Increasing Importance of Jordan Rift Buffer
The landslide electoral victory of Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections has created an entirely new strategic reality for Israel which vastly increases the importance of the Jordan Valley. But not only Israel’s internal security is at stake, but its eastern neighbour and strategic ally, the Hshemite Kingdom of Jordan, has become under jeopardy as well.
The general in charge of Israel’s central command, Major General Yair Naveh, had recently sparked a round of diplomatic turmoil when he told foreign correspondents and diplomats that King Abdallah II of Jordan could be the last Hashemite ruler, if the Islamic fundamentalist movements on both sides of the River Jordan, will dominate the political scene. This trend has already started shaping up late March, when Hamas officially became the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza.
In a recent study on Jordan released by the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Professor Asher Susser has predicted that the January Palestinian election results, with Hamas winning a landslide victory, might appear to have particularly negative consequences for the Hashemite Kingdom.
Indeed, the young king has every reason to worry over the negative developments in the West Bank. An escalating Palestinian–Israeli confrontation has always been a Jordanian nightmare because of the possibility that it could spread across the River into Jordan. What has sofar efficiently blocked such a dangerous spillover, is the strong Israeli military presence in the strategic Jordan Rift Valley, creating a near hermetic Buffer Zone, between the volatile West Bank and Jordan.
The topographical features of the Jordan Rift Valley are unique. The section which represents the Israel-Jordanian border ranges from the Sea of Galilee in the North to the Dead Sea in the South and thereon to the Gulf of Aqaba. The Jordan River flows from north to south for 330km, three times as far as its straight line, which measures only 105km. The difference results from the windings of the waterbase, which creates thick overgrowth - impenetrable even on foot. Only a few metres deep, even during the high winter season, the river itself can hardly be regarded as a serious military obstacle but the thick overgrowth makes it so. The rift valley itself, some 400m below sea level, the lowest in the world, rises sharply to near 1,000m to the west, and similarly to the east, a significant topographic feature over which only a few narrow paved roads and difficult mountain tracks lead. The valley itself is only some 5km wide in the north and 23km wide in the south. It is dominated through its entire length from the positions overlooking it, by the high mountain ridges on both sides of the rift valley, ideal features, from a pure military viewpoint.
There are strong mutual strategic interests between the Hashemite Kingdom and Israel to maintain Israel’s military presence in the Jordan rift buffer zone, but complex internal and external political issues are involved here. The Hashemite Kingdom, while it would never admit this publicly, has a strong vested interest in a continuing Israeli military presence in that strategic part of land to its West. In fact, with Hamas dominating the Palestinian Authority, Jordan could, without Israel’s presence, find itself sandwiched between the pro-Iranian forces in Iraq and a pro-Iranian Palestinian Authority.
As regards Israel’s own security, after the 2003 Iraq War, it became commonplace in parts of the Western policymaking community to assert that, since the U.S. had eliminated the threat emanating from the armoured formations of Saddam Hussein, Israel could relax its traditional territorial claims for defensible borders in the West Bank. The argument was further reinforced by the fact that Israel had a peace treaty with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan since 1994. This led many observers to the conclusion that Israel no longer needed to control its strategic barrier in the Jordan Valley that served as its primary line of defense since 1967
However, acording to Dr Dore Gold, heading the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Israel in 2006 already faces a rapidly changing strategic landscape. The Iraq war has had a number of unintended side effects which could destabilize Israel’s eastern front in several respects. A waning presence of US military forces in Iraq, will only escalate this trend.
First, there is the direct threat of jihadi terrorism. Iraq clearly has replaced Afghanistan as a new global terrorist center, drawing Islamic volunteers from Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Speaking last January, at the Herzliya Conference to a panel on “Defensible Borders for Israel,” former IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Moshe Yaalon warned that Israel might face the threat of mujahideen from the Iraq war seeking to infiltrate into Israel. First signs of this have already been sighted, with the recent “first” 122mm Grad rocket fired from Gaza.
Colonel Ephraim Kam, deputy head of JCSS, a former IDF military intelligence official, stresses that the Jordan Rift Valley is an essential element in Israel’s national security within the context of an overall agreement with any future PNA. Although he accepts that sweeping changes, mostly positive in nature, have taken place in the region during the last two decades, recent trends in increased fundamentalist expansions in the region, especially in Iran, are threatening to reverse these positive developments.
