Israel goes to the polls on Tuesday, Jan. 28. The following is some commentary from my father, Hebrew University political scientist Ira Sharkansky
As you may know, Israelis vote for parties, not individual candidates. The parties produce ranked lists of their candidates, and the proportion of the total vote received by each party determines how many of its candidates will go to the Knesset.
Twenty-nine parties registered candidates for the election, which is Tuesday, January 28th. There is the usual line-up of two major parties, Likud and Labor; with middle-sized Meretz to the left of Labor; two ultra-Orthodox parties appealing respectively to Ashenazi and Sephardi voters; the National Religious Party that could be termed religious Zionist or modern Orthodox; which emphasizes its concern to maintain Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza; Natan Sharansky’s party of Russian immigrants; the party calling itself Shinui (Change) that offers its opposition to the religious and financial demands of the ultra-Orthodox; two parties that emphasize security concerns to the right of Likud; and three parties that appeal primarily to Arab voters. There is also a Green party campaigning on environmental concerns, a Green Leaf party seeking to legalize marijuana, a party calling itself Men’s Rights in the Family seeking a better deal in divorce settlements, and a party named Another Israel that advertised itself as a “non-political” party.
A new ultra-Orthodox party split off from the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox SHAS and calls itself Ahavat Israel (Love Israel). It is led by the grandson of a rabbi who may be 106 or perhaps 108 years old. The ancient rabbi is the party’s figurehead. He is taken to campaign opportunities in an Israeli version of the Popemobile: a plexiglass structure mounted on a campaign bus. He remains silent or makes unclear comments that his handlers interpret. In the case of this party and others, the head of the election commission tried, with limited success, to keep religious campaigners from offering rabbinical blessings in exchange for votes. Students from religious academies associated with competing movements taunted and cursed one another, and moved to a physical encounter until separated by the police. These young men do not serve in the army, but they know how to taunt, curse, and shove when ordered to by their rabbis.
The campaign began in a setting where public opinion polls showed the Israeli public having moved rightward in the direction of Likud’s more forceful posture with respect to the Palestinian violence. The logic of political science was that the left-of-center Labor Party should have campaigned for the center of the national electorate, insofar as it—or its obvious coalition partner Meretz—would automatically garner the left of center votes. Likewise, the right-of-center Likud should also campaign for the center of the electorate, and count on winning the rightist voters or seeing them vote for parties that would likely support the Likud candidate for prime minister in a government coalition.
The Likud candidate Ariel Sharon followed this prescription. He pitched himself as a consensus candidate. He has urged a government of national unity, and identifies himself with the goals articulated by President Bush that include an eventual Palestinian state, even while Sharon asserts that the Palestinians would have to cease violence, reform their institutions, and removed Yassir Arafat from a position of leadership before being ready for statehood. In contrast, the Labor candidate, Haifa mayor Amram Mitzna, moved his party to the left. He said that that he would not join a coalition government headed by Ariel Sharon. He promised a distinctive course. He would pursue peace from the point where the most recent negotiations with the Palestinians had ceased; he would remove most Jewish settlements from the West Bank and Gaza, and would negotiate even with Yassir Arafat. These postures came to haunt Labor. In case the voters did not notice, Likud’s media campaign emphasized them time and again, along with film clips of other Labor party figures saying that they disagreed with Mitzna or that Mitzna was inexperienced. Likud’s message was that Mitzna would offer the Palestinians even more than Prime Minister Barak had offered them, and that—in effect—Mitzna would reward the Palestinians for their violence.
Early surveys showed Likud likely to increase its Knesset representation from 21 to something in the range of 40 seats, with Labor dropping from the 25 seats it had won in the election of 1999.
The timing of the elections did not help the Labor campaign. It has occurred in the shadow of a likely American invasion of Iraq, and the prospect of Iraq retaliating with missile attacks against Israel as it did in the Gulf War of 1991. The atmosphere emphasized security as the primary national problem. The military units concerned with civil defense urged citizens to stockpile 12 liters of bottled water per family member. Neighborhood stations for the upgrading of gas masks opened extra hours. There were reports that special IDF units had operated in western Iraq (the desert area from which Saddam can launch missiles within range of Israel), perhaps in concert with American special units. The health ministry weighed the plusses and minuses of inoculating the entire population against small pox, and decided on a limited plan of inoculating certain health and security personnel. People began to buy material in anticipation of sealing a room against poison gas. Committees in apartment houses cleaned their bomb shelters, often used for storing junk.
The culture that produced Jeremiah could do not overlook the problems. There were reports that a substantial number of the gas masks do not fit properly, and will not provide total protection. What about dogs? Will they be endangered? A commercial firm sold kennels protected from gas, but they were expensive. Some asked why the army is not providing them for all Israel’s pets, including perhaps the cats that live around the garbage dumpsters. Someone spotted a problem in the way the small pox vaccine had been stored. The Health Ministry claimed that all was well.
The travel industry saw opportunities where others saw problems. Hotels and bed&breakfasts in the Galilee and around Jerusalem advertized themselves as likely to be outside the danger zone. The media focused on individuals going to Europe, only a 4 hour flight away. Some felt they should go early before the flights are fully booked, and before the foreign airlines stop flying into a war zone.
