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Yearender: A Tumultuous Year for Israeli Politics
In the year of 2000, Israel was rocked by political tumult triggered by bitter disparities among various political factions in the face of the final-status negotiations with the Palestinians on the most sensitive, important and also toughest issues.
The turbulence came to a dramatic height near the end of the year when Prime Minister Ehud Barak resigned on December 10, prompting a special election for the top post of the Jewish state, with the parliament, or the Knesset, remained intact.
Barak's unexpected move was believed to aim at barring his main rival, former hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, from competing against him. Barak was under mounting pressures from opposition parties who sought dissolution of the parliament and early elections.
The risk-taking step by the embattled prime minister was also aimed at getting a new mandate for continuing the peace talks with the Palestinians, which were verging on a collapse after three months of bloody clashes between Israeli troops and the Palestinians.
In the May 1999 election, Barak won an overwhelming victory over Netanyahu on a platform of "making peace of the brave." He then signed with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat the Sharm el Sheikh Memorandum in Egypt in September, agreeing to reach a final peace agreement within a year.
But their gaps over the status of Jerusalem and Jewish settlements, return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland and final borders of a future Palestinian state proved hard to be bridged.
Mediated by the United States, Barak and Arafat agreed to hold a summit meeting to be hosted by U.S. President Bill Clinton at Camp David in July in a bid to iron out the differences.
However, fearing possible concessions by Barak on the key issues to the Palestinians, three of the prime minister's coalition partners, the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, the National Religious Party and Yisrael B'Aliya, quit the government in an attempt to prevent the two sides from reaching a final peace deal.
Their defection left Barak's One Israel coalition a minority government with the support of only 40 members in the 120-seat parliament, or Knesset.
In another blow to Barak, his foreign minister, David Levy, refused to accompany him to the Camp David summit in an excuse that the summit was premature. The real cause behind Levy's move was his dissatisfaction over Barak's sending then Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami to secret talks with the Palestinians without consulting with him.
Following the failure of the Camp David summit to reach a final deal late July, the Israeli Knesset passed the preliminary reading of bills sponsored by the opposition calling for dissolution of the parliament and early general elections. And, meanwhile, Levy resigned office.
During the three-month recess of the Knesset from late July to late October, Barak tried to form a national emergency government with the main opposition party Likud. In a bid to buy time for his efforts, he managed to win a pledge from Shas, the third largest party in the Knesset with 17 seats, not to try to topple his government in one month.
But Barak's efforts to patch up an emergency government ended in failure due to Likud's demand for veto power concerning the peace talks with the Palestinians.
During parliament debate late November, Barak announced unexpectedly that he agreed to the bills calling for dissolution of the parliament, which then passed the first reading of the bills.
Encouraged by the political development and results of the public opinion polls, former hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated intentions to seek a comeback by running for both the Likud leader and prime minister.
To send a bigger shock wave to the political circle, Barak announced on December 9 that he was resigning from his post, a move which would lead to a special election only for prime minister within 60 days if the parliament was not dissolved.
Under the then Israeli election laws, only sitting Knesset members were allowed to enter into such a race. Netanyahu, who led Barak by a significant margin in the public opinion polls, resigned from the Knesset after being defeated by Barak in the 1999 elections. But he announced his candidacy while denouncing Barak's move as a "dirty" political trick.
To pave the way for his joining the race, Netanyahu had to seek either amendments to the Israeli Basic Law or dissolution of the parliament. The Basic Law only allowed the Knesset members to run in the special prime ministerial election. But if the parliament is disbanded, every citizen has the right to stand for both the parliament and prime minister. Netanyahu favored the latter.
However, the Shas party, a kingmaker in Israeli politics, supported the former option, in fear that it might lose some of its parliament seats in a new election. The Knesset amended the Basic Law to allow every citizen to stand for prime minister in a special election, but blocked the bills on its dissolution in a second reading.
Following the Knesset decisions, Netanyahu withdrew from the prime ministerial election and understandably pulled back from a race for the Likud leader, as what observers said he did not want to take advantage of the amendment.
The prime ministerial election is due to be held on February 6, when Barak and Ariel Sharon, the Likud leader, will compete for the country's top job.
In recent days, Barak has been trying to forge a final framework agreement with the Palestinians to turn the election into a referendum on peace and increase the chances for his re-election. The prospects, however, appear to be dim.
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