Although the Hashemite regime has achieved considerable stability over the past decades and King Abdallah II seems to be in full control, it would be a grave strategic mistake to regard Jordan as a reliable buffer zone for Israel’s security on a long-term basis. Serious challenge to the royal Jordanian household, both from its east and especially to its west, through a growing Iranian-supported Hamas regime, could create new national identity pressure among Jordan’s Palestinian population.
Under such uncertain strategic circumstances Israel would have no alternative but to undertake significant security precautions in sensitive areas affecting its national defence priorities. The Jordan Rift Valley with its highly strategic topographic features, would certainly remain one of those highly indispensable assets.
Should, however, the present trend for Islamic fundamentalis still be halted in time, by a determined joint western effort, before engulfing the entire region and replacing a “normal’ PNA in power, then a possible agreement, under which Israel maintains its military presence on a long-term temporary basis, could perhaps be wrked out, satisfying both the Hashemite Kingdom and Israel’s security demands.The latest incident should illustrate how serious the tension between Hamas and the Hashemite authorities is growing into a critical escalation.
On 20 April, Jordanian Prime Minister Maarouf al-Bakhit has told a meeting of MPs that weapons seized from a secret Hamas arms cache in Jordan had been smuggled from Syria, legislators said Thursday.
Jordan security services had already determined that five Palestinian legislators have been helping Hamas smuggle weapons into the Hashemite kingdom. Officials said five members of the Palestinian Legislative Council were found to have helped procure and smuggle rocket launchers, automatic weapons and ammunition into Jordan. The sources said the legislators employed their connections to procure the weapons and transport them to the kingdom. Intelligence officials declared that Hamas spies were caught observing of Jordanian government buildings, power stations and Jordanian oil pipes and fuel depots, preparatory to attacks. Some 15 Hamas activists were taken into custody. Raids of their hideouts turned up a quantity of missiles, explosives and automatic weapons smuggled into the kingdom in the last two weeks. The discovery of the Hamas plot sparked the last-minute cancellation of the Palestinian FM Mahoud a-Zahar’s visit to Amman Wednesday, April 19. Since those Hamas operatives and the contraband hardware were apparently smuggled into the kingdom from Syria, the conspiracy against the Hashemite Kingdom is believed to have been hatched by its Damascus-based leaders, Khaled Meshaal, Mussa Marzuk and Imad al Alami, Hamas operations officer and head of its Intifada Commission.
This was not the first time that Hamas plotted against the Jordanian throne. Its top leadership was expelled from Jordan for subversion in 1999 after fierce confrontations with the Jordanian security services. Amman intelligence officials are confident, that, based on its information, resulting from interrogations, Syrian intelligence must have been in on the Hamas smuggling activities to its neighbour, which was first disclosed by the Jordanian government spokesman Nasser Judeh Tuesday. nevertheless, as usual under similar circumstances in the past, Hamas government spokesman accused Jordan of fabricating the allegation under US influence to boycott the new Palestinian administration.
In line with the speedy democratic evolution in three nearby countries, Islam as a political force is moving to center stage in Jordan, where the government is a cooperative U.S. ally but where Muslim activists are suspicious both to Washington and Israel.
The path to greater influence and perhaps dominant political power may be through municipal elections that are supposed to take place this year and balloting for parliament in 2007. However, rules for each vote have yet to be set, and the conditions will go a long way in revealing how quickly the country’s ruler, King Abdullah, is willing to democratize in the face of the Islamic surge. As an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas has strong ties with the Brotherhood in Jordan and its political party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF). The latter have begun to relate to the Hamas achievement as if it were their own. For example, Azam Hunaydi, the leader of the IAF’s 17-member bloc in the Jordanian Parliament of 110, now has the self assurance to go on record with audacious statements to the effect that the Jordanian Islamic movement is “mature enough to take over government responsibilities” while simultaneously criticizing the regime for its “continuous marginalization of the Islamists.”
To safeguard their political survival, the Governments of Israel and the kingdom of Jordan will want to squeeze the Palestinians in the West Bank with the hope that Hamas’ influence can be contained. Israel will fear seepage into the one million strong Palestinian citizens of Israel and Jordan will fear infiltartion of Islamic extremism over the Jordan River. There will be more seepage eastward than westward. Under these circumstances, the critical importance of the strategic Jordan rift valley will become a major issue, more than ever before, in the forthcoming future.
KHUZESTAN: Groundwork for WAR ON IRAN?
