Afrasianet - Oraib Al Rantawi - The Israeli and Palestinian elections are approaching amid legal crises and deep divisions, and may end the careers of Netanyahu and Abbas without necessarily opening a path for the two regimes to recover or ease the conflict.
In a few weeks and months, the political career of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will be marked unless, of course, the unthinkable happens, in a region that used to wake up every morning to a surprise of a heavy caliber.
In late October, polling stations will open their doors in Israel, in an unusually scheduled election, amid assessments that Netanyahu's chances of winning again are steadily declining.
His Likud party faces stiff competition from the newly formed Yashar party, while rival Gadi Eisenkot is widening the gap in favor in some polls as the most suitable figure to form a new government.
It is likely that the elections will close the curtain on a long and protracted chapter in Israeli and regional political life, which will be led by the "King of Israel" and leave its heavy mark on it, especially in the last three years of the war, as the rules of the game have changed, the rules of engagement have changed, and developments have taken place that will make Israel and the region different from what they were before it.
First, because the man has mastered the arts of survival and survival, and secondly, because the rapid developments in the region may bring winds that his ships crave, whether on the front of the open war between the United States and Iran, which is primarily an Israeli war, if not the last, or on the front of the low-frequency wars in Lebanon, Gaza and Syria, which is always a candidate to explode on a large scale if something new happens.
The Israeli Opposition and Pre-Election Concerns
In Israel, the opposition is eagerly awaiting the moment of voting, but it is calculating, as are regional and international decision-making capitals, for other possibilities that could turn the tables on the heads of players and observers. One of these possibilities is Netanyahu's expansion and escalation of his wars, and here Gaza and Lebanon seem to be at the heart of the goals.
It also includes the manipulation or rigory of the election results, as some opposition figures and leaders say with their mouths full.
Israeli "democracy" under Netanyahu has reached a level of deterioration that allows for the emergence of fears of this kind, which have been absent from the dictionary of Israel's internal debate since the entity's inception. This is perhaps a new face of deterioration that has allowed us, in previous articles, to say that "Israel is shining" under Netanyahu's leadership and the more extreme religious and nationalist right.
Netanyahu will leave the Israeli political scene, either because of the ballot box, or because of the "hammer of justice," or perhaps both, especially since the man is turning from a treasure to a burden on many of his allies in the United States and Europe.
This is a major gain, both political and moral, that does not diminish the fact that none of his successors will necessarily be better than him, but he will not enjoy the power and status he has gained over more than four decades at the heart of Israeli and international political life.
This includes U.S. President Donald Trump, whom Vice President J.D. Vance has described as the only leader sympathetic to Israel and its last strong ally, while warning Israeli officials against attacking the administration's positions.
"Legislative" Elections
On the other hand, the Palestinians are also setting a date on November 28 at the ballot box for the first Palestinian legislative elections held in two decades, five years after the last date for holding them was canceled under outdated pretexts and pretexts, which were intended to hide the fear of their consequences and the fear that the contract of power and rule would be lost in the hands of an influential group in power and decision-making, without control or accountability.
The legislative elections were supposed to coincide with presidential elections, but President Mahmoud Abbas chose to separate them with a time difference of up to about half a year, for reasons similar to Yacoub, and here Yacoub is the president himself.
In my opinion, one of these reasons is:
First, he feared losing the elections, despite his strenuous efforts to "engineer" them and ensure their results before they were held. If the elections are held simultaneously, he may lose both the presidential, executive, and legislative positions, but if they are separated, he may lose the legislative elections, leaving the presidency hanging on various possibilities.
Second, he wants to prepare an alternative to run for the presidency, because by all accounts, it is unreasonable for him to re-nominate, as he will have inaugurated his tenth decade of his long life. He wants this alternative candidate to be one of his political fabrics, in case he is unable to be from his own and carry his genetic genes.
Between boycott and participation
The election is fast approaching, and "comrades are confused," wondering what to do. There is a group that calls for a boycott, on the basis that it is an election that takes place within the framework of the "re-engineering" of the Palestinian political system to adapt to the outcomes of the Israeli solution to the Palestinian issue.
There is one group that calls for participation in a broad and broad front of forces, personalities, factions, and movements, with the aim of bringing about change from within the regime. A third group still vacillates between boycott and participation, and silence and waiting affect it.
Nothing is certain so far except the US-Israeli conditions related to and surrounding the entitlement, which are mainly to "prevent" the resistance forces and their supporters from participating in it, by booby-trapping the electoral law with political conditions that deprive the elections of their integrity, transparency, and equal opportunities for the contenders.
The amended electoral law stipulates that candidates must abide by the Basic Law, recognize the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and support its political and national platform and resolutions of "international legitimacy," conditions that have raised criticism about their impact on the participation of resistance forces.
The sword of assassinations and arrests will hang over the heads of candidates from outside the canvas of power, perhaps one of the implicit "blessings of security coordination."
Freedom of movement, propaganda and election campaigns will be restricted, and Jerusalem residents may be prevented from voting in their occupied city, and other areas may be affected by selective Israeli measures. It is not yet known how the ballot boxes will be deployed in the Gaza Strip, under what circumstances.
