"The one-block, right-wing-dominant state could have major bearing on
Israel's relations with the United States," the report said. "Tensions can
be expected between an Obama administration that has announced its intention
to refocus on Israeli-Palestinian peace, and a Likud-led government."
The report said the two leading candidates, Foreign Minister Tzipi
Livni, chairman of the ruling Kadima, and Likud challenger Binyamin
Netanyahu, committed strategic mistakes in their campaign by failing to
understand the transformation of the electorate. Ms. Livni party won 28
seats in the 120-member Knesset, at least one more than Netanyahu, but was
said to lack partners to form a coalition majority.
"Kadima's electoral achievement is ephemeral; it masks the deeper and
much more enduring socio-political ascendancy of the political right, both
nationalist and religious," the report said. "Both Livni and Netanyahu
failed to sufficiently appreciate this reality, and as a result, made
strategic campaign mistakes."
The new right-wing majority was said to espouse positions similar to
that of the Labor Party before the Israeli agreement with the Palestine
Liberation Organization in 1993. Frisch, a senior research associate, said
the majority was formed by nearly a decade of Palestinian violence in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"Netanyahu thus deserves a failing grade for strategic acumen, a
worrisome failure for Israel's likely prime minister," the report said.
"Livni also made the strategic mistake of writing off the religious public,
and by so doing, strengthened the center-right and religious alliance that
has dominated Israel for most of the past 25 years."
Still, Frisch said the emerging right-wing majority in Israel would not
result in a major shift in relations with either its Arab neighbors or the
United States. He said the Obama administration, despite pledges of renewing
Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, would soon become preoccupied in trying
to reconcile the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian
Authority in the West Bank.
"The Obama administration will soon realize that the Hamas-Fatah civil
war makes anything other than conflict management unattainable," the report
said. "Therefore, Israel and the United States should get along fine,
albeit, bumpily. In any case, both will be absorbed by their common major
concern -- preventing a nuclear Iran. To meet that threat, a one-block
dominant right-wing government in Israel is as good as any other."
