By Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM — We’re currently in a tizzy of political maneuvering. It comes against the mounting evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the Prime Minister and the likelihood of an eventual indictment, as well as an uptick in tensions both south and north.
Bibi’s been in office as long as any previous PM, and he continues to lead in polls asking about voters’ preferences. However, polls also indicate that a majority of Israelis think he is guilty of something, and should be replaced.
Bibi’s Likud party continues to lead, showing a capacity to acquire at least double the Knesset seats of its nearest rivals. That’s better than the present line up of the Knesset, reflecting the collapse of Labor, currently under the label of Zionist Union. It has 24 seats in the Knesset, against 30 for Likud, but recent polls are showing Labor ranging between 10 and 15 seats, while Likud in the same polls would get 28-32 seats.
Left wing Meretz remains somewhere out in the weeds, holding on to its five seats.
Ultra-Orthodox SHAS (Sephardi) and Yahadut Hatorah (Ashkenzi) would repeat their combined holdings of 13 seats, or maybe drop a seat, depending on the poll.
Jewish Home, representing Orthodox Jews and settler supporters, would remain at its present eight seats or lose one.
The Joint Arab list is polling one less than its present 13 seats. It has almost three times the seats of Meretz, but is equally far from power given its usual refusal to bargain.
What’s more interesting is a variety of players either in the Knesset or contemplating a run, which call themselves political parties but are really clusters of politicians around one individual with a personal following, and who pretty much decides what the group will support or oppose. They all claim to identify with a theme, or claim to be centrists without a strong ideology. Together they may have enough support to decide on the composition and key policies of a government, but resist working together.
Yair Lapid, Moshe Kahlon, Avigdor Lieberman, and Orli Levy have 27 seats in the Knesset. They’re polling in the range of 32-36, but a new player, said to be contemplating establishing a party, is polling in the range of 13 seats. He’s Benny Gantz, the former commanding general of the IDF, who’s getting close to the end of the period when a former general is not allowed to enter politics.
Gantz is tall and good looking. He speaks well but not often. His military and personal record appears unblemished, if not spectacular. Several of the individuals noted above, as well as figures in Labor and Likud have made overtures to Gantz, offering not only a secure place on their tickets but also priority in opportunity to become a ranking minister. His situation resembles that of Dwight Eisenhower in the run-up to 1952, admittedly without the full panache of Ike’s military career, but also without the taint of a Kay Summerby.
The larger picture adds to the findings of Harold Lasswell’s Psychopathology and Politics, published in the 1930s. Lasswell had access to the files of Washington area mental health professionals. Prominent in his findings is the strong ego found among individuals who reach the heights of politics or the professional offices of government. Using one’s elbows in the struggle to the top, and looking out for oneself applies to Israelis who exploit their skills and opportunities to create their own parties, insist on controlling them, and resist coalescing with others most likely having similar personality traits.
Labor has been behaving like Labor, with internal squabbles helping to weaken Avi Gabbay, elected as party leader only 12 months ago, in the seventh turnover of the party leadership since 1999. Gabbay only joined the party three months before he ran for its leadership, having previously served as a minister under the label of Moshe Kahlon’s Kulano.
Gabbay has been involved in a nasty squabble over the choice of “Leader of the Opposition,” a largely symbolic office with a few material perks. Tzipi Livni is threatening to bolt the consolidation with Labor (Zionist Union) she helped to form if she is not given the job of Leader of the Opposition. If she bolts to something else, it’ll be her fourth acquisition of a new political label, firming up her reputation similar to that of a too-often divorced lady claiming that her current partners aren’t loyal.
The media has been preoccupied with issues even more ludicrous than the maneuvers among political parties that are not parties. One is a measure to regularize the matter of exemptions from military conscription provided to ultra-Orthodox men. It’s been high on the priorities of Knesset Members and Ministers in the government, but is widely viewed as an Israbluff (ישארבלוף) . That’s less than classical Hebrew meaning a measure meant to look like one thing but is really designed to produce something much different. In this case, a law said to increase the incidence of ultra-Orthodox young men drafted into the IDF is so full of holes as to make Swiss cheese appear like the amour on Israel’s most advanced tanks.
Another flakey measure carries the label of the Nationality Law. It proclaims a number of symbolic points, calling Israel the state of the Jewish people, describing the national flag, indicating that Hebrew is the principal national language, Jerusalem is the capital, and specifying the important national holidays. One of its clauses allows a religious or national group to create a town exclusively for its members. The clause does not specify that this would be or could be a town for Jews only, but that’s what it is widely thought to mean.
Partly because of this clause, but also because the measure is bombastically nationalistic and does not accomplish anything else that is new, it is strongly criticized by virtually all parties accept those beholden to Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli cynics, as well as middle of the road commentators, see the measure as part of Bibi’s campaign to put himself and his party in a good position for a likely election, even while the police and prosecutors are closing in on him.
Overall the two problematic measures recall the status of the Knesset—along with other national legislatures—as a place for political blah blah. Israel and other mature democracies have enough laws. Most governing is done by administrative decisions taken within the framework of legislation that has existed for years. Politics being what it is, legislation action typically consists of many proposals and endless debate, but few laws actually enacted, and most of those adding very little to what already exists on the books.
Tensions alongside Gaza in the south and Syria in the north have been in the headlines. Insofar as an election is not imminent, but is projected to occur sometime in 2019, chances are that a variety of other issues will excite us. The political bomb in the basement is the prospect of Bibi’s indictment. And in anticipation of that, we’re hearing that Likud may be maneuvering toward an earlier election, that will permit it to run with an as yet unindicted Bibi at the top of its ticket.
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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University. He may be contacted via ira.sharkansky@sdjewishworld.com