We are writing this before the numbers from Israel’s election are in. By the time you read it, however, the votes will have been counted and either Likud or Kadima will be in the process of forming a government.

You may also be reading astonished accounts in the media both here and in Israel regarding either LIkud’s aberrational victory or the close election caused by Israelis who voted for the country’s nationalist right parties, as if this had never happened before.

But it has.

In fact, it has happened in one form or another in most elections since Menachem Begin was elected in 1977. It’s not that Israel’s nationalist candidates don’t win elections, but that they succumb to the multiple pressures from America and their own elites, causing them to move to the center left after being elected on a center right platform. They run right and govern left.

In this election, whether Kadima or Likud comes out on top, the votes for Likud, plus those for Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beteinu, are a strong indication of the nationalist fervor in the vote. Add Shas and some smaller religious parties, and 60+ votes is very possible. Similar coalitions provided Knesset majorities for Begin, Yitzhak Shamir in 1983 and ’86, and subsequently Bibi Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon. Labor’s Ehud Barak was able to win by running an ex- military man’s campaign, promising Israelis a safe and secure Israel. Security is what the Israeli citizen wants first and foremost. While willing to talk about peace, the Israeli voter has grown increasingly dismissive of Palestinian promises and the plans of others for Palestinian statehood.

Arthur J. Finkelstein, a political consultant with a stunning record of success in the United States, has been at the center of every election in Israel since Bibi’s first term and has also guided Ariel Sharon and now Avigdor Lieberman. He understands this dynamic. “Israel is always split between the desire for peace – a left concept – and security – a right concept. The need for security has never been clearer. Therefore, the right gets larger.” Finkelstein helped Lieberman and his party go from three seats to 11 in the last election and is set to achieve another big gain in this election.

Another set of numbers came to the fore last week that also share the common thread of holding close to their historical mean. Despite the delusions of the media both in Israel and the rest of the world, Arabs who live in and around Israel, as well as those who live in Judea and Samaria – the self-proclaimed Palestinians – still harbor the hope that Israel will be eliminated.

Their consistent opinions reflect this belief, as evidenced most recently in a poll released on Feb. 6 that was conducted for the Zionist Organization of America by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center. More than 50% of the Palestinian respondents approve of rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel as a way of furthering Palestinian objectives. The consistent theme in most samplings of Arab opinion over the years shows that they are more strongly motivated by Israel’s destruction than they are by a desire for their own statehood and won’t accede to their own entity unless it encompasses that end.

So nothing has really changed in the Middle East.

Two people in two states, living peacefully or otherwise side by side, doesn’t seem to be in the cards unless, of course, Israel is forced again to act against her own interests and the expressed opinions of her citizens.

Unfortunately, however, that’s the most likely outcome. That’s the way it’s been done before. Then, after a period of growing violence and mayhem, Israel will have another crisis that brings on another election so Israelis can then tell us once again that their security is their primary concern and voting for Israel’s nationalist parties is the only way they hope to get it.

That, assuming that the Palestinians don’t get their wish fulfilled in the interim.

-nrg

Published: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 1:03 PM EST

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