Israel’s New Defense Minister Ain’t Ehud Barak

With the new coalition about to be put in place, the Defense Ministry will go to Likud’s Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon, the former Minister of Strategic Affairs. In the past I argued that Ehud Barak would be missed as Israel’s Defense Minister, because of the restraint he could exercise on both Iran and settlements. Ben Caspit argues that Ya’alon is moderate, thoughtful, and careful. But I’m skeptical. His recent statements on Iran and the peace process (including the settlements and a Palestinian state) seem more in line with Benjamin Netanyahu, or even more with the hardliners in the party.

On Iran, Ya’alon believes—like most Israeli leaders—that it is the major strategic threat to the country. But where Barak viewed the use of force (against Iran or the Palestinians) as part of a larger foreign policy tool kit, Ya’alon seems bent on a military strike against Iran—sooner rather than later—to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. He’s said that “The best defense is a good offense.” And he seems to have a less positive view of President Obama’s support for the Israeli position than Barak did, which could cause problems for coordination between Israel and the United States.

On the peace process, Ya’alon is more in line with Netanyahu’s “there is no Palestinian partner” argument, particularly when it comes to the demand to recognize Israel as the Jewish state. Indeed, this past January he ruled out any possibility of a Palestinian state.

Ya’alon is also less interested in the open exchange of ideas and criticism. When he attended a Jewish Leadership conference (a far-right faction within Likud whose head, Moshe Feiglin, advocates for the construction of a Third Temple), he called Peace Now a “virus” and continued that “Jews can and need to live in all of the Land of Israel for all eternity.”

Certainly Barak was no Peace Now member: he authorized “illegal settlements” and allowed his ministry, and the IDF, to facilitate the expansion of “legal” settlements and violent attacks by settlers against Palestinians and their property. But he wasn’t an unrestrained Greater Israel advocate either. This seems to have angered Ya’alon, who once called for Barak’s authority to determine settlements (which belongs to the Defense Minister) to be stripped away and given to others.

All of these hard-right positions will be amplified in the new government, because Ya’alon is not a serious contender for power either in Likud or in government. He can be counted on to support Netanyahu’s policies on the peace process and Iran, and because Bibi doesn’t view him as a threat he’ll be brought in to reinforce Bibi against Yair Lapid and Tzipi Livni.

As I said before, we’ll soon miss Barak.

More Flawed than Normal?

The Israeli electoral and party systems have long been broken. Political parties were always breaking apart and merging—indeed, both Labor and Likud are themselves amalgamations of several factions, some of which have over time left the party and then returned to it. Up until the late 1990s it still functioned relatively well.

But this year’s election process seems more flawed than usual. Or maybe it’s because the process is more exposed than usual. Tzipi Livni, for instance, has been making political announcements on her Facebook page since she left Kadima. And there are a number of really good Israeli journalists tweeting from virtually every public meeting the parties have been holding.

First, the center/center-left is far more fragmented than ever before. It makes no electoral sense for there to be a Labor, a Tzipi Livni Party, a Yesh Atid, and a Kadima. It’s true that in the past there have been several parties clumped on a particular spot on the political spectrum. What’s different this time is that none of these parties show any sign of willingness to work closely with each other. Worse, they’ve all given indications that they’ll jump into a government with Bibi and Likud at the first opportunity.

Second, the sheer ego that’s been driving the electoral process is more staggering than normal. Individuals have been forming and leaving parties seemingly on a whim. Tzipi Livni didn’t want to play second fiddle to anybody else, so she formed a brand new party named after her. Yair Lapid didn’t want to be in second place either, so he, too, formed his own party.

Ehud Barak abandoned the party he specifically formed to enter government because he couldn’t handle the embarrassment of staying with it to the bitter end. Amir Peretz sulked because he was at number three in Labor and couldn’t get Shelly Yachimovich to give in to his demands, so he left the party he had once led and went to Livni.

Haim Amsalem was kicked out of Shas for dissenting from the party’s rabbinical line, and formed Am Shalem. Michael Ben Ari and Aryeh Eldad didn’t like the new leadership in National Union, so they left to form Strong Israel.