A television news item dealt with the problems of caregivers putting gas masks on the people in a sheltered workshop for the autistic. Hardly less troublesome was the item on the residents of an old folk’s home, walking awkwardly to their shelter in a practice drill. Another item portrayed the problem of a young child who must live on a breathing machine: her father’s repeated calls to the army indicated that no one has thought of how to protect her from a gas attack.
One of the university’s janitors asked me if I expected a war. He had renewed his family’s gas masks, and had bought plastic sheeting to seal a room in his home. I told him that he and the rest of the Arabs living in and around Jerusalem—along with the mosques on the Temple Mount—were the best protection available for his family and mine. He agreed, but reminded me that the missiles are not all that accurate. In 1991 one of the missed Haifa and landed on an Arab village.
Labor candidates accused the Sharon government of beating the drums of war and emphasizing its plans for civil defense as a way of increasing its vote. In response, Likud candidates asserted the dangers of an Iraqi attack, noted the public’s legitimate concerns for protections against the prospects of small pox and poison gas, and emphasized that their candidate for prime minister had much greater experience in dealing with security than Labor’s candidate.
Other features of Labor’s campaign emphasized police investigations of corruption in the selection of Likud candidates for the Knesset, another police inquiry into charges that Ariel Sharon and his sons had engaged in illegal campaign finance, and what it claimed was a traditional Labor concern for the economically disadvantaged. The theme of corruption reduced Likud popularity, but failed to help Labor. Some of its own candidates found themselves being investigated for similar problems of corruption. The charges against Likud emerged early in the two-month long campaign, and gave the party an opportunity to deal with them. Less than a week before the voting, television news showed a police squad seizing documents from Mitzna’s office amid charges that as mayor of Haifa he had supported the granting of a building permit to a contractor in exchange for payment.
Labor’s effort to emphasize economic issues ran up against the public’s greater concern with security, and its failure to see a overwhelming difference between Labor and Likud postures on the economy. One poll taken about half-way through the campaign found the public ranking security issues more important than economic or social issues by 42 to 32 percent; and dividing as to which major party offered a better economic platform: 38 percent said Labor, 30 percent Likud, and 32 percent were undecided. Another poll found that 50 percent of the respondents felt that issues associated with security were primarily responsible for the country’s economic problems, whereas only 23 percent felt that the economic problems reflected the policies of the government. Even when charges of corruption among Likud candidates were at their height, a poll found the public thinking them less important than other issues. Asked to rank the items of greatest importance to them, 47 percent of respondents said Palestinian terror and only 17 percent said corruption.
A week before the election, a poll found that if Shimon Peres was Labor’s candidate, the party could expect to win 29 Knesset seats; with Mitzna as the candidate, however, the party stood to win only 19.
The poll added to recriminations among Labor Party activists that Mitzna’s candidacy was going nowhere. Several of the leaders charged that Mitzna had made a serious mistake ruling out participation in a coalition with Likud, insofar as more than 60 percent of the public felt that such a coalition was desirable. One senior figure called the campaign the party’s worst in more than 30 years. Especially vocal were candidates for the Knesset beyond number 19 on Labor’s list. Several of them stood to win election if Peres was the candidate, but not if Mitzna remained the candidate. Mitzna’s supporters accused Peres’ supporters of organizing an unfriendly poll. Mitzna proclaimed his intention of staying the course. Infighting at the summit of the party leadership was more prominent that united campaigning, and seemed likely to weaken the party further. Two days before the election, the political cartoon in Ha’aretz showed a miserable looking Amram Mitzna asking his wife how she will vote.
A prominent feature of the campaign was the emergence of Shinui as a popular alternative to other parties. Polls showed it capable of receiving as many as 18 Knesset seats, in contrast to the 6 it held in the outgoing Knesset. Commentators worried that Shinui would replace Labor as the second-largest party in the Knesset. Several parties focused their campaigns against the upstart in an effort to keep their voters from deserting. Meretz and Labor emphasized that most of Shinui’s candidates and policy postures were unknown; that it not only was an anti-religious party but a party that opposed their own commitments to peace and to strengthening social policies. Likud worried that Shinui’s posture against the religious parties was leading its own religious voters to leave it for the religious parties.
The election may be easy compared to the subsequent problem of putting together a government coalition. Shinui has said it will not sit in a coalition with SHAS. Labor’s Mitzna says he will not sit with Sharon. Other leaders of Labor seem inclined to oust Mitzna as party leader soon after their expected election disaster, so things will bubble along for a while.
You can follow the details on the official Israeli web site: www.mfa.gov.il
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 26, 2003 06:23 PMAs an non-Jewish outsider I have only history to look at, but it looks like no matter what your country does they will always want more. The problem is you show humanity and try to make friends when it is obvious that the Arabs will never look at you but as someone to kill and hate and blame for all there problems. When your parties come to this conclusion there can be constructive action. I am not a Israelphile or a fundamentalist Christian. Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. The parties, whomever wins, must realize that.
Posted by: Gunner on January 27, 2003 12:57 PM