Benjamin Netanyahu

It’s election day here in Israel and the only guess that anyone can lob out there is that Benjamin Netanyahu will probably end up Prime Minister, but that doesn’t mean he will win the election.

There are a number of forces here at work, which create a very unpredictable dynamic in a multi-party coalition government.

First, let’s talk about Hamas. Back when Ariel Sharon initiated the pullout from the Gaza strip, Netanyahu spoke against it (after initially voting for it).  His Likud party defected from Sharon saying Gaza would become a radical Islamic sub-state and the rockets fired at the Gaza settlements would one day reach towns like Ashkelon.  Netanyahu doesn’t often campaign on the “I told you so” platform. He lets other people say it for him.  However, Israeli voters are so tired of Palestinians and the rocket fire they have gone even farther right than Netanyahu and Likud. Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Betenu (Israel is our Home) party have grown from a far right fringe party to a major player in Israeli politics. They have passed Ehud Barak and the Labor party to poll as the 3rd highest vote getters in Israel.

Tzippi Livni

Here’s where its gets spooky for Netanyahu.  Tzippi Livni and the Kadima party are closely trailing Netanyahu and Likud. Lieberman and Yisrael Betenu could very well split the vote leaving Kadima with more seats in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) than any single party. Livni would be at the top of the party.

But that doesn’t guarantee she’ll be Prime Minister.

Israeli law says the President, Shimon Peres, appoints a Knesset Member to form a governing coalition based on who will be most able to put together a majority of votes.  That person becomes Prime Minister.  Livni already failed to assemble a majority once and there isn’t much to indicate she would be more successful now.

Avigdor Lieberman

Kadima and Labor, favor ceding more land to make a Palestinian state and a two state peace deal possible.  In light of the continued rocket fire from Hamas, Israeli voters don’t feel like ceding much of anything to the Palestinians.  So, even if Likud doesn’t win, the right could still end up with the most seats in the Knesset.  Therefore, the top right wing politician would be the most able to assemble a majority.  The burden would fall on Peres to appoint Netanyahu, even if he’s not the top vote getter.

Ehud Barak

Still, Netanyahu could end up the clear winner.  The moderate Israeli voting public is remarkably undecided and uninspired by the menu of potential leaders presented to it. Those voters may not show up to vote.  Given the recent conflict in Gaza, The recent war with Hizbollah and the Israeli soldier still held hostage in the Gaza strip, right wingers who favor a hard stance against Palestinians are motivated and they’re arriving at the ballot boxes.

By Reena Ninan, Middle East correspondent

I could never be a good smuggler.

I once tried to smuggle ten souvenir lighters on a flight from Baghdad to Amman.

The lighters had a picture of George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein with an F-16 above their heads.  I bought them at Baghdad airport.  Airport security yelled at the man who sold them to me and forced him to return my money.  He did.  I gave back most of the lighters but was allowed to keep two.

Smuggling is a profitable business–especially in Gaza.  But it’s not lighters they’re after.

This week Hamas’s Gaza spokesman Ayman Taha was busted trying to carry $11 million in cash ($9 million in U.S. dollars and $2 million in euros) through the Rafah crossing on the Egypt-Gaza border. Taha was coming back to Gaza after ceasefire talks in Egypt.  But before those talks, he made a stop in Tehran along with Hamas’s leader Khaled Meshaal, who is based in Syria.  Gazans believe he picked up the money in Iran.

It’s not the first time Hamas leaders have tried this route. When the Islamists took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, the international community launched an economic boycott.  Hamas Leader Mahmoud Zahar travelled to several countries, including Iran and Indonesia.  He successfully brought back bags of cash via Egypt–$35 million worth.

If it worked back then, why not now?

To start, Egypt appears to be making a more serious effort to crack down on the smuggling. So why not use the underground tunnels–the same tunnels that are also used to bring in rockets?

Maybe it’s become harder to do after Israel bombed hundreds of tunnels recently.  Or perhaps Hamas wanted to see if the Egyptians would really follow through on their pledges to patrol the border.

Either way, with $2 billion dollars in estimated reconstruction costs for Gaza, the Islamists will need to find some way to get fresh funds in if they expect to maintain their grip on power.

Just when I thought I’d seen every surprise the Middle East had to offer, I showed up on the Gaza/Egypt border.  To understand why this is such a surprise you need to remember that Israel said the war in Gaza had two goals: 1) To stop the rocket fire and 2) To stop the smuggling of rockets into the Gaza strip and close the tunnels through which they are smuggled from the Egyptian side.

So, I arrive at the border and find an entire community digging away like prospectors during the gold rush.  It was all out in the open. They were pulling broken wood out of the opening of tunnels. Diggers, most of them kids, were covered from head-to-toe with sand having done the labor of re-opening the tunnels Israel had just closed with 22 days of a withering air campaign.

One of the first I visited needed just a little patch up work and was back in the business of running goods underground from Egypt. I asked the owner of the tunnel if I could have a look at it he said, “Ahlan wa Sahlan,” welcome to everything.

The problem is that the entrance of the tunnel had been hit. It was about 90 feet down and the ladder was broken away in the middle. One of the little diggers offered to haul my camera and shoot pictures himself but I had a couple of problems with that: 1) He didn’t know how to shoot for TV and 2) I can’t keep a clear conscience and send some kid down to do the dangerous work while I sit up top and wait for the video.  So, down I went. It was really treacherous.  None of the steps on the ladder seemed like they were nailed in and secured very well.  When I got to the broken part, I shot my foot out to little nubs of wood on the opposite site of the chute and climbed like spider man keeping enough pressure to keep from falling.  The fall would have been accented by the exposed nails and broken wood on the way down with a final compliment of digging tools lying at the bottom.

I got down and there was the corridor in the sand. The only thing separating me from Egypt was the darkness of the tunnel and the knowledge that the ground above it had been softened for the past 3 weeks by Israeli air strikes.

The owners of the tunnels never admit they smuggle weapons. They will only tell you they smuggle food and basic necessities like fuel and clothes. But they are capitalists.  When a load shows up on the Egyptian side of the border, they don’t ask what’s in it.  They ask how much they can get to pull it through to Gaza.

For all of Israel’s effort and bloodshed, the smugglers are back in business.   I asked one of them what would it take to stop them from digging. He said, “We’ll stop when the borders open.”

done