Two bombs planted inside the offices of the governors of Abadan and Dezful cities in this oil-rich southwestern province of Khuzestan exploded last Monday. One bomb destroyed Abadan governor’s office and the other detonated in the Dezful governor’s office, two of the latest terrorist acts on important Iranian targets. Only last December, the lead car in president Ahmedinajad’s motorcade was ambushed by armed bandits on the Zabol-Saravan highway and some of his bodyguards were killed. With reports on the growing confrontation with Iran increasing daily, little attention has been paid to the potential role of ethnic minorities in the Iran crisis, particularly of the Iranian Arab minority, centered in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. Analysts reflect that if ethnic tensions in Khuzestan province can be effectively exploited by the U.S. and Britain, they may feel that a more limited destabilization or invasion could put Iran’s main oil province under Western control.
One look at the Iraq-Iran map could suffice to sustain such a theory. Khuzestan is a small part in south west of Iran which was once part of the great and independent government of Elam in ancient times. The province’s military topography makes it ideal for an attack from the south-west. The large plains there, bordering with the Iraqi marshes and the mountain regions situated to its north and eastern part, being part of the Zagros mountain ranges, shield it from the interior. This already made Khuzestan the first objective for Saddam Hussein’s assault on Iran in 1980. In fact, The reliable website Globalsecurity has even named such a strategic move the “Khuzestan Gambit” under which U.S. and British forces aiding an Arab uprising would turn Khuzestan into a de facto autonomous protectorate of “Arabistan” or “Ahwaz,” in order to take control of the country’s oil-dependent economy. Whether such a move would be implemented in a future conflict remains to be carefully contemplated, however, taking into consideration that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC - Pasdaran-e Inqilab) could be a hrd nut to crack if they decide to fight. One of the oldest human civilization which dates back to 8000 B.C. rose from this area. For centuries, Khuzestan has been a key pivot of Iran’s history and economy. Khuzestan was the seat of the ancient civilization of Elam, with its capital at Susa. It was overrun by numerous civilizations and tribes, including the Persian Empire in 539 BC, and often functioned as a frontier zone between empires. Arabs from Basra colonized the province in 642 AD, though it usually has been formally controlled by Persia. The Ahwazi Arabs are among the world’s most disadvantaged and persecuted ethnic groups. Their presence in Khuzestan poses a major challenge to the regime’s access to oil; historical Arab tribal lands contain up to 90 per cent of Iran’s oil reserves. The cleric rulers in Tehran seek permanently eliminating Arab influences in this strategic province by soviet-style forced migration, but sofar this has not changed the demographic scene and only raised local contempt.
For centuries, Khuzestan has been a key pivot of Iran’s history and economy. Khuzestan was the seat of the ancient civilization of Elam, with its capital at Susa. It was overrun by numerous civilizations and tribes, including the Persian Empire in 539 BC, and often functioned as a frontier zone between empires. Arabs from Basra colonized the province in 642 AD, though it usually has been formally controlled by Persia. in this strategic province by soviet-style forced migration, but sofar this has not changed the demographic scene and only raised local contempt.Khuzestan shares a long border with the Shiite Arab populated south of Iraq and Shat-al-Arab, the strategic waterway to the Persian Gulf for both Iraq and Iran. Khuzestan, unlike most other provinces in Iran, is inhabited by a number of ethnic minorities estimated at about four million, the majority are Shiite Arabs similar to the Iraqi Shiites in southern Iraq, which are actually bordering with Khuzestan. While the majorityof Iranian Arabs reside in Khuzestan, there are other Arab tribes, mostly Sunni, who live along the Persian Gulf coastal plains. It is interesting to note that the Arabs living in the area stretching from Bushehr to Bandar-e Abbas, both highly strategic locations, tend to be Sunni Arabs!
The oil-rich province, adjoining with Iraq, suffered the heaviest damage of all Iranian provinces during the Iraq-Iran war. In fact, Iraqi government propaganda claimed that Saddam’s intentions were to “liberate” the Arabs of Khuzestan from oppression under the Persians. However, while some Khuzestani Arabs fled into Iraq to escape the war and a minority separatist faction aligned itself with Saddam, most stayed and defended the province alongside other Iranians against Iraqi forces.
