I don’t know that Shimon Peres can do much about it one way or the other, but I think there is a good chance that something is going to give in 2011. I can’t see us going another year with the status quo on the peace process and on Iran. President Obama isn’t going to be able to do a whole lot with Congress so he should have a lot more spare time for globetrotting and diplomacy.
At his advanced age and with his vast experience and way of thinking, [President Shimon] Peres identifies himself with the state. And he sees all his enterprises drowning in the sea. In 2011, will Shimon Peres surprise us all – and surprise himself, too – by shedding the suffocating uniform of the figurehead and saying what he thinks publicly, in a clear voice and with a great outcry? Many people are pressing him to take that course, some of them opposition figures with whom he meets frequently…
…If there is a national figure today who is esteemed and to whom the nation will listen, it is Peres. Maybe the way to induce the prime minister to act is through the public. If Peres truly believes, as he says in private conversations, that in 2011 Israel will face the genuine possibility of economic sanctions by the European Union, joining the ranks of countries like North Korea and Iran, will he be able to look in the mirror at the end of the year and tell himself that he did everything he could to avert the disaster?
“What do you want from me, I’m not the prime minister,” he tells people who urge him to burst the boundaries of the presidency. “I prefer to do things quietly, by persuasion and with agreement. I have learned a few things in my life. Sometimes it’s better to work in this way in order not to generate anger and destroy friendships.”
It looks like Netanyahu has failed.
The accepted view across the political spectrum today is that Labor will leave the government in February or March of the new year. The Netanyahu coalition will survive for a few months with the help of the National Union, and then the Knesset will dissolve.
It looks like Peres thinks more than Netanyahu has failed:
People who have spoken with Peres of late are hearing grim and apocalyptic prophecies unlike anything he has ever voiced before. Not only about the peace process but also about the image of the country, which is becoming ever uglier, about the revulsion he feels at the phenomena of xenophobia and persecution of foreigners, and about the damage being done to Israel by the dark letters recently issued by rabbis and their wives.
In any case, I think we should keep our eye on Israel. The next year there could be historic, or apocalyptic. The people who have been running the country are out of ideas. They’ve got nothing left. Maybe they’ll realize that there is no one to turn to anymore and face reality. I hope so, for their sake.