The Obsession with Interference with Results
The scenario of interfering in the elections and playing with their results is an obsession that engulfs Palestinians, factions, movements, and initiatives, including the "rebels" from within the Fatah movement itself, some of whom have begun to prepare their electoral lists.
This concern is exacerbated by the ease of issuing presidential decrees, one of which comes in opposition to the previous one, without sufficient explanation or explanation of the "positive reasons". From the election of a national council to the election of a legislative council, to the determination of the number of members of the council and their geographical distribution between the interior and the outside, decisions are made without extensive consultation, and by a handful of people who hold the "boycott" buttons.
I believe that the international parties that are traditionally the "sponsors" of the integrity and transparency of the elections will turn a blind eye, this time, any excesses and violations, as long as they represent a compulsory corridor to prevent undesirable personalities, forces, and factions from reaching the seats of the Legislative Council.
Many Arab countries, which do not know about fair elections in the first place, will offer their support for the PA's measures and value its "reform measures." In the news, or rather the leaks that are circulating, that a new presidential decree may be issued soon, this time with a new precautionary measure.
The sources say that the presidency intends to reduce the number of elected MPs from 200 members representing the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem to 132 members, in a return to the number stipulated in the original law, with 68 members to be selected by appointment. According to the leaks, these are in addition to 150 members representing the diaspora and the diaspora, bringing the number of members appointed in the next National Council to 218 out of 350 members, more than 62%.
However, these leaks contradict, so far, the decision of the law in force, which limits the number of members of the Legislative Council to 200, and the electoral system of the National Council, which stipulates that the Palestinian territories be represented by 200 members, from among whom are the elected members of the Legislative Council.
The PA and the presidency will have no difficulty in justifying and justifying their new decree, if it is issued, such as saying that there are groups that may be wronged in their representation, and that a balance must be created through appointment. Another excuse that can be used as a deplorable excuse is the "Oslo Declaration of Principles," which gave Israel the right to interfere in the number and structure of the Transitional Self-Government Council, which the Palestinians gave the name of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
It is an over-precautionary approach, which signals a response to external pressures to carry out "cosmetic reforms" in the structure of the aging Palestinian political system, which is suffering from the symptoms of "clinical death." It is just like our Christian brothers do when they decorate their dead and dress them in their best clothes, before paying their last farewell to them and their rich dearness.
What about the presidential elections?
We only know about it so far, but it will take place in the first quarter of next year. However, setting a deadline may await the results of the PLC elections, always as a precautionary measure. I can hardly imagine a scenario in which President Abbas runs again, nor can I imagine that the elections will be held without him, and that he will hand over the trust from its door to its mihrab to whoever will come after him, even if he is one of the closest people to him, and perhaps with the exception of his son.
On top of this, I hardly rule out postponing the elections until further notice, and sufficing with renewing the legitimacy of half of the institutions and keeping the other half on its feet. This is the most difficult part of the "renewal of legitimacy" elections, as it is described as a transgression, but it is not necessary.
Legislative elections are a dilemma for an unpopular authority, and surprises may come from where they do not count, and from outside the lists of its traditional rivals and polemicists from factions, political movements, and the resistance.
They may come from within Fatah and its rebels, or from families, clans, and capitalists. But when it comes to presidential elections, the risk is even more difficult and dangerous, especially under a near-absolute presidential system that has been entrenched since the rise of power more than three decades ago.
Marwan Barghouti at the top of the accounts
Public opinion polls give power and its symbols only a limited percentage of the Palestinian vote, and put imprisoned leader Marwan Barghouti as the frontrunner.
However, independent candidates with less than popularity can compete and have a high chance of success, especially if they receive direct or indirect support from Palestinian factions and forces that are wary of fielding candidates from within them.
In this context, read the strict isolation measures imposed on the prisoner Marwan Barghouti, and the announcement by his family that a prison guard fired a rubber bullet at him inside his cell, in light of information about his intention to run for the presidency from inside the prison. The Israeli Prisons Authority denied the story of the shooting of him.
It is also in this context that the demonization campaigns against Palestinian leader Mustafa Barghouti, who has previously run for president and enjoys a degree of popular support that most of the PA's figures may not have, reads as well. Figures and names outside these frameworks may emerge in the arena of competition, especially when the merit becomes imminent.
The last stop of the presidency
In any case, the most likely scenario is that the Palestinian presidency train will reach its final stop within the next few months. It would be better for the president personally and the Palestinian people to return the mandate to its holders, and leave the final result to the ballot box, rather than wait for "providence."
In summary, these elections do not come in the context of the revival of the Palestinian political system and the national movement, nor do they rise as a witness to their recovery, but rather as an expression of the impasse, and may be a reason for deepening it.
It may be true that something similar can be said about the Israeli elections, with different contexts and conditions. But history may one day write that Abbas and Netanyahu left the political scene at a close time, after many years of rule, leaving behind heavy legacies, while the reality of the conflict is escalating, and even becoming more ferocious and "zero."