Khuzestan’s already volatile history became a new focal point in western strategic policies in modern times. British troops occupied Khuzestan during World War II, but after the war Iranians grew more concerned that Westerners had a stranglehold on their oil wealth. In 1951, the Iranian nationalist leader Mohammed Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry based mainly in Khuzestan, which included Anglo-Iranian’s holdings, drawing the wrath of Western powers. Two years later, a CIA-engineered coup ousted Mossadegh, and installed the new Shah Reza Pahlevi, who opened Khuzestan to a U.S.-British oil concession.
Much of the civil unrest seen in Iran over the past few months has occurred in Khuzestan, which was once an autonomous Arab emirate protected by the British and known as Arabistan or Al-Ahwaz. until it was over-run by Reza Pahlavi’s forces in 1925. Here, Arabs have reacted to state terrorism with mass protests, which remain largely unreported in the Western news media. Indeed, for a short period in April 2005, the Iranian government even lost control over large parts of Khuzestan in an Arab uprising. The riots became sparked by the leaking of a top secret memo written by former Vice-President Ali Abtahi which outlined a 10-year plan for the ‘ethnic restructuring’ of Khuzestan to reduce the Arab population from 70 per cent of the total population to less than a third. Violence erupted further after the conservatives-controlled Judiciary in the province ordered the security forces to close down sprawling shops distributing video tapes and cassettes, popular dances and music in Arabic, the dominant language among local populations in this south-western region bordering with Iraq. The worst clashes have happened in the cities of Ahwaz, Khoram-Shahr and Koot-Abdollah. As result, some 300 people, most of them young, have been arrested during a violent street fighting with the police and plainclothes men that rumours quoted being ‘Iraqis on the payroll of the Iran-based Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SAIRI)’. By strange coincidence it should be noted, that Iran’s current defense minister, Ali Shamkhani, is an ethnic Arab from Khuzestan! !
Violence erupted further after the conservatives-controlled Judiciary in the province ordered the security forces to close down sprawling shops distributing video tapes and cassettes, popular dances and music in Arabic, the dominant language among local populations in this south-western region bordering with Iraq. The worst clashes have happened in the cities of Ahwaz, Khoram-Shahr and Koot-Abdollah. As result, some 300 people, most of them young, have been arrested during a violent street fighting with the police and plainclothes men that rumours quoted being ‘Iraqis on the payroll of the Iran-based Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SAIRI)’.Strangely as it may sound judging the present tension, back in 1978, Arab oil workers in Khuzestan went on strike against the Shah, playing a central role in the Iranian Khumeini Revolution that toppled the Shah regime the following year. They openly supported the revolution in its early months, but when secular parties were later crushed by the Islamic Republic tension soon flared up in this turbulent province.
While Iran maintained a semi-neutral attitude in the US led coalition wars against Saddam Hussein, In 2005, the conflict between Iraqi Shi’ites and the occupation forces has grown more intense, particularly in the oil-rich British occupation zone around Basra. A violent series of events has oddly pointed toward neighboring Khuzestan as the traditional barometer of conflict along the tense Iran-Iraq border. More outrage was to follow soon. Bombs were going off across the border in Khuzestan. Last June, a series of car bombings in Ahvaz (75 miles from Basra) killed 6 people. In August, Iran arrested a group of Arab separatist rebels, and accused them of links to British intelligence in Basra. In September, explosions hit Khuzestani cities, halting crude oil transfers from onshore wells. Though many of Khuzestan’s Arabs may seek to regain their autonomy from Tehran they do not wish to secede from Iran, nor to join Iraq- even if it is now ruled largely by fellow Arab Shi’ites.
However should US led strategy evolve into an open conflict with Iran over its pending nuclear stand-off, one option could make Khuzestanthe the lynchpin of a western ground assault. According to Zolton Grossman in his provocative article published last year, ” the first step taken by an invading force would be to occupy Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan Province, securing the sensitive Straits of Hormuz and cutting off the Iranian military’s oil “. While Grossman does not enter into operational details, military analysts estimate that coalition forces, should they attack, do not necessarily need Iraqi territory to invade Iran. With sufficient airpower deployed already in the region, they can launch strikes from aircraft carriers against Iranian nuclear power installations.
