This morning’s news of Prime Minister Sharon’s grave condition brings new uncertainties regarding the Israeli elections and  progress in peacemaking.

THE BALLOT BOX

This will be a pivotal year for all those involved with Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.  Both Israelis and Palestinians will be going to the polls in early 2006, with voters making decisions that will set the stage for the immediate and longer-term future.  The election processes are as significant as the result.

In the convoluted multi-party politics of Israel, the emergence of Amir Peretz as head of the Labor party is phenomenal. As an immigrant from Morocco and resident of an industrial town, his claim to fame is union organizing instead of military leadership, Peretz is a member of Peace Now and critic of the spending of Israel’s government resources on settlements while social services suffer. Even if Labor loses to Sharon’s newly invented Kadima party, Peretz’s candidacy and the breakup of Likud will shift the campaign debate considerably toward Israel’s unmet domestic needs and the fiscal drain of maintaining the settlements and their infrastructure. As the saying goes, all politics are local, but in the maelstrom of the campaign, the door to final status negotiations with the Palestinians may be unlocked.

The development of democracy prior to the establishment of sovereignty is mind-bending to the observer and a paradox for the Palestinian people and governing officials. Nevertheless, even while the people are still largely under siege in their cities and villages and militant factions attack Israelis, Palestinians campaign for legislative seats and political parties take shape. President Abbas’ goal of transforming Hamas’s supporters into candidates and voters is not endorsed by the U.S., but the U.S. is, as Secretary of State Rice said, giving “some space” to the Palestinians, “to begin to come to a new national compact.” However, it is internal jousting among Fatah contenders that threatens to delay the date set for legislative elections, January 25, 2006.  Still on the Palestinian Authority’s agenda is the monumental and absolutely necessary requirement to disarm the militants and enforce the “one authority, one law and one gun” pledge of President Abbas.

It would seem that President Bush’s policy emphasis on Arab democratization would bring with it both official U.S. support for the elections and expectations that Israel would not impede the process.

YEA OR NAY

In Jerusalem, where Israeli power is paramount and Palestinian ambitions soar, the reality of the city’s unresolved political status is most evident. It will be here that the future will be seen.  Will East Jerusalem’s Palestinians be allowed to vote and candidates to campaign, or will Israel, by bureaucratic and physical means, disenfranchise them?

The negative impact of the separation wall in and near Jerusalem was reported separately, as 2005 ended, by both the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies and the European Union. But shortly before the scheduled release of the EU report, it was shelved out of sensitivity to the shifting political landscape in Israel. The Israeli Institute’s conclusion is that while the wall may be contributing to security, overall “it has a negative effect on life in the city and its surrounding area” and in the long run may increase terrorism by the resulting frustration and anger among Palestinians in the city.

The Christmas season of 2005 brought intense attention to the impact of the separation wall on the holy city of Bethlehem and its isolation from nearby Jerusalem. 2006 is likely to be the make or break year in setting Jerusalem’s future. Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. advocates of peace will be needed to help the Bush Administration succeed in convincing Israel’s newly elected leadership to stop actions that would prejudice final status negotiations on Jerusalem.

LOOKING FOR LEADERSHIP

President Bush begins the year with bruises and lowering poll numbers. But without his, and Secretary Rice’s active engagement and leadership, progress on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking will evaporate and most likely deteriorate into tit-for-tat violence and a widening chaos. Worldwide, pressure is building, especially from the Arab world and European allies. 

The direct engagement of Secretary Rice in brokering an Israeli-Palestinian agreement on moving people and goods in and out of Gaza proved once again the necessity of hands-on diplomacy by the U.S.  As the New Year opens, it is the U.S.’s staying-power and ability to focus that now comes into question.

THE IRAQ BLUES

As the midterm elections of November 2005 near, the politically charged debate on the Iraq war will escalate, between and within the Democratic and Republican parties. It is likely that some major figures in the war-machine, such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, will fall. The failures and distortions of intelligence, the revelations of corruption by U.S. contractors, and the exposures of horrendous torture and abuse will continue to haunt President Bush.  Popular opposition to the war itself is certain to increase as photos of those who have died in Iraq continue to be broadcast into living rooms. 

In early 2006, the Pentagon will send shock waves to Congress and the public with a request for up to $100 billion more for military costs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Despite the democratization and stabilization efforts of the Administration and many of Iraq’s leaders, the breakup of Iraq looms. It’s chilling to consider the response of Turkey, Syria and Iran to a declaration of independence by the Kurdish districts. The policy option of withdrawing U.S. troops to positions “on the horizon” of the region may appear to be progress, but instead, could widen the conflict.

SYRIA IN THE CROSSHAIRS   

Ever since the Saddam Hussein regime was blasted out of power in Iraq, there have been signs and rumors that President Bashar Assad’s regime could and would meet a similar fate. Congressional drumbeats against Syria grew louder in 2005 as a result of the assassination of Lebanon leader Rafiq Hariri in Beirut in February. However, the already constrained relationship with Syria left Congress with little in the way of economic or diplomatic sticks to use against Syria.  

Signs that the Administration is considering a policy of regime change in Syria have been reported.  But in the aftermath of Saddam’s downfall, the neocon policy objective of regime change has lost much of its luster. Interestingly, Israel’s security officials fear that this development could unleash chaos and actually increase danger.

In 2006, the international community will be watching how Syria responds to the U.N. investigation into Hariri's death and for signals that the long-promised liberalization of the state is beginning. 

DEMOCRATIZATION AGENDA

The Administration’s policy to promote the “democratization” of Arab and Muslim states is stirring things up, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also among the U.S. allies ruled by monarchs or authoritarian patriarchs.  With indigenous human rights and reform-minded activists emboldened, we’re likely to see in 2006 some governments preempting reform and others reacting with increased repression.

IRAN IN THE SPOTLIGHT 

The shocking statements of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that deny the Holocaust and threaten Israel’s existence, will make it difficult to improve its relationship with the United States in 2006. Already a matter of hot debate within the Bush Administration, the strategy of how to best restrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions program will be on the front burner. It is the large, young and democratically-minded middleclass in Iran, who long to end their isolated status, that hold the key to reform.