Israel's Netanyahu Faces Tough Politics at Home
Domestically, the prime minister is wary of getting outflanked on his right.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must contend with turmoil in Jerusalem and political pressure from both sides.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long faced domestic challenges which impede the possibility for achieving peace with the Palestinians, compounding international scrutiny following this summer's war in Gaza.
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Those challenges were underscored Thursday when Naftali Bennett, Israeli's economic minister, said the growing threat of the Islamic State group proves that Israeli security would be endangered by withdrawing from additional territory and the establishment of a Palestinian State in the West Bank. He said that terrorists would target all of Israel and potentially flood the country.
“The secret is bottom-up peace. After more than two decades of working on a single solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the establishment of a Palestinian state – it is time to realize that coexistence and peaceful relations will not be obtained through artificial processes imposed on us from above,” Bennett wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times.
Bennett is a member of the Jewish Home Party, which rejects the two-state solution which has been supported by Netanyahu and regarded by most of the international community as the best solution to the conflict. The economic minister instead called for an “upgrade” of autonomy in the West Bank although the Palestinian entity “will be short of a state.” He also called for improvements to roads and infrastructure and removal of roadblocks in the West Bank.
Netanyahu is endangered domestically by challenges to his leadership from the right from those who say allowing Palestine to become a state would imperil Israeli security. His Likud Party has long been hawkish and did not publicly support a two-state solution until Netanyahu endorsed one. The prime minister has said, however, that he doesn’t foresee an independent Palestinian state with no Israeli military presence.
Netanyahu and his Likud Party are “terrified” of the Jewish Home Party, says Naomi Paiss of the New Israel Fund, a progressive nonprofit which supports a two-state solution. She says Israeli politics has gradually moved to the right in recent years, in part by the right wing’s large financial power, even though public opinion overwhelmingly supports a two-state solution.
“That’s who Netanyahu is scared of,” Paiss says of Bennett.
Lisa Goldman, director of the Israel-Palestine Initiative at the New America Fund says in Israel, the number one political issue is security. That means that any policies supported by the government seen by Israelis as threatening their safety will not be popular.
“Netanyahu does have to be aware that he actually does sometimes run the risk of being ‘out nationalistic-ed’ by his own coalition partners,” Goldman says. “You have to be cognizant of the fact that your coalition partners are eyeing your job. He’s got two coalition partner leaders, Bennett and [Yisrael Beiteinu Party leader Avigdor] Lieberman, both of whom think that they can be prime minister one day, and they’d rather it be sooner than later.”
Goldman says these political considerations impact Netanyahu’s ability and desire to compromise on land disputes with Palestine. If the coalition were to split, elections would be held and Netanyahu could lose his position.
“This is one of the reasons, by the way, that Netanyahu would never seriously go into negotiations right now that would involve, say, dividing Jerusalem, because that would mean the end of his collation right away,” Goldman says.
Tension over east Jerusalem has been high lately over an area both Palestinians and Israelis claim as their capital.
Two separate attacks on Wednesday saw Palestinians drive vehicles into crowds of Israelis. In Jerusalem, a low-level Hamas activist drove his car into pedestrians, killing a police officer and injuring others. The attacker was shot dead by police. In the West Bank, three soldiers were run over by a car with Palestinian plates. That driver escaped.
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Hamas did not openly take credit for the Jerusalem attack, but a spokesman for the group said, “We believe it is a natural reaction to Israel’s crimes.”
Tension has increased in recent weeks at a holy site to both Jews and Muslims. Jewish temples used to stand on the place where the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock now stand. Nationalists have sought the right to pray at the site although Israeli prayer there is currently banned in an attempt to maintain peace.
Israel closed the site one day last week to prevent more violence after a Palestinian assassination suspect was killed. Jordan withdrew its ambassador to Israel on Wednesday in protest after Israeli security forces entered the mosque with their boots on and damaged the building.
Relations between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama have long been strained despite the fact that the United States and Israel have generally enjoyed one of the strongest diplomatic relationships in the world. The tension increased last week when an anonymous Obama official was quoted as calling Netanyahu a “chickenshit” because “he won’t do anything to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians or with the Sunni Arab states. The only thing he’s interested in is protecting himself from political defeat.”
Both Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry rejected the comments as unproductive, and Kerry called Netanyahu to apologize.
The U.S. opposes Israel's continued settlement construction and was unhappy when peace talks led by Kerry broke down in April.
