THE ARAB STATES might well come to rue the day Ehud Barak defeated Benjamin Netanyahu. Widely demonized in the international media as the main obstacle to peace and Palestinian statehood, Netanyahu provided a convenient foil for Arab leaders hesitant to make serious concessions. His government was a return to familiar territory for the Arab leadership, a lightning rod for all kinds of domestic social tension and frustration that has little or nothing to do with the plight of the Palestinians or the exact dimensions of Israel.
Netanyahu did, however, commit the Likud and thus the bulk of the Israeli right to the peace process. The debate changed from a question of land for peace to how much land for peace. The difference between Likud and Labor became not which party would negotiate with the Palestinians, but rather which party would negotiate a better deal.
But by committing himself and the Likud to the peace process, Netanyahu ensured the disintegration of the Israeli right. Since the late 1970s, the right's identity had rested on three pillars: a rejection of the land-for-peace formula; Sephardic frustration with social inequality; and a rejection of Labor's socialist economic policy and patronage system. The Likud served as the main standard bearer of these points for the better part of the last two decades, uniting factions that were more interested in one of these points than the others. Netanyahu's acceptance of the land-for-peace formula removed a central, and perhaps the most important, pillar.
Meanwhile, Shas, the Sephardic religious party, siphoned away from the Likud its frustration at social and economic disparities. In spite of its electoral victories during the last two decades on the backs of the Sephardim, Likud has done relatively little to ease the country's social inequalities. Shas gives hope and pride to the thousands of poor Sephardic Israelis who have not reaped the fruits of the economic boom of the early 1990s, and for whom adjustment to the modern Western world has been difficult. Finally, Labor has shed many of its socialist economic and social policies, rendering the right's objections to these policies meaningless.
In spite of the collapse of these basic identity structures, the right's performance in the past election was not as severe a rout as it was made out to be in the Western media. Committed right-wing parties (Likud, the National Religious party, National Unity, Yisrael Beiteinu) control 32 of the Knesset's 120 seats, while another 40 are controlled by what are inadequately described as centrist parties of various stripes (Shas, Yisrael Ba'aliyah, the Center party, Shinui, United Torah Judaism), ranging from ultra-secular to ultra-orthodox, some containing former Likudniks and other members of Netanyahu's coalitions. That the right managed to do as well as it did, despite the collapse of its internal cohesion and identity, speaks to the depth of its sincere ideological and religious convictions and lasting mistrust of Labor. If it had had more effective leadership and a clearer political program, an unsplintered right might still be in control of the government.
The left too has lost much of its identity. As a result of Netanyahu's accession to the land-for-peace formula, Labor no longer has a monopoly on the position of peace party. Ehud Barak has, like Netanyahu, steered his party towards the political center. While Barak is no revisionist scion, neither is he cut from the same cloth as Shimon Peres, former vice-president of the Socialist International. A career military man (unlike Peres, a career Labor party politician) and hardly a dove, Barak seems to give allegiance to the Labor party more from his Ashkenazic kibbutz upbringing than from any particular ideological affinity. Indeed, it will be most interesting to see what role Barak gives his more ideological party comrades in his government.
Much has been made of the new prime minister's flirtations with Ariel Sharon, the current caretaker of Likud. This really should not be a surprise, since neither man is particularly ideological. Both come out of an Israeli military tradition. Barak did not rise to army chief of staff through ideological conformity, but rather through administrative excellence, leadership skills, and ambition. It should be remembered that Sharon, a respected and effective negotiator in Arab eyes, started out in politics in the Labor party.
Candidate Barak cast himself as a centrist. This appears to be not simply a political ploy, but rather a sincere sign of how he intends to govern, by trying to form a centrist coalition, possibly in a national unity government with Likud -- a sign of the degree to which Likud and Labor have converged in the center of the Israeli political spectrum. Whether or not he succeeds in forming a wider, more centrist government coalition, or a narrower, left-leaning one, at least politically, Ehud Barak is essentially Netanyahu without the bad karma and divisive personality. Whereas Netanyahu entered office with saber rattling, he turned out to be a sheep in wolf's clothing. Barak might well be the wolf in sheep's clothing.
Barak could become a serious annoyance to Arab leadership and a reprieve for Israel after the public relations nightmare of the last government. As long as the newly elected prime minister cloaks himself in the mantle of Rabin, the martyr of peace, the Arab states will be hard pressed not to make goodwill gestures and accept reasonable proposals put forward by him. And unless he makes major mistakes, Barak will begin in a very strong negotiating position, holding the initiative. He can make essentially the same offers Netanyahu would, but because of a positive media image, these proposals will seem generous, whereas from Netanyahu they would seem grudging, stingy, and reluctant.
Which leads to the following questions: For all the hoopla about the Israeli election, one has to ask, How much does it matter? Can Israel's internal politics really have an effect on Israel's acceptance in the Middle East? Or does peace in the Middle East still fundamentally depend not on changes in Israeli politics, but on a sea change in the Arab world?
Adam J. Levitin is a Mellon fellow in history at Columbia University.