Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak has been elected, although by a small margin, to lead the Labor Party (Avoda), a partner in the coalition with Kadima, the largest party in the Knesset since the 2006 elections.
Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, another former prime minister who was a member of the Avoda party, has won the presidential election.
The political elite of Israel is so small that a political blunder will not keep you from climbing back to the top of the political pyramid in, say, a year, or at most five or ten years. It is almost impossible to lose your place in the Israeli political elite.
This makes life easy for those who adjust their Middle East policies to personnel reshuffles in Israel. They know what to expect from Barak as defense minister, the post he will most likely take in the government of Ehud Olmert, or from the aging Peres. They also know what Olmert, and his main adversary, Benyamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing opposition party Likud, want. The same is true about the other major political figures in Israel, as well as the political "extras."
Only Ariel Sharon, who has become history, did not fit Israel's stereotypes.
Predictability is crucial for long-term forecasts. It is now clear that the next Middle East war in which Israel participates, no matter how it plays out or ends, will not ruin Israel's economy. It may slow down its growth and will most certainly complicate the situation in some of its industries. But the period of major post-war problems for the Israeli economy ended in the 1970s or 1980s.
Relevant examples are Palestine's al-Aqsa Intifada and the second Lebanese war. The military-political leaders of Israel could not act more unprofessionally than they did in the summer of 2006. But Israel survived all their blunders, which means that it can survive anything.
Israel does not need more conflicts with its neighbors. A tragic mistake or provocation, a combination of factors or pressure from Washington may push it into another round of confrontation in the Middle East. But Israeli governments - right- or left-wing, coalition or one-party - will never begin a war of their own volition.
The only imaginable exception is a situation in which the military-political leaders of Israel become convinced that Iran has acquired nuclear weapons and is prepared to use them against Israel, acting on the threat made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to wipe the Zionist state from the face of the earth.
A clash with Syria or Lebanon could be provoked by Iran, but is highly unlikely in any other situation.
Relations with Palestinian groups, which have been attacking Israel from Gaza and may shift their positions to the West Bank, are a particular headache.
Palestine is being torn apart by a civil war. The Palestinian state exists only on the drawing boards of international bureaucratic organizations (the smaller the probability of establishing it, the harder they work to make it possible) and the quartet of international co-sponsors of the peace process.
No serious Israeli politician will bet on that "dead horse." This is the reality, but it does not mean that politicians won't make speeches about the future of the peace process. This allows the intermediaries, mainly Americans, to save face and gives the left-wing camp access to the leftovers of foreign grants given for the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.
If clashes between Palestinian clans, tribes and criminal groups stop bothering Israelis, they will go on without the interference of the Israeli army. If not, a new Israeli military operation in Gaza is as unavoidable as the counterterrorism operations of the Israeli special forces in the West Bank.
The situation in Israel will otherwise develop without major upheavals. The Olmert government will finish its term, since no party in the ruling coalition wants early elections that could deprive them of power.
The opposition is too small to be able to bring down the unpopular government in a parliamentary way, and other scenarios of the kind that regularly play out in the region are unlikely in Israel. The policy of Netanyahu as prime minister will differ from that of Olmert only in his choice of words.
In short, no major changes lie in store for Israel, unless it gets another General Sharon.
This moderate stability is also the main element of Russian-Israeli relations, promising gradual progress. I am referring to the possibility of visa-free travel, the return of the Russian Orthodox Mission to the Russian Orthodox Church, and bilateral economic relations.
The areas of progress are the same as in the 1990s: gas and electricity supplies, joint projects in the sphere of military technology and infrastructure, the diamond industry and high-tech sectors, as well as mutual investments and cooperation in developing countries.
Since the potential of bilateral cooperation is significantly larger than its current level, Russia and Israel have goals to work towards, and predictability and stability could help them make progress.
Yevgeny Satanovsky is president of the Institute of the Middle East.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
