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Why Barak gambled on an election

By Tony Karon

(TIME.com) -- In the end, the only way forward for Ehud Barak was to go back -- to the electorate, in search of a renewed peace mandate. Facing certain defeat in his efforts to stop Israel's parliament from adopting a motion to force new elections, the Israeli prime minister shocked his opponents by simply calling a new election himself after serving only 18 months of his four-year term. Having failed to coax hawkish opposition leader Ariel Sharon into a national unity government, Barak found his minority government isolated in the legislature. By calling new elections, he's opted for a referendum on how Israel should respond to the political crisis brought on by the collapse of the peace process.

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The first, and perhaps most important, contest of the new election campaign will be the battle for the Likud party's nomination. Party leader Ariel Sharon believes he's the man for the job, and has been agitating in recent weeks for an even more aggressive Israeli response to the Palestinian uprising, including expanded use of selective assassinations and cutting off water and electricity supplies to Palestinian territories. But Sharon also has to contend with a high negative rating among many Israelis, made worse by his provocative visit to Jerusalem's Temple Mount two months ago, which set off the current wave of violence. Waiting in the wings is his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is more than ready to make a political comeback after being cleared of corruption allegations. The more charismatic Netanyahu is considered a far greater threat to Barak than Sharon, despite high negative ratings of his own. And that's likely to sway Likud into nominating the man Barak beat in 1999 to take back the government for the party of the right.

The renewed Palestinian uprising will create a dramatic backdrop to the election whose date will be announced within days. Likud will play to Israeli fears arising out of the current violence, charging that Barak's peacemaking efforts had been naïve and that Israel needed an even harsher response to Palestinian actions. Barak will stand firm on the principle that Israel has no alternative but to make peace with the Palestinians, and will remind the electorate of the conspicuous failures of both Netanyahu and Sharon to make progress on this front. And Yasser Arafat will once again face what has become something of a traditional dilemma of whether to restrain his people during Israeli elections so as to avoid stampeding voters to the right.

The election call, of course, makes Barak a lame duck in respect to any new peace initiatives with the Palestinians, although the Israeli leader will be inclined to pursue dialogue over a political solution if his plan is to make the election a referendum on peace. Still, it's unlikely now that the process that collapsed at Camp David will be revived before the end of next year, if not later.

Even as it prepares to go to the polls, the Israeli government may face further pressure on the diplomatic front. The international commission of inquiry headed by former U.S. senator George Mitchell to study the causes of the current violence announced Monday that it would complete its report by next March. The commission, which includes a number of senior European leaders, was established by President Clinton as part of the Sharm El Sheik cease-fire agreement, although Israel has made clear it would prefer that the body stayed away until the uprising ends. To be sure, inquiries from other respected quarters such as Amnesty International and U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson have accused Israel of consistently using excessive force, and if the findings of Mitchell's commission are consistent with those they may increase pressure on Washington to support calls for an international monitoring or protection force to be deployed in Palestinian territories. And telling the international community to go whistle is something Sharon and Netanyahu find a lot easier to do than Barak does.

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