An earlier version of this essay was published by Middle East Eye, whom I thank for offering it a home:
I love that old Linda Ronstadt song from classic era of Eagles-inspired soul-rock, It Don’t Matter Anymore. Describes the upcoming Israeli election to a ‘T.’
During the U.S. anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s there was a popular slogan: suppose they gave a war and nobody came? I’d like to amend that to the Israeli context: suppose they called an election and nobody came or cared? That sums up the coming March election, which Bibi Netanyahu has precipitated for no apparent reason other than to prolong his record as the longest serving Israeli prime minister. At this rate, he’ll be embalmed in the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem like Lenin in the Kremlin. They should change his title to Prime Minister for Life. The irony is that 60% of Israelis polled don’t like him or want him to be prime minister. They just want the other guy even less.
If you were cynical (and it pays to be when you observe Israel and its political system), you’d say Bibi has been orchestrating key events for months leading up to his call for new elections. There’s nothing like a good war against Gaza or Lebanon to perk up poll numbers. I have little doubt that Operation Protective Edge was part of his plan to prepare for elections. Even if it wasn’t, it dropped a wonderful campaign gift into his lap. Further, the Israeli provocations that led up to the last month of terror attacks and killings were also likely laying the groundwork for elections. There’s nothing like feeding red meat to the settler ‘dogs’ of the Likud’s far-right flank–with police assaults on the Haram al-Sharif, Palestinian expulsions from Silwan to further the Judaization of East Jerusalem–to motivate extreme nationalists to vote Likud. The latest series of what I call Knesset “Race” Bills (but which Israelis call “Nationality Laws“) has also monopolized the political discourse. Even though these racist proposals have been roundly criticized abroad and by no less figures than Shimon Peres and Reuven Rivlin (the current and past presidents), and it’s unlikely they will pass in their current form, they play well to the 60% of Israelis who polls show have racist views of Palestinians.
Another critical move the Knesset made to anaesthetize the left was raising the electoral threshold for political parties from 2% to 3.25%. It’s no accident that no single Palestinian party wins more than 3.25% of the vote. The upshot is that unless the parties unite, they will be shut out of the Knesset. So instead of Israeli Palestinians having only half the actual representation they should have in proportion to their actual population in the current Knesset, they will have none. It was a shrewd racist move in many ways. Even if the parties do coalesce into a single entity Palestinians, almost half of whom refuse to participate in the electoral process at all, will be far less motivated to vote. Imagine if the UK Tories and Social Democrats were forced to unite in order to rise above an electoral threshold. How many voters in each party would be so turned off by the cheapening of their values that they would say to hell with both of them and stay home? I predict this is what’s likely to happen in the coming Israeli election.
This is not an academic exercise, nor is it’s impact limited to Israeli Palestinians. It is yet another in a long line of successful ploys designed to emasculate the Israeli left. The extreme nationalist right has engineered (barring outside intervention) a permanent settlerist majority. Israeli democracy is dying. Any society which disenfranchises 20% of its population in the name of Jewish supremacism is on its way to political hell.
Netanyahu’s announcement of the sacking of the two centrist ministers, Yair Lapid and Tzipi Livni, in which he accused them of orchestrating a “putsch,” is also the stuff of political theater. The idea of Israel’s pathetically weak centrist parties having the coherence, savvy or boldness to organize such a political maneuver is beyond ridiculous. Neither Livni nor Lapid can agree on what day it is, let alone join together to try to take over the government. But conspiracy-mongering of this sort of plays well to the Likudist electorate, always smelling a conniving “leftist” rat.
Netanyahu, whose performance in the last election was actually quite poor, forcing him to cobble together an awkward coalition of far-right nationalists with centrist liberal Zionist parties, stands to do much better in the coming one. He has neutralized the political center and stimulated the right with Pavlovian policies like those I outlined above. The opposition is demoralized, the governing coalition is mobilized. It promises a sure win for the rightist coalition.
Now let me say something heretical for most observers of Israeli politics: who wins doesn’t matter. In the inconceivable event Lapid or Livni win, policies would not be significantly different. Sure, there will be a few sops thrown to the social justice movement. Maybe Mahmoud Abbas would be invited to visit. Israel might allow a nuclear agreement with Iran and not threaten to attack. But no Israeli prime minister would be able or willing to conclude a peace agreement with the Palestinians and other frontline states (Lebanon and Syria). There is simply no consensus about this and no one has the guts to try to forge one.
