By IINA,
Dubai : Last week’s Israeli election has greatly encouraged the main rival Palestinian factions – Hamas and Fatah – to put aside their differences and bridge the gap separating them amid the changing face of Israel in religious and ideological perspectives. For the Fatah leadership, the victory of Israel’s “right” in last Tuesday’s election has negated the possibility of reviving peace talks in the foreseeable future because the “right wing in doesn’t differentiate between Hamas and Fatah”, said Hani Al Masri, director of the Ramallah-based Badael Research Center. None of the politicians from the Israeli political mosaic has mentioned the peace talks during the election campaign.
Hamas, which was warned during the election campaign with elimination threats from all candidates, on the other hand, found itself in a position that requires “softening” its position and come closer to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who has the keys to lift the siege imposed on Gaza and reopen the border posts with Egypt. As a result, several meetings were held between senior officials from Hamas and Fatah in Cairo in the past few days. The agreements included ending their media campaigns against feuding parties and discussing the issue of prisoners in each other’s jails and their release. “There is an increasing realisation of the importance of unity among Palestinian parties after the Israeli elections,” Al Masri said in an interview with Gulf News.
The election gave a tight victory to Kadima, which was formed from mainly former Likud’s members. It got 28 seats, while the Likud 27. The controversial far-right Avigdor Lieberman came third and gained 15 seats in the 120-member Parliament. Politicians’ platforms were so “similar” that the voter found it difficult to distinguish between right, center and left, analysts believe. Also, “it was the first elections to be held in the total absence of the historical traditional Israeli leaders from the political arena,” Saeed Ayyash, head of the Israeli division at the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Israeli studies, noted in reference to “founders” of 60-year-old Israel. While politicians are about to start their marathon talks to form a government, analysts say while “all” Israel has been moving towards the right since the “Grapes of Wrath” war on Lebanon in 1996, “today, we don’t see any more the Left trend in Israel&This is something new,” Al Masri said.
More than 12 years ago, hundreds of anti-war demonstrations were organised in Israel. However, during this year’s war on Gaza, even the peace-supporting Meretz party announced its support to the massive offensive against the improvised Gaza strip. The security issue dominated last week’s elections, and it was “who can best controlled security for Israel”, Nichloas Pehlem, a Jerusalem-based senior analyst for International Crisis Group, said. Even the Israeli youth, who are described as “secular”, are leaning towards the right in their ideologies. The age group between 0-18 years constitutes 31.9 per cent, while the age group between 19-64 years old form 56.4 percent of the nearly 7.5 million Israel’s population, Israeli official statistics show.