The 2008 MADAR Strategic Report presents an analysis of the major developments that occurred in Israeli society during the year 2007. The report examines these developments in six areas: foreign relations, domestic politics, security/military, economy, social welfare and the status of the Palestinian minority in Israel. Palestinian academics whose expertise spans this spectrum of Israeli affairs have authored the report. It is the fourth such annual strategic report to be published by the Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies (MADAR).
The report begins by emphasizing that in 2007 Israeli society experienced the multiple impacts and far-reaching ramifications of the second Lebanon war, waged in the summer of 2006. On the domestic political level, these impacts and repercussions have been manifested in the continuous struggle of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for his own political survival as well as that of his coalition government.
This report indicates that in 2007 Israel went through a profound process of self-scrutiny and recalculation regarding its political, military and security postures. This process took place in the shadow of Winograd Commission, established to examine Israel’s failure in the Lebanon war. Although the commission’s interim and final reports did not place direct responsibility on Olmert, as many had anticipated, both reports revealed political and security deficiencies. Likewise both reports emphasized that Israel cannot sustain another military defeat in any future war. To that end, the five-year “Tefen Plan” for the Israeli army was adopted and launched in early 2008.
On the political level, the Winograd Commission’s conclusions sparked a new wave of struggles among and within various political parties. The Kadima Party managed to stay in power by suppressing the schism between its two top leaders, Prime Minister Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. The Labor Party, which is the largest coalition partner in Olmert’s government, experienced internal political disputes due to the failure of its former chairman, Amir Peretz, in performing his role as defense minister during the Lebanon war. This crisis resulted in the election of Ehud Barak as the new party chairman and his succession as defense minister.
Parallel to these developments, the Shas Party, a significant partner in the coalition government, exploited Olmert’s weakness to demand political and financial concessions following the withdrawal of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party (led by Avigdor Lieberman) from the government. In particular, Shas apparently succeeded in dictating its conditions on Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians by threatening to leave the coalition each time the government and the prime minister expressed their intentions to negotiate core issues of the conflict including the status of east Jerusalem, Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Palestinian refugees’ right of return.
In addition, the MADAR strategic report also examines the significance of the corruption and sexual harassment scandals that unfolded in serial fashion throughout 2007 and wracked Israeli political culture. The cases of bribery and embezzlement respectively associated with the prime minister and the former treasury minister served to deepen the Israeli public’s mistrust in their political institutions and leaders and to further weaken Olmert’s government. At the publication of this report, there exists a high probability that the Olmert government could fall.
The MADAR report reaches several conclusions. The most salient one is that the Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process has come to a virtual standstill due in large part to the Israeli government’s inflexibility on the core issues of the conflict as well as its continuous and intensified settlement activities in the West Bank and in and around Jerusalem. The negotiation process has also been stymied by the ramifications of the Lebanon war and government corruption scandals.
Another key conclusion of the report is that Israel will continue its attempts to exploit the split between Palestinian factions in the wake of Hamas’ military takeover of the Gaza Strip while at the same time continuing policies of siege, incursions and assassinations in the occupied territories.
The report also indicates that Israel continues to intensify its settlement activities in east Jerusalem and the West Bank in order to advance and impose its vision of a final resolution to the conflict. On a wider regional basis, however, this report indicates that it is not unlikely that Israel will link its positions on the Palestinian and Syrian negotiation tracks to its stance on Iran. This is aimed not only at weakening Iran’s progress on nuclear development (despite the US intelligence estimate at the end of 2007 that Iran has not been developing its nuclear military capabilities since 2003) but also at countering Iran’s strategic relationship with Syria and in turn, Syria’s relationships with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. One of the means to counter this “axis” is to weaken it by bringing Syria into the peace process, which could lead ultimately to its disassociation from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Regarding the Israeli economy the MADAR report projects that some negative indicators will erode the significance of some positive indicators. Despite an economic growth rate of 5.3 percent in 2007 and increased standards of living for part of the population, the number of Israelis living under the poverty line reached 1.7 million, or 23.6 percent of the total population of 7.2 million, according to statistics released by the National Insurance Institute. Poverty in Israel remains one of Israel’s most pressing social problems, exacerbated by a continuing process of economic restructuring that includes privatization and the shrinking of the welfare state.
Finally, the 2008 MADAR strategic report anticipates the continuation of official Israeli practices that are aimed at enhancing and consolidating the Jewish character of the state. This will continue to have negative impacts on the civil and political rights of the Palestinian citizens in Israel, who constitute 18 percent of the state’s pop