If the stakes for Israelis and Palestinians weren’t so high, this would make for a good drama—or comedy. (Michael Koplow appropriately compared Israeli politics to an HBO series.)

But weighty issues remain to be adequately dealt with. Hamas and Hezbollah are clearly much stronger than ever before; relations with Turkey and Egypt are persistently stagnant, with no sign of potential improvement any time soon; the Iranian nuclear question is coming to a head within the next six to 12 months; the Syrian endgame looks to be here; and the recognition of Palestine as a non-member state at the UN is raising new questions about political and legal maneuvers and putting renewed emphasis on Israeli policies toward the West Bank.

Israel is distracted from dealing with these issues because parties and politicians are busy fighting for what they see as their rightful share of the political pie. The saddest part of it all is that the outcome of the elections is unlikely to change things all that much. The right is likely to still get between 65 and 68 seats, or more (the most recent poll gives it 73 Knesset seats—though I should repeat that I’m not convinced “left” and “right” are necessarily helpful categories). Bibi will probably still be prime minister. And, as I said, most parties would join Bibi’s coalition if they could—except the Arab parties (which won’t be asked) and Meretz (which seems most likely to stand more on principle than any other party).

The silver lining is that the electoral lists are now set, by law. We’ll see less overt and public plotting and scheming…at least until January 23.

Ehud Barak As Tactician, Not Politician

At Open Zion I argue that Ehud Barak really is necessary to have in the Israeli government. The full piece is reprinted below.

Daniel Gavron has responded to my contention, here on Open Zion, that Benjamin Netanyahu should try to keep Ehud Barak at the Defense Ministry because he’ll be a restraining force on some of the more hawkish members of the new government formed after January 22. Gavron argues that Barak was a disaster as a politician and a strategist, and therefore good riddance.

Gavron’s argument builds on a particular interpretation of the failure of the peace process that puts most of the blame at Barak’s feet. Also, it’s not that Barak was a genius who always made the right decisions for Israel, but that compared to those who’ll be deciding on security matters, he thinks far more critically and will therefore be more open to alternate policies.

Gavron’s assertion hinges on the implication that Barak’s policies led to the Second Intifada, which in turn killed off the peace process because he chose to respond with brute force from the beginning. Yet the notion that Barak “decimated the Israeli peace camp” is ahistorical at best.

The flaws inherent in the Oslo process had already started the process of decline long before Barak. Settlement building continued apace under Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Benjamin Netanyahu before him. The shift from a collectivist ethos to consumerism and individualism that underlies Israelis’ lack of interest in the peace process was already evident by 1999.

By 1999, Palestinians themselves were wondering about the benefits and likely outcomes of the Oslo process. A March 1999 survey found that only 18.9% of Palestinians expected a Labor government would, if it won the May election, improve the Palestinian political condition; 49.8% expected things to remain the same, and 25.8% thought it would get worse.

I agree that Barak’s actions at Camp David were clumsy, but don’t see evidence they were nefarious. It’s not clear he was being deceitful in the way Gavron writes of his interview in September. By then Barak was more concerned with defending his actions, not proclaiming his true but previously hidden motives. Moreover, Barak’s decision to shift negotiations from Palestinians to Syrians and back indicates he wanted a deal with somebody, as opposed to trying to unmask every Arab actor around him.

And, of course, Barak really did make unprecedented offers, including on Jerusalem. He broke taboos that were strangling peace talks.

I also agree Barak was a terrible politician. He alienated every constituency he had, and his refusal to play nice with others—even to listen to them—caused considerable problems. And he made strategic errors: the unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon is arguably one of them.

No one can claim Barak was a successful politician. But he was a constructive leader working to improve Israel’s security situation. Like Yitzhak Rabin, for Barak that could entail military or diplomatic tools. Given the results of the Likud primaries, whoever is brought into the ministerial security forum or Bibi’s inner cabinet will exert a less flexible line toward the West Bank, Hamas, Iran, and any number of other issues Israel will have to deal with.

Avigdor Lieberman, Eli Yishai, Danny Danon, Moshe Ya’alon, Silvan Shalom, Gideon Sa’ar, Naftali Bennett—or any of the other likely contenders after January 22 for top ministries—have, based on their historical record, either given short shrift to diplomatic as opposed to military initiatives, overshadowed their diplomacy with clumsy or ham-handed efforts, or undermined their foreign policy efforts with illiberal domestic policies.

