The world in 2015: Patrick Martin on Israel’s fading stature and the heavy-handed Turkish President

Guarded optimism for the Middle East peace process

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, gunned down by a Jewish extremist as the Israeli prime minister was implementing an agreement with the Palestinian leadership and even was tantalizingly close to a treaty with Syria. Those peace prospects appeared to die with Mr. Rabin that night, and neither the Palestinians nor Syria seems any nearer today to a settlement of their decades-long conflict with Israel.

That may change in 2015, however, as there are indications that progress of some sort could be in the offing.

For one thing, Israelis are questioning the direction their country has taken under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A survey conducted Dec. 16 by the Dialog group for the Ha’artez newspaper showed that 54 per cent of Israelis believe their country is “heading in the wrong direction” under Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership, while just 27 per cent think it is “heading in the right direction.”

An increasing factor in this malaise is that Israel’s stature in the eyes of the international community is at one of its lowest points ever and continues to plunge. At the same time, Palestinian standing – at least that of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas – is at one of its highest levels, with several Western nations conducting votes in their legislatures informally recognizing an independent Palestinian state based on the borders that existed between Israel and the Arab territories prior to the 1967 Six-Day War. The Dec. 16 survey shows that 36 per cent of Israelis blame Israel for the international pressure the country is feeling, while 32 per cent blame Europeans, and 24 per cent, the Palestinians.

Until now, there has been little demand by Israelis for an agreement to end the conflict. The violence in the late 1990s, and especially the intifada of 2000-05, left the public in no mood to make concessions. In the decade since, Israelis have experienced personal peace – suicide bombings in Israel have ended, and the security barrier between the Jewish state and the West Bank has provided reassurance – and few have felt the need to push for an accord.

Even Israel’s battles with the militant Islamic Hamas group in Gaza – in 2008, 2012 and 2014 – saw relatively few Israeli casualties, though more than 3,500 Palestinians were killed and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip was laid to waste. By and large, the powerful rockets that Hamas fired on Israeli cities and towns were negated by the country’s “iron dome” air-defence system. Israelis allowed themselves to worry more about their pocketbooks than their air-raid shelters.

Today, however, with the growth of the international BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaign directed against Israel, and the unilateral steps toward Palestinian recognition being taken by Mr. Abbas at the United Nations Security Council and other international bodies, Israelis once again are being pushed to address the question of peace with the Palestinians. Early national elections, scheduled for March 17, will ensure the issue is widely debated.

Right-wing parties are realigning themselves, shucking off moderate influences in favour of strict adherence to a “Greater Israel” policy that includes control of the West Bank and unfettered settlement construction.

At the same time, parties advocating greater efforts at peacemaking are enjoying a resurgence.

Isaac Herzog, who was elected leader of the opposition Labour Party a year ago, has made security and a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict his priority – a dramatic change from that of his predecessor, Shelly Yachimovich, who rarely raised the issue.

The numbers bear him out. Mr. Herzog recently merged his party with Ha’tnuah, led by former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, another political leader who emphasizes security through peace. Recent surveys show their new party capable of winning more seats than Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud.

But coming first is only part of the battle to form a government in Israel, as Ms. Livni well knows. In 2009 her Kadima party garnered more seats than did Mr. Netanyahu, but she was unable to fashion a governing coalition. It takes 61 seats to form a majority in the Knesset, and no single party comes close to winning that many.

In 2015, prospects for building a coalition are getting very interesting. With some right-wing parties shifting to the extreme, and others adopting a more pragmatist stance, a hawkish coalition will be more difficult to sustain.

The Prime Minister’s Likud bloc, which ended its partnership with Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party, is running one of the more hawkish lists of candidates in the party’s history. Mr. Netanyahu seems to be the only member likely to be elected who supports a two-state resolution to the Palestinian issue, and his even support is questionable.

At the same time, Mr. Lieberman, perceived by most as a security hawk, who lives in a West Bank settlement, has moved appreciably to the centre. He has warned against Israel’s loss of international standing and called for a political resolution of the peace process that would include the evacuation of Israeli settlements.

Jewish Home, a pro-settler party led by Naftali Bennett, may pick up some of Mr. Lieberman’s hawkish former supporters. But Mr. Bennett’s party also is splitting, with several of its more religious members joining the new party, Ha’am Itanu, created by Eli Yishai, who broke from Shas, the Sephardi religious party he once led.

As for Shas itself, which often has held the balance of power in coalition governments of various political stripes, its leader, Aryeh Deri, has indicated that he would support a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Then there’s Kulanu, a new party led by a moderate former member of Likud, Moshe Kahlon. It could end up with the most seats among centrist parties. Mr. Kahlon, a former communications minister whose claim to fame is that he cut Israelis’ cellphone bills by 90 per cent, is poised to gain significant support at the expense of Yesh Atid, the party formed by former journalist Yair Lapid, the darling of the middle class in the 2013 election.

All this shuffling has left Israelis with three identifiable blocs: a right wing that includes Likud, Jewish Home and Ha’am Itanu; a left wing that includes the combined Labour-Ha’tnuah party and Meretz (a dovish party formed in 1992); and a centrist bloc now made up of Kulanu, Yisrael Beitenu, Yesh Atid and Shas.

This centrist bloc has the power to determine who will lead the next government – probably Mr. Netanyahu or Mr. Herzog, whose parties are likely to receive the most votes. However, the parties that make up that centrist bloc have two things in common: an unhappy experience with Mr. Netanyahu and a willingness to support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

All this augurs well for Mr. Herzog and for those who advocate a political breakthrough in the peace process.

Erdogan tightens his grip, veers from Europe

Irrepressibly ambitious, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes to have a landmark year in 2015.

Having been frustrated during three terms as prime minister in his attempts to establish a more powerful presidential system of government, Mr. Erdogan, who was elected president in August with 52 per cent of the vote, is doing everything he can to help his Justice and Development Party win enough seats in a June parliamentary election to guarantee him the votes for such constitutional change.

Most recently, he ordered the arrest of two dozen leading journalists, including the editor of Zaman, the country’s most popular daily newspaper, for allegedly plotting against him and the government by launching what Mr. Erdogan calls a conspiracy of unfounded allegations of corruption in high office.

The journalists, and several police officers also arrested, are said to be followers of Fethullah Gülen, a moderate Muslim leader who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania and once was Mr. Erdogan’s biggest supporter. A warrant for Mr. Gulen’s arrest has been issued.

Mr. Gülen’s Hizmet movement, which has many followers in the justice and police ministries, has been critical of alleged corruption in Mr. Erdogan’s office and family.

The European Union, which Mr. Erdogan long aspired to join, has criticized Turkey for its un-European crackdown, which infringes on freedom of the press. To this, Mr. Erdogan replied that European leaders should mind their own business and keep their values to themselves.

Such an approach does not bode well for the country’s EU aspirations, and calls into question the kind of role Turkey – a NATO ally and, historically, a bridge between the West and the Middle East – might play in the future. That, however, no longer seems to matter much to Mr. Erdogan, whose heavy-handed operating style most resembles that of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Indeed, Mr. Erdogan said in December that Turkey’s public schools will soon make the study of the Ottoman language in Arabic script compulsory – a complete reversal of the Westernized approach to Turkish brought in by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s founding president. It’s a change likely to send European leaders reeling.

While waiting for June’s election and the possibility of constitutional change, Mr. Erdogan already is taking steps toward establishing the presidential system he eagerly awaits. In January he is to begin chairing cabinet meetings, a role heretofore left to the prime minister. Although reportedly permitted by the current constitution, such a move is unprecedented.