the third largest party in parliament
with 12 seats after Likud Beitenu's 35 and Labour's 19.
"It is mainly Jewish Home that is becoming
stronger," said Mina Tzemah, who conducted the poll. "Bennett is
taking [seats] away from the Likud."
Within the settler lobby, some expressed scepticism the
plans would ever get off the drawing table, accusing "Bibi" Netanyahu
of bluffing.
"Every time they want to manufacture a headline they
say that construction has been approved," activist Yonatan Yosef was
quoted as saying by the Yediot Aharonot daily.
"Bibi's just looking for headlines. He's scamming
everyone. He doesn't really want to build for Jews. He only wants to appear
rightwing," he said.
Winning votes
Aryeh King, a powerful property dealer at the forefront
of building settler homes in the heart of Arab neighbourhoods in east
Jerusalem, said Netanyahu was trying to win back votes after being
"defeated" by Gaza's Hamas rulers during an eight-day confrontation
last month.
"Netanyahu is trying to win votes from the right
after he disappointed everyone when Hamas defeated him in Operation Pillar of
Defence, so he's trying to win votes over Jerusalem," Yediot quoted him as
saying.
Jewish Home's Bennett said the problem lay in Israel's
acceptance of a two-state solution to end the conflict with the Palestinians.
"Israel's problem isn't construction, but the talk
about the construction," Maariv quoted him as saying.
"On the one hand, the government voices its support
for a Palestinian state and on the other, punishes the world and the
Palestinians when they turn to the UN to receive state status."
The solution, he said, was "to withdraw our consent
for a Palestinian state that everyone already realises isn't going to be
established."
