by David Kimchi

Good, but not good enough. That was how the peace camp in Israel summed up the results of the elections. The left of center had hoped for more, but was not overly dissatisfied with what it got. The peaceniks consoled themselves with the fact that their opponents had much greater cause to bemoan the results.

Those results were, above all, a vote of no confidence in the settler movement and its backers. The Likud had declared that the election results should be accepted as a referendum on Kadima's avowed intention to lead a policy of withdrawal from occupied territories. The majority of Israel's voters very clearly pronounced their support for that proposed withdrawal. Moreover, the Likud was trounced, and the major settler supporters--the National Religious Party in cohorts with the ultra-right, pro-transfer party of Beny Elon--did more poorly than expected, with their votes coming overwhelmingly from the settlers themselves.

The Gaza disengagement last year had shown that the majority of Israelis were disenchanted with the settler movement and with Israel's presence in the occupied territories. This was, however, the first national election in which the choice of staying or leaving a large part of the West Bank was put to such a clear test, and the results were as convincing as they could be. Even the successful right-wing ultra-nationalist party, Yisrael Beiteinu, whose leader has been termed an Israeli equivalent of Le Pen, is willing to give up most of the West Bank.

However, the fact that Kadima received far fewer votes than it had expected will make it more difficult to establish a strong government able to implement its policy of withdrawal. Its first priority will be, in any case, to patch together a coalition that enables it to receive a majority of votes in the Knesset in the forthcoming debate on the government budget, for without a budget it will not be able to govern. Given the social agenda of its major prospective coalition partners, this will be no easy hurdle to surmount. Yet after the budget the big, overriding issue before the new government will be its Palestinian policy.

It has, theoretically, three options: to maintain the status quo for any number of reasons; to begin negotiations with the Palestinians for an agreed settlement; or to declare that a Hamas government precludes any possibility of negotiations and it therefore opts for a unilateral withdrawal. Its choices will be largely affected by the composition of the ruling coalition, by Washington, and by the Palestinians.

In practice, however, those choices are severely limited. Maintaining the status quo and not budging from any part of the West Bank would discredit Kadima and the entire government, for the center plank of the prime minister-designate's election platform was his pledge to withdraw to what would become the permanent borders of Israel.

Moreover, on the assumption that the Labor Party would be Kadima's leading coalition partner, Labor leader Amir Peretz would on no account allow his party to remain in the coalition if the government did not follow through on its pledge to withdraw.

The relatively small number of mandates separating Labor from Kadima will enable Labor to influence government policy in a much stronger manner than in previous governments. Moreover, Amir Peretz is not Shimon Peres, and Ehud Olmert is not Ariel Sharon. Peretz will not remain in a government that reneges on its central policy issue. Peretz, who dislikes the idea of unilateralism, will insist that the government make every effort to reach agreement by negotiation before going unilateral. He believes negotiations are possible with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) or with people he appoints.

In a recent poll initiated by the Geneva Accord Movement and conducted by the Hebrew University's Truman Institute, 60 percent of Israelis favored negotiations with Abu Mazen and 46 percent believed that a peace accord ending the conflict is possible despite the Hamas government. Ehud Olmert himself, in his victory speech on March 28, reiterated his determination to enter into peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Significantly, he said not a word about the Hamas government. The mutual refusal of both Hamas and Israel to have anything to do with each other will, in all probability, be circumvented through unofficial contacts by non-government persons while official negotiations will be strictly with non-Hamas officials of the President's Office.

Washington, for its part, can also be expected to press for a resumption of negotiations and will only reluctantly approve of unilateral withdrawal as a second best choice if negotiations prove to be impossible.

Finally, as always in our corner of the world, any prognosis for the future will be worthless if renewed violence--katyushas, qassams, suicide bombers-undermines the chance of successful negotiations. Will the new Hamas government be willing to curb renewed violence? That is the big question that will determine future moves on the political chessboard. The answer to that question will tell us whether Israelis and Palestinians alike can live in hope for the future or in despair.

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- Published 3/4/2006 - bitterlemons.org

David Kimche, former director-general of Israel's Ministry for Foreign Affairs, is today president of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations and is active in a number of peace organizations.