With its ruling party leader Tzipi Livni's failure to form a new government, Israel is now most likely to plunge into another three-month political chaos till the early general election.
The lingering political instability, together with the continuing absence of a normal government, has stirred up widespread worries that the last drops of hope would be wiped away for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal within this year.
Exactly 11 months ago, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas resumed the long-stalled peace talks at a U.S.-hosted conference in Annapolis, and pledged to reach a comprehensive peace deal before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office in January.
Following the landmark summit, the peace process began gathering steam, with Olmert and Abbas as well as negotiating teams from both sides meeting regularly, high-ranking U.S. officials including Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice frequenting the Middle East, and confidence-building measures being carried out on the ground.
The peace process snailed forward even after a new police probe against Olmert went public in early May, which later turned out to be the prelude to a sweeping political storm. Yet as the scandal unfolded around the Israeli leader, calls were mounting for his resignation, and momentum began dwindling on the peace front.
In September, Livni won the Kadima primary, succeeding scandals-enveloped Olmert as the ruling party chief. Immediately after Olmert formally resigned from the premiership and became a caretaker premier, Livni embarked upon the presidential mandate to form a new cabinet.
Her victory was widely seen as good news for the Middle East peace process, as the foreign minister had been leading Israeli teams in talks with the Palestinians and had exhibited a pragmatic stance, representing a better choice than her rival, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz.
However, a month later, the former Mossad intelligence agent, who was once expected to have good chances of succeeding in the cabinet-making task, was unable to cobble together a ruling coalition, and the Jewish state is set to undergo another three transitional months.
With the Annapolis deadline pressing nearer, little tangible progress has thus far been achieved. Palestinian officials have complained that Israel's political turmoil marks a major blockade along the already sluggish peace process, and has been hampering serious efforts to bridge the gaps on borders, settlements, the status of Jerusalem and other key issues.
"Time is precious. The next few months will be wasted because of (the Israeli) elections and the U.S. elections," and the peace talks would be left in limbo, said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an aide to Abbas, following Livni's announcement on Sunday.
Till the formation of a new cabinet, the Jewish state will remain under the Olmert administration. Yet although the outgoing leader has pledged to push forward the peace process as long as he remains in office and has repeatedly voiced his confidence in the Annapolis goal, his authority on significant diplomatic issues has been questioned.
"As caretaker premier, Olmert is not in a position to sign a peace agreement with the Palestinians," Gidi Rahat, a professor in political sciences at Hebrew University, told Xinhua on Monday, adding that he could continue the peace efforts and pave a way for the next government.
A Supreme Court ruling issued earlier this year also stressed that a caretaker government must conduct itself "reasonably and proportionately" and to act with the restraint appropriate to its status, except in cases of emergency.
Meanwhile, a meeting between Olmert and Abbas, which was originally scheduled on Monday, has been postponed until further notice, which Rdeneh said was due to Israel's political upheaval.
Far away in the United States, a major player in the Middle East peace process, the White House said Sunday that Bush will continue with his bid to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process till the end of his term.
Yet Rahat noted that although Bush might urge greater efforts, but the "lame duck" has considerably lost his weight on the hot issue. His successor, Rahat added, will first deal with the domestic affairs and the deepening financial crisis before paying serious attention to the Middle East.
As the Annapolis goal is drifting further out of reach, the peace prospect after Israel's snap election is also elusive, with recent polls indicating a close match between Kadima and the current main opposition party Likud. Meanwhile, even the winning party is unlikely to fully carry out its policies, since it seems certain that it will have to rule in the form of a coalition.
However, a victory of the right-wing Likud is expected to draw an even darker picture of the already frustrating peace process, as its leader, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has criticized many of the concessions Olmert and Livni have made in talks with the Palestinians.
"Netanyahu could be very pragmatic, too. But the chances of him to push forward the peace process are much less than those of Livni, because Livni is more committed to the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks," said Rahat.
Turning to the Palestinian side, Rahat noted that another major problem dampening the peace efforts is the conflict between Fatah and Hamas, emphasizing that without a united Palestinian government, any peace agreement between the two neighbors would be of no avail.
(Xinhua News Agency October 28, 2008)
