Netanyahu expected to return to office
2013-01-22 16:49
Jerusalem - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected
to win a third term on Tuesday in the first election in decades in which the
Mideast peace process didn't take centre stage, with many Israelis focused more
on economic woes than ending their conflict with the Palestinians.
The election comes at a troubled time for Israel.
Netanyahu's hard line on concessions to the Palestinians
has put Israel into conflict with the international community, increasing its
diplomatic isolation.
A declining economy and ballooning budget deficit mean
painful government spending cuts and possible tax increases are in store for an
electorate already bowed by the high cost of living.
In the background looms the possibility that Israel would
attack Iran over its suspect nuclear programme, a move that would likely draw
harsh retaliation by Iran and its proxies on Israel's northern and southern
borders.
Still, many voters said they'd cast ballots for
Netanyahu's list because they see no viable alternative. Polls suggest
hard-line and religious parties that have been his traditional allies will form
the core of his next coalition government.
The big question is whether Netanyahu will be able to woo
centrist parties with more moderate positions on peacemaking into his governing
coalition - and whether they would have any influence on his policies.
Netanyahu, 63, was smiling when he arrived early at a
heavily secured polling station in Jerusalem with his wife, Sara, and two sons,
both first-time voters. After voting, the prime minister told reporters that a
flood of ballots for his list "is good for Israel”.
The prime minister, whose first government in the 1990s
unravelled over similar issues of peace talks and a struggling economy,
projected himself during the three-month campaign as a tough leader who
protects Israelis' security in a hostile region.
All the polls show his Likud Party - in alliance with the
more hawkish Israel Beitenu party - winning more than a quarter of the seats,
and together with other rightist and religious parties commanding at least a
narrow majority.
What voters consider
Yakov Krugliack of the Nokdim settlement in the West Bank
said quality of life was foremost in his mind as he went to the polls.
"The economic challenge will be the biggest
challenge of this government," he said. "I would like to have a house;
I would like to live a good life with my family."
Thirty-two parties are running for representation in
Israel's 120-member parliament. Israel historically has had multiparty
governments because no party has ever won an outright majority of 61 seats in
the country's 64-year history.
Polls close at 22:00, and preliminary results are
expected about two hours later.
Up to one-sixth of the incoming legislature is expected
to be settlers who advocate holding on to captured land the Palestinians want
for a future state.
The pro-settler Jewish Home - a likely coalition partner
that has drawn a surprisingly large number of votes away from Netanyahu's list,
according to polls - is even pressing to annex large chunks of the West Bank,
the core of any future Palestinian state.
Motti Saban, a 25-year-old student in Jerusalem, said he
would vote for Jewish Home.
"We are right-wing and we want to see a parliament
that is more right wing than now," Saban said. While social issues are
important, he said, they are being promoted most by left-leaning parties more
open to making territorial concessions, including partitioning the holy city of
Jerusalem.
"So yes, social issues affect us all, but I won't
give up Jerusalem, that's more important," Saban said.
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war
and immediately annexed it. The Palestinians want that sector of the city for a
future capital, but Netanyahu says Israel won't share sovereignty over the city
at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Concerns
Some Israelis warn that the continued occupation of
millions of disenfranchised Palestinians will turn Israel into an
apartheid-like state where a Jewish minority will ultimately rule over an Arab
majority.
Yet the conflict with the Palestinians, long a dominant
issue in Israeli politics, has barely registered as a campaign issue. Many
Israelis have despaired of the prospect of making peace, believing Israel's
best possible offers have been made and spurned, sometimes violently.
Many are also disillusioned with the bitter experience of
Israel's unilateral pullout from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which led to years of
attacks from militants there.
The country's centre-left opposition that rallied around
the issue for decades is badly splintered and has failed to produce a
compelling alternative leader.
The Labour Party, traditionally the dominant
standard-bearer for peacemaking, is now more focused on the average Israeli's
frustration at having to struggle to make ends meet.
Prospects for peacemaking would not necessarily be
improved even if Netanyahu, in his desire to establish a broad, stable
government, reaches across the aisle to co-opt lawmakers interested in
clinching an accord. Two moderate partners had joined his current government
but ultimately bolted, in part because they didn't think he was serious about
making peace.
Talks stalled before he was elected four years ago and
never revived in earnest, largely because of conflicts over continued Israeli
settlement construction.
Palestine’s fear
Palestinians say the continued construction is a sign
Netanyahu is not approaching peacemaking in good faith.
Netanyahu rejects
their calls for a settlement construction freeze and notes that a 10-month
construction slowdown Israel imposed earlier in his term did not bring the
Palestinians back to the negotiating table until just weeks before it expired.
Palestinians also fear Netanyahu's ambitious plans for
settlement construction could kill their dreams of establishing an independent
state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, territories Israel
captured in 1967 and still controls to varying degrees.
Their hope is that President Barack Obama, emboldened by
his own re-election, will pressure Netanyahu to return to negotiations on their
terms.
But it is equally possible Obama won't risk squandering
political capital on the peace process unless he is convinced Israel is willing
to make concessions that Netanyahu has not yet signalled he is ready to make.
- AP