Nor does it matter much who’s elected to the Knesset. That body, despite being Israel’s legislative branch, does precious little that has any substantive impact on Israeli society. Government policy is implemented by a tight-knit circle of the political, military and intelligence elite including the prime minister, defense and finance ministers, the intelligence chiefs and IDF chief. The main purpose of the Knesset and ministerial portfolios is to hand-out political pork to supporters and factions. This is why the Haredi, Mizrahi and Orthodox parties have done so well in past governments. They had little interest in impacting policy in significant ways. They wanted political fiefdoms from which they could parcel out goodies and patronage along with the odd Judaic morality play about preserving rabbinic control over marriage and divorce.
In other democracies, the purpose of the legislative branch is to oversee the executive branch: to review policies and finances and ensure government functions in a fair and transparent way. The Knesset doesn’t monitor the prime minister, military or intelligence branches as they might in a real democracy. Its members do a lot of grandstanding. They give interviews to newspapers in which they vent about the latest Palestinian outrage. It’s all pandering to an electorate which laps up Palestine-baiting. The grandstanding is little more than political positioning for the next election. They more column inches you get in Yisrael HaYom the higher you’ll be placed in the party list and more likely you’ll enter Knesset and become a minister. Israeli politics is little more than a gravy train leading to perks and patronage.
Lest anyone doubt this, take Ehud Olmert’s political career as a model. From almost the beginning when he became mayor of Jerusalem through his role as a junior cabinet minister up to becoming prime minister, he was as crooked as the day is long. Almost everything was for sale for the right price. If he couldn’t find Israelis able to finance his lifestyle, he turned to kindly Diaspora Jews like billionaire, S. Daniel Abraham, to shower him with Slimfast boxes full of cash.
Now Olmert whines about how bad Israeli politics works and how little is being done to solve real problems. But when he had a chance to make peace with the Syrians and Palestinians, he demurred. In the former case, he preferred starting a useless war against Gaza than signing a deal with Pres. Assad. Only when Israeli politician leave power do they sound like the soul of Hamlet.
Netanyahu hasn’t quite followed the same path. He’s corrupt, but not on the same scale (as far as we know). He is more ideologically motivated than Olmert. But even Bibi is willing to trim his sails to suit the prevailing winds. Though he’s repulsed by the notion of a Palestinian state, he gave George Bush a speech in which he endorsed it with his fingers crossed behind his back.
Bibi’s primary goal is not to make an indelible mark as a statesman. Not to solve an intractable national problem. His goal is survival. Longevity. He likes hearing the sound of his own voice delivering orations at the UN or before Congress. It flatters him.
He has no strategic vision. He’s not trying to get from Point A to Point B in terms of pursuing a political agenda. He satisfied with the settlers providing the ideological passion and energy. He sits above it all as a conductor leading the orchestra, making sure no one plays too much out of tune.
In 2011, Jerry Haber penned a post, Bibi for Prime Minister, which at that time seemed heretical to some. I wasn’t sure at the time I agreed with him. I do now. In fact, I’d prefer a victory by someone even more extreme like Lieberman, Bennett or Danon. They will expose the fangs of Israeli racialism and fascism. The world will know what it’s getting with that crew. There will be no mincing words, no waffling, no hoping for better future outcomes. Once Israel elects the Apocalypse there will be no turning back to a nation of liberal democracy. There will be no nostalgia for the past of kibbutzim, collectivism, and social democracy. That will be thrown on the dust heap of Israeli history.
This time, Israel will be exposed like the Alien monsters in the film franchise who lurk undetected inside perfectly nice and unsuspecting human beings. But at a certain moment, these aliens explode from the bodies, killing their hosts as they show themselves in all their hideous “glory.” That’s the direction Israel is heading.
France has had its Republics. Like France, Israel’s history has included kings, prophets, judges, conquerors, and prime ministers. Now, Israel is closing out another chapter in its history. The era of the democratic nation state is lapsing into a Judean theocratic regime. Paraphrasing Yeats, some “rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches” towards Jerusalem to be born. The sooner this beast appears, and wreaks the full measure of his havoc, the sooner the world will realize that it must act to prevent an even greater catastrophe. Things will get worse, much worse, before they get better.
