1996 Israeli Prime Minister direct election: Peres defeats Netanyahu

[El Betico]

Back then, I was only 12 but I can't recall in my lifetime an Israeli election so intensively felt in the part of the world where I live, maybe other ones were at least in part similar but this was in such a perceived decisive time for the Oslo Process' continuation, just few months after the killing of Rabin, and also had all the drama of a direct showdown...literally all the media depicted the election as a Referendum on Peace, and obviously everyone here deeply rooted for a Peres victory "to finish the Rabin work"...when the first exit polls did seem to point to a (narrow) Peres success, some newspapers here took it for granted and the day after they titled "Israel, Peace Wins" or something similar...then, there was the overnight Bibi comeback and his upset(?) victory...but what if the initial results had held up? Is it right to consider this the most consequential Israeli vote ever, at least in recent times? Or the failure of 2000, and the Second Intifada, would have happened anyway? What kind of coalition would Peres have been able to create in a highly-fragmencted Knesset?  And what the consequences for Netanyahu's career and the Likud party, did they retain Bibi or elect a new leader, and if that was the case, who? Maybe I'm not recalling well, but it seems to me that Ariel Sharon rise in 1999 was somewhat unexpected.

[brucejoel99]

Had Peres won, then Oslo would've likely remained (relatively) on track, & final status negotiations would've commenced much sooner.

That being said, though, it's highly unlikely that even a Peres-led government would've made an initial offer that'd be sufficient for the Palestinians. Remember: Ehud Barak's offer at Camp David in 2000 was not only considered generous but was pretty much the best deal that the Palestinians could ever get from any Israeli government, & it still included annexation of 9% of the West Bank (with a 1% land swap), Israeli control of Palestine's borders & airspace, annexation of a long strip of territory east of Jerusalem, & Israeli control of the road connecting the southern & northern West Bank. Say what you will about Arafat & the Palestinians never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity, but no Palestinian leader could accept something like that.

The key difference with this scenario, however, might be that the Barak negotiations at Camp David were very much an 11th-hour affair. There'd been no prior negotiations about final status issues until Camp David because Barak had put off the Palestinian issue to focus on a peace accord with Syria, which fell apart over access to the Sea of Galilee. Barak's coalition was also about to collapse, so final status negotiations were something of a Hail Mary for him, & under conditions that were hardly ideal for a peace accord.

Had Peres been in power & final status negotiations commenced on schedule & after diplomatic preparations, then perhaps the rejection of the initial offer wouldn't have been followed by the process' complete collapse, & subsequent negotiations - perhaps around the time that the Camp David & Taba summits occurred in real life - would've produced a viable plan.

[jaymichaud]

Well he was only in power for under 3 years, and Labor were still the largest faction in the Knesset, so it didn't make as much impact as implied here. The Intifada and the collapse of Oslo would have still happened.