do not necessarily need Iraqi territory to invade Iran. With sufficient airpower deployed already in the region, they can launch strikes from aircraft carriers against Iranian nuclear power installations.Some reports indicate that American over flights of Iranian soil are taking place, using pilotless drones and other, more sophisticated, capabilities to monitor suspect targets for pre-strike mission planning. In the event of an actual air strike, Iran’s air defense radars would be targeted for destruction by air-fired U.S. anti-radiation or ARM missiles. To make such an attack effective and with acceptable loss-rate estimates, special forces ground-air target designation teams operating behind enemy lines must be on-location. Such highly professional covert operating elements could well use Arab separatists to guide them.
special forces ground-air target designation teams operating behind enemy lines must be on-location. Such highly professional covert operating elements could well use Arab separatists to guide them.In past conflicts in the region, the employment of special-forces teams on the ground, as well as ground/air liaison and coordination teams became crucial in effective target designation. During Desert Storm, about 30 Special Forces teams pre-deployed on missions separate from the conventional force. In OIF, about a thousand men were deployed in such missions all over Iraq. By being able to carry out “precision decisions” these teams were located where the action unfolded, equipped with highly sophisticated target acquisition and designation equipment, using opportunities for the employment of precision weapons. No doubt that for such missions, reliable local elements, could become again critical for success.
Israel cannot Blame but Itself for Hamas Victory
That Hamas was elected democratically no one can deny. But that Israel cannot blame but itself is also a fact that cannot be erased. Abu Mazen virtually “begged” Israel not to authorise the elections in January. If Israeli intelligence failed to assess the election results, basing their assumptions on the Palestinian polls, Abu Mazen was fully aware of Hamas’ overwhelming popularity. Rightly so, as Arafat and his Tunesian cohorts have for ten years corrupted every inch of the Palestinian Authority, stealing billions of international assistance into the foreign bank accounts, leaving the majority of the “local” Palestinian population in squalor and misery, not to mention the five year totally unnecessary war with Israel, which brought them nowhere closer to a better life. While the majority of the Palestinians are far from willing to accept a ultra-religious fundamentalist state that Hamas pursues in its poltical agenda, they have nevertheless opted to vote for them, hoping that they will not go too far.
The questions are: Why has Israel been so shortsighted to allow elections in East Jerusalem, when Abu Mazen claimed that “without Jerusalem there would be no elections!” It was a grave mistake to ignore Abu Mazen’s plea, with his hint towards Jerusalem being only a clear pretex to postpone them. To adhere to Washington’s directive, which has already backfired in Egypt and in Iraq, it would have been relatively easy to persuade Bush and his advisors that a potstponement would only be in his favour under the circumstances.
Following Israel’s unilateral disengagements, first from South Lebanon and then from Gaza including the northern part and Philadlphi,( both not included in the initial plan ) Israel’s deterrence suffered a serious setback, which will take huge efforts to restore.
The Lebanon withdrawal was a fiasco. Not only did Israel adhere in full, without any discussion, to the UN resolution 425 and reshape its border line along an ill-conceived tactically inferior topography, but instead of keeping some hold until Lebanon ( Syria) would equally comply with the UN resolution in deploying its forces along the new “Blue” line boder in compliance with the UN designation, it remained ignorant of Hezbollah immediately establishing its de-facto Hezbollahland in the void, without a single Lebanese soldier deploying, nor UNIFIL intervening, in what the UN itself had ordered!
Moreover, shortly after Israel’s withdrawal, Hezbollah established, with direct help from Tehran and a “blind eye’ from Damascus, a new strategic deterrence threatening Israel’s northern region with rockets, which held not only Israel’s norther population hostage, but actually presented, over five years, a strategic threat to major Israeli installations, such as the Haifa Bay. There is no doubt that Israeli intelligence was fully aware of this dangerous build-up, but the Israeli decision-makers decided, not for the first time, ignored the threat building up on its very threshold until its was to late. A highly dangerous impasse exists currently between Israel and Hezbollah, a terrorist entity, over which the Lebanese Government in Beirut has no leverage whatsoever. All involved, the UN, US and even Israel have done nothing to prevent this from happening and now find themselves in a most precarious situation, which cannot be resolved without a major military intervention, with all the risks involved in such a venture.