Netanyahu is of the right-wing, but he’s not an extremist. He’s demonstrated time and again his ability to learn from past mistakes and to adapt to the structural constraints that surround him. He’s open to changing ideas and policies; the others are less so. Barak is a necessary lever in that process when it comes to Israel’s major security challenges. He can, for instance, be expected to adopt non-military ideas when they are viable—and then convince the prime minister of their validity by the weight of his arguments and credentials.

Take settlements as another example. Barak’s record here isn’t stellar—in April he helped authorize three illegal outposts. But more often than not he’s been a constraint on settlement activity. It’s more than we can expect from the new Likud MKs.

Gavron writes: “A successful soldier and a man of brilliant intellect, Barak proved singularly inept as a political leader.” I wasn’t promoting Barak’s political instincts. Once we separate that from his qualities as Defense Minister in a very right-wing coalition government, what he has to offer today becomes more obvious. Who does Gavron think will replace Barak?

Bibi: Keep Barak

In this piece for Open Zion, I argue that, not withstanding his announcement to retire, Ehud Barak is needed at the Defense Ministry as a necessary balance against other ministerial hawks. The full piece is below.

In a surprise move, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has announced he’ll be leaving politics after the election on January 22. That doesn’t mean his political career is done: in an Israeli political constellation of large egos, Barak’s outshone all the others. Despite improved public opinion surveys for his Independence party after Operation Pillar of Cloud, though, it’s clear that the party won’t be a vehicle for a grand re-entrance. Labor won’t have him, after he cannibalized the party for personal gain. Likud doesn’t want him either: he’s a threat to prominent individuals’ own positions and to many he still represents the left and its delusions about peace. He has no viable political home.

But Israel, the Palestinians, and the rest of the world should hope that Barak somehow finds his way back to Defense, even if that means Benjamin Netanyahu, still likely to remain at the head of a coalition government, has to appoint him to the position. This would entail a fight: there are others in Likud who covet the position, particularly Moshe Ya’alon, and while Avigdor Lieberman says he’ll retain the Foreign Ministry, rumors persist that Netanyahu offered him his choice of ministries to run on a joint ticket with Likud; the second most powerful office in Israel has got to be a real temptation. The price of incurring those figures’ anger is worth it.

his isn’t because Barak’s a pacifist who will avoid war with Hamas or Iran, or because he has a grand plan for Israel that will bring peace to the region. It’s because he’ll be needed to balance out the hawkish, even reckless, preferences of Lieberman, Eli Yishai, and others.

In Haaretz’s account of decision-making behind Operation Pillar of Defense, Barak cautioned against widening the air war into a ground invasion while Lieberman pressed for one. Netanyahu was uncertain—he could have gone either way. It was Barak’s convincing explanation and insistence on the correctness of his analysis—backed by his real security credentials—that eventually swayed Netanyahu.

In the larger ministerial security forum, Yishai, Yuval Steinitz, and others also thought a ground invasion was a good idea. While Benny Begin and Dan Meridor opposed it, their influence is at an all-time low, and it’s not even clear they’ll be around come January 23. Without Ehud Barak to balance the unreconstructed hawks, Netanyahu is more likely to follow their advice.

Barak would have gone into Gaza with ground troops if he thought it was necessary, but he was well aware of the costs of doing so, and he was comfortable taking Israel’s gains and moving on. This is his modus operandi: during his own tenure as Prime Minister, he shifted easily and rapidly between pursuing talks with the Syrians and the Palestinians as he saw fit. At Camp David, he broke the sacredness of Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided and eternal capital. He doesn’t chase a military or diplomatic goal out of ideology, pride, revenge, or justice—he does it out of necessity.

Barak will do what he thinks is right for Israel. Of course, so will Lieberman and Yishai. But they have a hard time separating their perception of what’s right from what’s achievable and what is costly. Barak doesn’t. Israel could use that kind of clear thinking as the challenges of Hamas, the Palestinian bid at the U.N., Egypt, Syria, and Iran converge