The NY Times published a similar take on the elections from Max Blumenthal, which is worth reading. I especially enjoyed this passage:
If a shift is underway in Israeli politics, it is primarily tonal. Israel’s rightists intend to carry on the Zionist project as originally conceived, but without the pretense of democracy. In a way, their honesty is refreshing.
I recorded an audio interview with Robert Rosenblum of The Truth About Israel, to which you may listen here. The audio isn’t terribly good, but you can make it out decently if you listen closely. Head phones help:
“But no Israeli prime minister would be able or willing to conclude a peace agreement with the Palestinians”
I believe Bibi was prepared to make a peace deal with the Palestinians earlier this year.
My take on the events that led to the failure of the peace deal puts most of the blame the Palestinians. See below.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118751/how-israel-palestine-peace-deal-died
so Bibi was prepared to make a peace deal with the Palestinians, who are the ones most responsible for the failure.
Haha, you indeed are a member of Hasbara International. Thanks for the laugh.
@ Red Eft: “Your take” was that Bibi, who you earlier purported to hate (and which I don’t believe), was prepared to make a deal. And your support is an article from The New Republic-an? Excuse me while I laugh.
@RS
” And your support is an article from The New Republic-an”
Shoot the messenger.
I asked you not to publish more than 3 comments in any 24 hr period. You’ve ignored me. Take this request very seriously or you will be moderated.
@Red eft: I’m “shooting” the message & the messenger!
Gag lifted on the mysterious case of ‘Adam L’, who turns out to be just another loon drawn to the Holyland.
I wonder if the Obama assassination plan was real?
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4601620,00.html
Do you in earnest believe that Israel regime with all its racist religious nuts would have let such a excellent story for them go without maximum propaganda making among Israeli and US public if they would have had any evidence and a real Palestinian “offeror”. Now no reference to this Palestinian suggesting Obama assassination allegation was made in the charge sheet released Tuesday. Wow, what a country and what kind of police.
What is describing to Israeli Jewish police’s moral standards and ethics is that they tell this kind propagandist unproven rumors in order to make Jewish / Christian terrorism efforts in question less visible. Now they tell this kind of idiotic assassination story only in order to get little “Palestinian filth” in the stories in the media around the world. Well the international press is so used to Israeli propagandist tricks that very few newspapers bother even to tell this “Palestinian offering…” part.
@ Red Eft: So you support the secret arrest of U.S. citizens by foreign governments and eliminating the presumption of innocence sacred to western law? Good to know. You see me, I believe even the worst suspects deserve the protections of law offered, supposedly, to all citizens. I never saw in the U.S. constitution a provision for police to eliminate them for certain citizens. I’m also glad to see you prefer Israel’s system. You deserve it & it deserves you. You’re a match made in Hell.
@Richard Silverstein
“..a match made in Hell.”
Gag or ‘supression’ orders are also used in Great Britain, with some regularity, as well as in Australia.
The United States uses ‘NSA letters’ with equal effect.
Richard. I don’t follow you. How does a secret arrest eliminate the presumption of innocence? A presumption of innocence means that the government carries the burden of the case. The government must prove it’s case, and not the other way around. Once the detainee’s identity is revealed, the State of Israel still carries the burden.
How does
As a practicing defense attorney, I do not like gag orders and I am positive that they are overused and abused, here in Israel.
No democratic state has nearly as many gag orders and cases of military censorship as Israel.
NSA ltrs are exceedingly rare and there are NGOs fighting against them tooth & nail, unlike in Israel, where opposition is half hearted or non existent.
Read the post again. The FBI statement implies guilt. My meaning was clear if you read the post carefully. But since you raise the question, in a national security state like Israel citizens are conditioned to accept the word of the Stasi. If you are accused of a national security crime, esp if you are not Jewish, you are guilty. Saying the govt must prove its case is preposterous. The govt merely has to appear and the judiciary grants it whatever the State wishes. Evidence is secret. Not even the defense can see it. The victim has no right to confront accusers. Do you really know anything about the Israeli legal system pertaining to national security?
