Election results a blow to peace

In his efforts to strike a mutually agreed and hopefully long-term truce between Israel and Hamas, Mubarak has the support of the European Union, as well as the Arab world and the Mahmud Abbas administration in Ramallah. The Egyptian leader is apparently hoping that after a truce is agreed in Gaza and the international community extended a generous helping hand at a donors' conference for the reconstruction of Gaza, it could become easier to concentrate on Palestinian reconciliation in the first place and later on the resumption of the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.

At the donors' conference, Turkey will be represented by Foreign Minister Ali Babacan. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan must be either busy deciding what new items his government should distribute to woo the voters now as the Higher Electoral Board ordered a halt to household appliances "donations." Apparently, now the government is planning to start distributing milk to "needy citizens" and thus kill two birds with one stroke: Assist the needy on the one hand and help the battered milk industry on the other. Anyhow, this is fair election the AKP style!

To come back to the Mideast peacemaking, despite Mubarak’s optimism, Tuesday’s elections in Israel served a serious blow to prospects for peace anytime soon as not only the inconclusive elections will probably pull the Jewish country into a lengthy political uncertainty period, the arithmetic of the new Knesset demonstrate that the government to succeed Ehud Olmert-led outgoing coalition will most likely be headed by Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, though Tzipi Linvni’s Kadima came first in the poll and produced one seat more than 27 seats of Netanyahu’s Likud. Livni’s performance in the latest Gaza aggression of Israel leaves no room for hope that she could turn into a peace dove if she manages to garner a coalition government either. Of course Livni might try to forge a national unity government with Bibi’s Likud (indeed she reportedly already asked Bibi to consider joining a coalition led by herself) but the prospect of forging a coalition of "nationalist camp" under Bibi’s leadership, at least for now, appears killing formation of any such grand national unity coalition. Anyhow, the cumulative seats of Kadima and Likud in the 120-seat Knesset is six seats short of the required majority to form a two-way government. The "nationalist camp" on the other hand could produce Bibi a 65-seat majority in Knesset.

Two needed to for tango

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has already declared that "I'll talk with whatever government emerges in Israel" and that he did not believe consolidation of the "nationalist camp" in the Knesset would be an impediment to peace efforts, but it has to be taken into account that "two needed for tango" and Abbas cannot dance alone. The Israeli inconclusive elections and the sharp divide in Israeli politics are not offering a positive prospect for peace talks. Whatever government is forged and whoever is leading the new Israeli coalition government, the end result will not be a government moving quickly toward resuming peace talks with the Palestinians as both Livni and Bibi will have to accommodate expectations of some extremist or fundamentalist parties that are likely to acquire critical importance in talks to forge a new coalition. Thus, complications produced by the post-election paralysis in Israel could land the Jewish state at loggerheads with the new Barack Obama administration in Washington who made Mideast peace deal a priority on the one hand and damped prospects of a truce Egypt has been trying to broker between Israel and the Hamas. Obviously, Hamas will be reluctant to sign a truce deal with an outgoing Olmert government at the risk of having it overturned by an incoming government held hostage by some nationalist and extremist coalition partners.