By Peter Lagerquist
Among organizations and people who make emergency relief their business, it has long been a truism that natural disasters are in the final analysis not nature-made. Nature throws up problems; a lack of preparedness turns these problems into disasters. Occasionally, this connection works itself into national media narratives. In the US, in 2005, the story of Hurricane Katrina became not one of random, elemental tragedy, but the incompetence of local and federal authorities, at the apex of which sat President George W. Bush.
Bush’s popularity was by then already declining, and in responding to the calamity, his characteristically breezy political style only reinforced perceptions that the US was in increasingly clumsy hands. Politically, then, Katrina was a natural disaster chiefly in the sense that nature became a stage on which prevailing political anxieties and debates could play themselves out, and underlying political stakes be brought into focus.
Something similar could be said for the forest fires that ravaged Israel’s northern Carmel Mountain this December, and — in terms of their significance to the Israeli political scene — also the regional ramifications of this natural disaster. The crucial difference is that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is not George W. Bush, and presides over a very different political landscape from the former US president.
The Carmel fires have been roundly pounced upon by the Israeli media as a sign of lacking governmental preparedness. Few commentators have failed to bemoan that a state that possesses the world’s third largest air force owns not a single firefighting aircraft, but had to rely first on under-equipped private contractors, then on assistance from an array of friendly and not-so-friendly governments, including Turkey and the Palestinian Authority, to combat the fires.
Predictably, such concerns have been explicitly paired with anxieties about Israel’s “home front” vulnerabilities in a war with Iran and/or its Hezbollah ally. This war looms as a near certainty in national political discourse, yet as such also raises the specter of renewed rocketing of Israel’s heartlands, as endured during the 2006 Lebanon conflict. Many voices in the public arena have been quick to ask whether Israel is ready to commence round two of this battle. Tellingly, however, few have questioned whether this round can be avoided in the first instance. In this context, it is the political competency of the government, not its policies, that has come into focus.
The fact that the disrepair of Israel’s firefighting capabilities is the legacy of several successive governments has absolved Netanyahu of much blame, according to at least half of all Israelis sampled in one post-conflagration poll. This has in turn extended questions of competency beyond that of any one particular party to Israel’s political culture more broadly, literally transforming the disaster into an atmospheric issue. “The wind, it seems, is the only thing directing anything in this country,” quipped Ma’ariv commentator Ben Caspit, in a comment on the progress of the Carmel fires.
Yet Netanyahu has also done his part to re-instill confidence in his own credibility. His political vulnerability ahead of the fires lay in attempting to be all things to all sides of his fractious political coalition, as well as to the Obama administration. In acceding to a settlement freeze, no matter how gutted of any import, he had alienated right-wing constituents. In not extending the freeze, or casting Israel into momentary international isolation over the Gaza blockade — as well as confrontation with former ally Turkey —he would have worried a more centrist crowd. Having finally forced Washington to abandon its demands that he extend the freeze, however, Netanyahu found himself in a new position: having faced down the US president, he could well afford to accept the help of firefighters from Bulgaria.
Indeed, as a disaster statesman, calling in assistance from over a score of different countries, Netanyahu has also done some to dispel domestic fears of isolation in the international arena. The Carmel fires offered Turkey a chance to dampen the flames of post Mavi Marmara acrimony, and Netanyahu the opening to offer compensation to the families of Turkish activists killed on the ship. Though neither of these gestures may ultimately prove transformative, they reveal that a deeper political dynamic is at work in this relationship. Turkey may not need Israel as much as Israel needs Turkey, but neither is it in Ankara’s interest to sustain an open rift with Tel Aviv, and as such also incur the further displeasure of the US.
In the final, and perhaps most poignant analysis, the Carmel disaster also provided Netanyahu with a chance to rehearse and reinvigorate a distinctive national political style, adaptable from Dwight D. Eisenhower as “if a problem cannot be solved, militarize it.” Amidst a national media coverage that portrayed Israeli fire-spraying aeronauts “as if they were combat pilots on duty”, he announced the formation of an IAF squadron of specialized aircraft to subdue any future fires, reaffirming faith in the ability of military hardware to solve complex crises. By the middle of the month, opinion polls gave him 60-80 percent approval ratings, with a majority of Israelis being impressed by his leadership during the national crisis. Unlike Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2006, of course, Netanyahu also benefited from the inevitability of success in this “home front” battle, however costly the price paid. Unlike Hezbollah, a forest fire will always, eventually, extinguish itself.
Peter Lagerquist is a writer and occasional political consultant. He has written about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for Le Monde Diplomatique, the Journal of Palestine Studies, the Guardian and the New York Times, among other publications. This commentary is published by Daily News Egypt in collaboration with bitterlemons-international.org.
