Palestinians disappointed over Israeli Labor primaries
Palestinian leadership in Ramallah is disappointed over Isaac Herzog losing the Labor Party’s primaries, as they were hoping that Herzog would join the Netanyahu government and advance regional negotiations.
The political leadership in the Palestinian Authority followed with great interest the Israeli Labor Party primaries in July. The Palestinian political elite know the intricacies of Israeli politics inside out. They are familiar with the first and last names of members of the Shas Party and Yisrael Beitenu. With the exception of the Joint List of predominantly Arab parties and the left-wing Meretz Party, the Palestinian leadership sees only minor shades of difference amid Israeli politicians. The two last Israeli leaders whom the Palestinians respected were Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres during the Oslo process.
There were other Israeli politicians with whom the Palestinians maintained positive policy dialogues: former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, former Minister Tzipi Livni and former Minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, for instance. Amid the current Israeli Cabinet, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon is considered by the Palestinians as the only pragmatic member. A senior PLO official who follows Israeli politics feverishly on behalf of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas characterizes the Israeli Knesset as “100 shades of occupation.”
The senior PLO official told Al-Monitor that the Palestinians were disappointed with the defeat of former Labor Party chair Herzog at the party’s primaries. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he noted that “[newly elected Labor chairperson] Avi Gabbay seems like an honest man of peace. Our problem is with the Netanyahu government. Without a change in the composition of the government, there is no chance to translate the regional momentum created by President Donald Trump into a two-state solution process.”
The official admitted that they, and Egypt, were frequently in contact with former Labor leader Herzog and had reason to believe that a political castling move between him and Education Minister Naftali Bennett’s HaBayit HaYehudi party was in the cards. In other words, advancing a negotiation process would force Bennett’s party to quit the government and encourage Herzog to replace him. That would have allowed for a US-led, regionally backed negotiation process. Now that this option is probably off the table, Abbas has instructed his officials to create a fallback position to the US-led process. Messages have gone out to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron regarding a possible United Nations Security Council resolution on terms of reference for a two-state solution, to induce Washington to act after all.