@RS
“NSA ltrs are exceedingly rare ”
You are wrong.
“Over 300,000 NSLs have been issued in the past 10 years alone. The most NSLs issued in a single year was 56,507 in 2004. In 2013, President Obama’s Intelligence Review Group reported; that the government continues to issue an average of nearly 60 NSLs every day. By contrast, in 2000 (the year before the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act that loosened NSL standards), 8,500 NSLs were issued.”
https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters/faq
It may seem that NSL letters are exceedingly rare, but that’s only because the recipient is forbidden from discussing them under threat of punishment.
@ Red Eft: If you compare Israeli gag orders & censorship directives per capita based on population you’ll find that Israel has more such intrusions than the U.S.
“The FBI statement implies guilt.”
The FBI can imply guilt because the FBI falls under the Executive branch of government, not the Judicial branch. The ‘presumption of innocence’ applies to the Judicial branch of government.
@ Red Eft: That’s utter baloney. You’re making up constitutional law as you go along. Presumption of innocence applies to all branches, but especially to those which apprehend & investigate crimes.
Since you’ve again ignored my request to honor the 3 comment rule, you are now moderated. I will in future approve a maximum of 3 comments a day by you.
“The upshot is that unless the parties unite, they will be shut out of the Knesset. So instead of Israeli Palestinians having only half the actual representation they should have in proportion to their actual population in the current Knesset, they will have none. It was a shrewd racist move in many ways. Even if the parties do coalesce into a single entity Palestinians, almost half of whom refuse to participate in the electoral process at all, will be far less motivated to vote.”
I don’t agree, and neither do Palestinian intellectuals and MK Ahmed Tibi and Haneen Zoabi.
In an article by Jack Khoury in Haaretz: “Arab parties present united front” (I don’t post the link in order not to block the publication of the comment), I was actually surprised to read this:
“Dr. Nihad Ali, a sociologist from the Western Galilee College and the University of Haifa, believes that raising the electoral threshold is actually good for Arabs. “I, together with University of Haifa professors As’ad Ghanem and Sami Samocha, submitted a document calling for raising the electoral threshold, since it would promote Arab unity. This was a clear demand made by the Arab community in surveys we conducted over the years. Most of the Arab public wants a united front so that one – or at most two – lists will encourage people to come out and vote.”
I don’t know this Dr Nihad Ali, but I know professor As’ad Ghanem who’s an outspoken critcic on Israeli ethnocracy, and Samy Samocha (I googled to find out whether this is another way of transcribing the name of Samy Smooha, it is. I’m not into Hebrew transcription and it seemed too different to me but it is the same well-known sociologist who coined the “ethnocratic democracy” about Israeli democracy)
I know JPost isn’t the best source but this article reflects what I’ve read elsewhere: Zoabi, Tibi and others expect higher parcitipation among the Arab voters.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Arab-MKs-experts-tell-Post-Expect-higher-election-turnout-with-united-slate-383721
Hadash, Balad and Ra’am-Ta’al (which already is two separate parties on one list) are going to unite in one or maybe two parties according to what I’ve read.
I am not sure at all that Bibi will be the next PM – my feeling is that he has exhausted his usefulness in advancing the country`s goals. A new face buys time – a commodity that is usually in need in Israel and is especially so now in the anticipation that Obama will be replaced by a more staunch supporter of Israel, Bush style, and also planned EU anti-Israel aggressive moves will get delayed by the election of a new PM. In any case, Israel is now busy signing huge contracts with India, under its new generally pro-Israeli and anti-Islamist leader, which would also act towards decreasing economic reliance on the EU – but that takes time to ripe.
EU anti-Israel aggressive moves… Yeah right, after we supported Israel for decades, financed the Occupation and so on. Get real. Please do sign contracts with India and see where that gets you, Rambo!
Israel needs to use China as a new sugardaddy, because America is catching on that Israel is mutating into some sort of goon state…..but then, we probably used Shabak goons in the black sites or they advised us to go full Gestapo in our torturing, so we are unfortunately joined at the hip. I wish a Russian surgeon could cut us apart, but just asking is “anti-Semetic” somehow to the beltway talking heads and the hasbarist robots in these comments.