Those with short memories should be reminded, that a similar development happened already 35 year ago, when Israel accepted the US brokered cease fire of the so-called “Rogers Plan” in July 1970, ending the 1968-70 War of Attrition along the Suez Canal. Under this agreement, Israel stopped its devastating deep penetration attacks on Egypt, which nearly brought down the anti-Israeli Nasser administration then under full Soviet control. However, while Israel had adhered to the agreement, Egypt, with Russian help, deployed a new missile line along the Suez Canal- the then the agreed armistice line, and prepared for its Yom Kippur War three years later. This would never have happened, if Israel had stood its determined stance and prevent, even by force, the establishment of this “iron curtain”of a missile umbrella, under which the Egyptian army crossed the canal. When Egypt struck on 6 October 1973 it was already too late and Israel faced a strategic setback, from which it recovered only after paying its yet heaviest price in all the Arab Israeli Wars since 1948.
Now Israel is once more facing the same situation in the Gaza Strip and, perhaps shortly even in the West Bank. Six months have passed since the last Israeli soldier has left the Gaza Strip, which has since been under full control of the so-called Palestine National Authority (PNA). But this was unable, or unwilling, to exert its control over the fundamentalist factions, opposing its rule and virtually giving up the territory to those terrorists. Israel underwent the same mistake, as then, by refusing to act decisively, when the first Qassam missile struck, soon after its withdrawal in September 2005. Although for the first time the IDF deployed artillery in the Intifada, its fire was ineffective, with the political directives clear: not to attack civilian targets. Thus the ‘barrages’ were directed intentionally into a so-called uninhabitated ‘real estate’ area, which was soon regarded by the terrorist as sign of weakness and indecision. So the Qassam war continues relentlessly, with rockets creeping more and more north, already reaching the strategic target line south of Ashkelon. While Israel retaliated by renewed ‘targeted killings’, this might become problematic, with the Hamas terrorist leadership now becoming elected ‘politically correct’ figures. With their new immunity as democratically elected leaders, any attack on so-called “ticking bombs” might soon be condemned by the international community!
A simular situation will occur, as soon as Hamas, or one of its many uncover affiliates, decide to move the battle to the West Bank and especially along the so-called ‘narrow waist’ of Israel’s densely populated coastal line around Tel Aviv and the Jerusalem sector. Here ranges to strategic targets are so close, that even small arms, medium mortars, not to mention Qassam rockets can cause havoc with hundreds of thousands of unprotected civilians. Major strategic targets, like Israel’s main international airport as well as, sensitive communications intersections will come within harrassment range. As Israel, nor any other western nation, has sofar, effective defensive means to counter such short range, primitive, but highly effective terrorist weapons, there is little, beside a full-scale military offensive action that can stop this kind of warfare. With a Hamas state accepted de-facto by the international community, Israel might well be denied even this self defense measure.
A major mistake was also made by the Palestinian Authority. The ill choice of their electoral system, introduced last August by the Fatah-dominated parliament, which was supposed to turn the existing moderate Fatah majority into a clean sweep for the party that has dominated Palestinian politics during the last half-century, backfired dramatically.
Under the Fatah-devised political structure, voters were asked to cast two ballots — one for national party lists, in which seats are allocated according to the number of votes the party got, and the other for a number of local districts in which voters cast ballots for specific candidates. The outcome was not surprising:
On the national lists, Hamas’ Change and Reform party secured 434,817 votes, while Fatah won 403,458. However, other secular parties swept up another 120,517 votes. In this section of the ballot, Hamas even scored a narrow majority, winning 30 seats to Fatah’s 27, with nine seats going to the smaller parties.
But there was still a chance: If the whole election had been based on the national lists, it would have produced a parliament without a clear majority party. Fatah would likely have been able to form a new government in coalition with some of the smaller groups, which held the swing vote.
But Fatah lost big in the second ballot for district candidates. The party’s supporters dissipated their votes among numerous candidates, while the strong discipline of Hamas voters swept their candidates into power, capturing all but 20 of the remaining 66 seats.
. The party’s supporters dissipated their votes among numerous candidates, while the strong discipline of Hamas voters swept their candidates into power, capturing all but 20 of the remaining 66 seats.Now the Palestinians have made their choice. The ten year elusive peace illusion is once and for all off, at least for the next four years. This gives Israel two choices: to dig in and defend itself against terror, from within and without and use the interim period, until the Palestinians will wake up from this dangerous, self-created malaise. In the meantime created Israel should use the opportunity to change national priorities, improving social conditions, address internal strife and stregthen its deterrent posture by a determined stand against future threats from nearby and far-off distance.
In other words, leave the Palestinians alone, until they will come to realise that their dream for national independence cannot be achieved by Hamas and they themselves will, once more chose a more realistic political system, with which a mutual future dialogue can be resumed.
