Why Bibi is the right man for the job!

Seven years ago, sitting in the office of a well-respected Israeli human rights organisation, a friend confided in me that he often wished his organisation failed more often.  "That way" he argued "we might be closer to Mao's principle that suffering of the people will hasten the revolution."

I was shocked - two white, Western educated and privileged men sitting in an office quoting a brutal dictator in the cause of wishing more suffering on the Palestinian people was a deeply uncomfortable position.  I'm sure that if you asked any of those suffering they would deem themselves as having endured more than enough injustice to hasten a multiplicity of revolutions.  And they are correct.

But there is an essential truth in my friend's reference to Mao:  human beings respond only to crisis.  Crisis forces us in to action.   Anyone who has visited the West Bank or Gaza has seen the daily crisis for Palestinians.   But for politicians who shift the status quo only under duress the alarm bells have to be ringing loudly before they will act.

Chris Rose, the former head of Campaigns in Greenpeace, cites a paper from 2000 by Denis Loreti and Lori Peek in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.  Loreti and Peek examine people's response to warnings about nuclear power plants.  Their findings are fascinating:

"People simply do not take action in response to warning messages as soon as they hear the first warning.  Instead, people seek more information about the impending hazard and appropriate responses from those they know personally, from the news-media, and from authorities.  People call friends, relatives, and neighbours to find out what they plan to do, and they also turn on the radio and television to get more information.  Unless there is a clear explanation of the need for an immediate response, they might wait for a second, third, or fourth official warning before responding."

We've all been in a hotel or packed restaurant when the fire alarm is activated.  Mostly we look at our companions, waiting for further instructions, perhaps complain about the noise or the lost sleep.  Very rarely do we immediately stand-up and proceed towards the nearest exit in an orderly fashion.  The alarm bell itself is insufficient for us to act upon.  While this provides plenty of food for thought it also offers us a glimmer of hope: we shouldn't consider an (as yet uncertain) Bibi victory just bad news, there is a silver lining.

Netanyahu’s attempt to shift the focus of Israeli voters from his failed domestic agenda on to the Iranian question has damaged US-Israeli relations seriously.  Indeed the US-Israeli relationship is now at its weakest since Eisenhower slapped the Israelis (and the British and French allies) on the wrist for their 1956 misadventure in the Suez canal.  Although, we should be under no illusion that this damage is irreparable.  After all, the US openly resupplied Israel with arms during the war on Gaza.  However, Netanyahu’s ultra-belligerence leaves even the most pro-Israeli of Western politicians with little room for moral equivocation.

Contrast this with the prospect of victory for the, now surging, ‘Zionist Union’.  Victory for the Zionist Union will allow them to easily repair the damage to the US-Israeli relationship and present what appears to be an acceptable face of Israeli politics to the European public.  In turn this would allow Herzog and Livni to resuscitate the endless peace process.  Since the Oslo accords Israel has engaged in peace-process theatre where Palestinians are offered little but expected to sacrifice everything.  This resulted in the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and a tighter noose on Gaza.   

Tzipi Livni formerly served as chief Israeli negotiator with the Palestinians and in 2010 Al Jazeera released documents known as the Palestine papers which included meeting records between Livni and her Palestinian negotiating partners.  These leaked documents exposed Tzipi Livni’s contempt for her opposite number and her determination to expand Israeli control, irrespective of the cost for Palestinians. 

If Netanyahu is an ultra-belligerent then Herzog and Livni are ‘belligerence-lite’.  Both have supported Israel’s human rights violations against the Palestinians, from the Wall to the respective wars against people in Gaza.   The Zionist Union’s election platform commits it to a continuation of the existing policies of siege on Gaza and expansion of the settlements across the West Bank.  Ironically, given that the Zionist Union is fighting the Israeli election on the issue of a housing crisis inside Israel, no mention is made of repairing the damage done to thousands of homes destroyed in the last war in Gaza. 

On the other hand, Bibi Netanyahu is increasingly the global face of the ugliest side of Israeli politics.  Successive wars in Gaza, sabre-rattling about the Iranian threat and coalescing with the ultra-right in Israel have all served to turn public, and elite, opinion further from Israel than ever before in both Europe and the US.  When the history books are written we may find that Bibi Netanyahu proved to be the loudest alarm bell of them all.

This article was first published in a slightly modified form in the Electronic Intifada .