The coalition break in Sharon’s Unity Government and the consequent call for elections is a mere credit to the democratic structure of Israel. Every democratic system needs a strong opposition, and although coalitions are effective in representing the majority electorate, a viable democracy cannot survive without internal conflicts. Periods of major crisis, however, cause tension among parties and can cause in some cases, as it did this week in Israel, the fall of a coalition. The leftist views of Labor are no more, and fortunately for all parties involved, the Israeli public, the Palestinians, and the Americans, this new government has a more rightist appeal.

When Ben Eliezer, Labor head and Israeli’s former Defense Minister, pulled out of the coalition, he effectively dropped a philanthropic bombshell on Sharon. After two years of the “uprising,” Eliezer felt that “a strategy based on defense had exhausted the [Israeli] economy,” and that “diplomatic-only” solutions were needed (Israel Insider 10/26/02). This opinion contrasted greatly with the 84 percent (Arutz Shiva, 10/30/02) of Israelis who support Sharon’s defense-heavy budget. Moreover, despite the view by the Palestinians that the Israeli economy “has been decimated” (Electronic Intifada), our friends over at the FED still rate Israel as having the “eighth largest GDP in the world.” Point in fact, Eliezer was three weeks out of inter-party elections and was third in the polls. His move was thus for ulterior and apocryphal motives, and only served to strengthen Sharon’s domestic policies regarding defense spending and foreign policies with the removal of Labor’s Shimon Peres.

Now that Peres, a shameful opportunist has-been of peace negotiation, is out of the scene, Sharon was left with trying to slide by with a bare majority in the Knesset by attracting Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party or selecting Bibi Netanyahu as Foreign Minister with the condition of early elections. Choosing the “lesser of the two evils,” Sharon on Tuesday selected Netanyahu. This ironic turn in Israeli policy where Sharon is leftist member in his own coalition, demonstrates the views of the jaded Israeli body politic. Only in a place where you can be murdered for buying pizza do such times occur.

This new government helps both the Israelis and the Palestinians by never allowing a Palestinian state to exist. This concept is held by 73 percent of Israelis (Arutz Shiva, 9/16/02) and now even by the PLO, who last Friday said a “two-state solution was no more” (Jerusalem Post 10/31/02). Any two-state solution will be the end of Israel as we know it, whether by internal destruction, by right of return, or external by a Hamas coming to power after Arafat. Even if the Palestinians get their state, they will never have rights. However, seeing that Sharon has picked the even more rightist Bibi Netanyahu as his FM, the two-state solution has effectively been nixed. With a rightist FM, Benny Elon, who is an avid supporter of transfer policy, will become a policy player. This new government will avidly prohibit the regressive two-state solution, and President Bush can pursue this war on terror without fear of Arab pressure as he sits back with his cowboy hat in his ranch watching on television the massive immigration of the Palestinians into Jordan.