Les élections israéliennes de 2006: Un « big bang » silencieux ?

If the 2006 election campaign seems to have left voters cold or indifferent, it is because they know very well that Israeli political parties are not the only ones making the decisions that will influence their fate: The Palestinians, neighboring countries, the United States, and even the European Union and the UN must be taken into account. A democratic election limited to the community of citizens in its pre-1967 definition cannot settle everything. It will never be any more than one aspect among others of the political dynamics on which the fate of the populations living in the territories disputed by Israel and Palestine depends. The theory propounded here is that democratic rules thus limited are incapable of producing a political space that can contain the conflicts, and this due to the lack of consensus regarding the borders of the state and the nation and the lack of an undisputed definition of those who are its "citizens with equal rights." Yet these are essential conditions for any legitimate democratic process by which social antagonism can be mediated and resolved by assumed compromises. When the process of opening a political space for collective demands is blocked, then violence becomes an option.