-----Original Message-----
From: rayrena <rayrena at accesshub.net>
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>All the reports I have been reading also stress that this election is not
>about "security" or the Palestinians, that for the first time an Israeli
>election is about political personalities and domestic issues. None of them
>explain why this is is, or what they mean by that.
While it is extreme to say the peace process is not a core issue, the reality seems to be that Israelis have faced the fact that world opinion has de facto agreed to create a Palestinian state of some form, the main signs being Clinton's semi-state visit to Arafat in the Palestinian Authority and the recent official European Union statement in favor of a Palestinian State.
While the main parties may be divided on how much land to give and how nasty to be in doing so, there are a lot of Israelis who think those differences pale compared to much larger differences on domestic issues - the parlance is that the debate is no longer over the size of Israel, but what kind of Israel is will exist.
Part of the debate is over immigration which itself is tied to the religious versus secular debate raging through the society: marriages, conversions, who has to serve in the army, who will control education and so on.
Secondly, Netayanu enacted a whole series of neoliberal economic policies. This was significant because the Likud, despite being on the "right", had largely represented poor and working class Sephardic Jews against often more affluent Jews represented by Labor. However, the more recent Likud policies have angered poor Sephardic and many Russian Jews who feel betrayed by Likud. Economic issues are playing a much larger role in this campaign, with rather amazing rearrangements of the political map due to economic issues.
Thirdly, the Arab Israeli population has become a much more explicit, active player. And much of their mobilization is less about the West Bank and Gaza, but instead is aimed at ending anti-Arab discrimination within Israel, with obvious economic issues tied to their goals as well. Most of the Arab parties are now actively campaigning in support of Labor's Barak and even West Bank Palestinian religious authorities have endorsed and even ordered massive voting as a responsibility of Israeli Arabs. In some ways, most significantly, those Islamic leaders in Palestine have spoken of the "specific" interests of Israeli Arabs as distinct from West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, a complement to Israeli recognition of some real settlement of two separate states, however agonizing in its creation in the coming years.
I recommend http://www.merip.org/netnews.htm for general news of the region from a variety of sources, Israeli and Arab, plus for the Israeli election itself, check out the Jerusalem Post's special section at:
http://www.jpost.co.il/Info/Elections99/
This includes full discussion of every party, the issues, the electoral system and a range of stories leading up to the election.
--Nathan Newman