The next prime minister of Israel – Dennis Ross?

January 25, 2009 - 12:50 PM by David

Ross - Ammunition both for and against Bibi

The war-delayed election season is in full swing finally. Now the real war can begin.

With the major parties – Kadima and Likud – frothing at the bit after being held up due to the the ‘national unity’ displayed during the war in Gaza, they’re now finally unleashing the campaigns that their spin doctors and media specialists have been cooking up these last few weeks.

And, strangely enough, they’re using some of the same strategy, courtesy of a one-time aide to Bill Clinton who is set to make a comeback under President Barack Obama – Dennis Ross. The former Middle East negotiator, who’s expected to be appointed as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s point man on Iran, was up to his elbows in the Israel-Palestinian issue during the 1990s and he knew all the players involved.

That’s why both Kadima and Likud are planning to use quotes from Ross’s published memoirs to both praise and bury Likud leader Bibi Netanyahu, according to Gil Hoffman writing in The Jerusalem Post.

“Bibi rarely seemed to know how to act on his ideas – how to present them, to whom, and even when to do so,” Ross wrote about Netanyahu in a quote from his book, The Missing Peace, that was distributed by Kadima. “Translating an idea into action seemed beyond his grasp. It was not lack of intelligence… it was the lack of judgment… but there was something more: Often he would come up with ideas simply to get himself out of a jam.”

The Likud, by contrast, focused on Ross quotes that were policy-oriented and not personal. They distributed interviews with Ross and articles he wrote in which he regretted not insisting upon reciprocity with the Palestinians as Netanyahu had advised him.
“Rather than trying to resolve issues like Jerusalem and refugees, we would have focused on expanding the scope of Palestinian independence from Israeli control, developing and investing in the Palestinian economy, and expanding the connections between the Israeli and Palestinian societies,” Ross wrote in The Wall Street Journal in June 2007, sounding very much like Netanyahu’s current “economic peace” diplomatic plan.

How the new prime minister of Israel will work with the Obama administration is playing a big role in the election propoganda.
Likud officials said they hoped Kadima would continue to portray Netanyahu as someone who would have a difficult relationship with the Obama administration, because they believe this would help Netanyahu win more support among the public. Both Kadima and Labor have already started warning that Netanyahu would have an adversarial relationship with Obama, according to Hoffman.

“Whoever thinks that it will be easy for Israel with Netanyahu as prime minister is wrong,” Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog told Army Radio on Friday. “It will be hard because it seems that Netanyahu’s policies will be in direct contrast with those of Obama.”

So while Americans can now relax in the knowledge that the election is over and Obama is firmly ensconced in the White House, here in Israel, the charismatic leader is still smack in the middle of the election campaign.

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