Egypt is not the only country in the Middle East faced with the need for change. Israel too is facing the same need, writes Mohamed Sid-Ahmed With ultra right-wing opponents of his disengagement plan walking out of Israel's Likud-led ruling coalition, Ariel Sharon is engaged in talks with the leader of the left-leaning Labour Party Shimon Peres on the possibility of forming a national-unity government. Although Sharon, Israel's most prominent hawk, and Peres, its best-known dove, have widely different approaches to the conflict with the Palestinians, such a marriage of convenience would serve the two men's short-term tactical interests. For Sharon, it would bolster his efforts to withdraw Israeli soldiers and settlers from Gaza, while for Peres it offers the chance for a political comeback. Sharon's coalition now controls only 59 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, thus making it vulnerable to collapse. Moreover, his disengagement plan faces significant opposition within the Likud Party itself. Peres and the Labour Party can help in both cases. Labour has 21 seats in Parliament and is obviously more supportive of the plan than many within Likud. If Likud and Labour became partners in a coalition government, Sharon will need only two (not 20) more Knesset members to switch his support in parliament from that of a minority into that of the majority. Even if not all Labour Knesset members vote for Sharon, he will still have a comfortable majority. So both Sharon and Peres are now out to convince their respective constituencies that the time has come for a deal between them. This would not be the first time Labour joins a national-unity government led by Likud. When Sharon was first elected in the wake of the second Intifadah, he formed a coalition with Labour and named Peres as his foreign minister. But as the situation deteriorated, differences over how to deal with the escalating violence forced Peres to resign. Sharon's apparent shift to the "left", his adoption of a disengagement plan that was initially proposed by Labour in 2003 (and roundly rejected at the time by the Israeli electorate) has created a new situation that could well encourage Peres to renew his partnership with Sharon. Meanwhile, Sharon is not totally bereft of weapons he can use against recalcitrant Likud members opposed to his plan. One way of getting them in line is by threatening to call early elections. Still, he is in a difficult position that Peres will not hesitate to exploit to the full. The Labour leader has already told Sharon that his party will try to change government policy, and has made a point of underlining his differences with the prime minister, stating openly that "We will not be joining an existing government; we will not be bound by existing guidelines." One of the main points of contention between the two men is over the nature and scope of the planned withdrawal. Peres believes it should be effected in coordination with the Palestinians, not unilaterally as Sharon is planning. The Labour position is also against the idea of a limited withdrawal, insisting that it should be on a much wider scale if it is to be acceptable to the Palestinians. There are also sharp disagreements over economic policy. The Israeli Labour Party, whose roots are firmly embedded in the ideology of social democracy and the welfare state, is critical of the market-oriented policies of Sharon's finance minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, who has reduced taxes, privatised state-owned companies and made widespread cuts in social programmes. It is also to be expected that Labour will insist on being offered some of the key portfolios, placing Sharon in a very awkward position. If he bows to Labour pressure and dismisses his Likud allies from their cabinet posts, he risks rebellion within his party; if he does not comply with Labour's demands, he risks seeing his attempts to form a national- unity government fail. With so much at stake, coalition talks could drag on for a long time to come. In any case, there is no particular hurry. Summer has set in and the Knesset is in recess until September. It remains to be seen whether we will see any real changes in the political landscape in Israel. What is certain, however, is that the demand for change is not an Egyptian demand only but that it is being heard loud and clear in Israel as well. Perhaps also in many other countries concerned with Middle East problems, even if the meaning of change and how it will be implemented differs from one country to the next. In the current political situation in Israel, for example, the need for change is dictated by Sharon's inability to carry his party with him on the Gaza disengagement plan. The only way out of the fix was to strike a deal with Labour, which supports the plan, and take it on board what has become a very shaky coalition. Indeed, some sort of drastic measure was needed to keep the coalition from collapsing altogether. Thus in Israel's case, change means specifically replacing one coalition combination by another. It might appear strange on the face of it that Sharon, who has devoted his life to building Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, is now bent on evacuating Gaza and dismantling the settlements there. But in fact the contradiction is only apparent. In reality, Sharon has come to realise that the risks of holding on to Gaza, a densely populated hotbed of resistance to Israeli occupation, far outweigh the benefits. His decision to pull out of Gaza, therefore, does not signal a reversal in his settlement policy; rather the move aims at streamlining that policy, especially in the West Bank. Even as his disengagement plan is being hailed in many quarters as a positive step in the direction of an eventual settlement with the Palestinians, Sharon is using his security fence to annex substantial chunks of Palestinian territory. True, the International Court of Justice has condemned the wall as illegal and called for its removal, but its ruling is merely advisory not binding. The PLO has called on the UN General Assembly to uphold the ICJ ruling, but Washington is sure to veto any UN resolution demanding Israel's compliance. Thus Sharon will have succeeded in using Labour and the extremists within Likud to neutralise each other and to ensure that his version of withdrawal from Gaza prevails. While the need for change in Egypt was just as strong, there the similarity ends. The idea behind the cabinet reshuffle in Egypt was to streamline the political apparatus in line with the requirements of the age. To that end, it was decided to replace an elderly generation of politicians who have occupied key positions for long years, some even for decades, by a younger generation of technocrats who are better equipped to take Egypt on the path of reform and modernisation. The choice of 52-year old Ahmed Nazif, with a background in electronics, communications and information technology, symbolises the new vision. One of the main sources of the young cadre of new ministers, including Nazif, is the NDP's policies committee, headed by Gamal Mubarak. Still, as everybody knows, a government is in the first place a political instrument, before being a technical instrument, and this will certainly constitute the main challenge that will face the new government during its tenure, which will end with the presidential and parliamentary elections to be held after 15 months. The winds of change are being felt throughout the region, not just in Egypt and Israel, and it is interesting to speculate how they will affect the various protagonists in the Middle East. Will Arafat, now under challenge from his own Fatah party, manage to consolidate his position or will he become even more marginalised? What to expect in Iraq, success for its new interim government or an escalation of violence? How will the winds of change affect Sudan, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia? And what of America, where the issue of change depends on the results of the November elections? If Bush is reelected, will his policies remain what they have been during his first term or different? If he fails, is anybody aware of what Kerry's policies towards the Middle East will be? What is certain is that change will be a salient feature of Middle East reality in the coming months, changes in trends and orientations, in the choices of the protagonists, in their policies and how to implement them, making any assessment of the final outcome virtually impossible. Can such multi- dimensional multifarious change be kept under control?
