Change in Israel’s landscape

Opinion: May 22, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

The new era of sudden, potentially transformative developments lives on in the Middle East, and it reached Israel in the middle of the night on May 8.

That’s when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that instead of preparing for elections in September, he had made a deal with the opposition to create a national unity front.

The deal with Shaul Mofaz, leader of the Kadima party, gives Netanyahu a huge majority in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. And it suddenly creates a world of tantalizing opportunities.

Netanyahu now has enormous room to maneuver on a number of issues, including peace with Palestinians. We don’t know if he will use it, but Palestinians should now stop boycotting talks and give Netanyahu a chance to prove he is sincere when he says he wants to see the establishment of a Palestinian state.

In many respects, and with some important caveats, the conditions for a deal have suddenly turned more favorable than they have been in years.

From the Israeli side, Netanyahu can now make a deal happen. His coalition counts 94 out of 120 Knesset members. For the first time, none of the parties in the bloc can bring the government down. Before that, Netanyahu’s presided over a right-wing coalition where opponents of compromise could easily bring down the government if they disapproved of something Netanyahu did. No longer.

Centrist

The new government is centrist and wide-ranging. Mofaz, the new deputy prime minister, is a strong advocate of making a quick deal for Palestinian statehood.

Mofaz is on record with a plan to recognize a Palestinian state at once and then get down to negotiating its borders. The plan did not matter much when he was just another politician. Now he is a key member of the inner cabinet.

The question is whether Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will give this new landscape a chance to bear fruit.

It’s hard to imagine Abbas holding fast to a strategy that has produced absolutely no results, especially in light of the changes in Jerusalem.

After Netanyahu reiterated his call for negotiations without preconditions, Abbas repeated his refusal to talk without a full freeze of construction for Jews in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. I hope Netanyahu will offer an olive branch, a way for Abbas to return to talks without seeming to capitulate.

Given that his stance has achieved nothing and Netanyahu is essentially assured of staying in office until at least late 2013, Abbas may want to reconsider, especially since elections in the U.S. promise even more of the same, or worse, for Palestinians. Either Obama wins, in which case he will try to pressure an even stronger Netanyahu, or Obama will lose and a Republican president will be much less helpful to Palestinians.

In the meantime, any hopes Abbas had the Arab uprisings would prove a huge help to Palestinians have not materialized. The newly empowered citizens of countries such as Egypt and Tunisia still support Palestinians in their hearts, but they are busy with their own problems.

And plans to have the U.N. recognize Palestinian statehood failed, even if victory would have changed little on the ground.

Abbas is watching the pages of the calendar torn away month after month. West Bank Palestinians are not rising up against Israel or anyone else. Hamas remains entrenched in Gaza. At this rate, he seems destined to pass from the scene as the PA president who presided over not much.

Obviously, there is no guarantee that returning to the negotiating table would produce results. But it might just do that.

A war with Iran, conditions in Syria, or a sharp deterioration of relations with Egypt could change Israel’s strategic position and its short-term position with regard to Palestinians.

And yet, this is a time when Israelis and Palestinians have little to lose by making peace. And they both have much to gain.

Palestinians could get a state, and Israelis could get peace through the two-state solution that vast majorities of Israelis have always said they supported. In addition, Netanyahu could score points with the Obama administration at a time when Israel is keeping its eyes on changing conditions throughout the Middle East.

Frida Ghitis writes about global affairs for The Miami Herald. Distributed by MCT Information Services.