A Referendum On Peace Is A Bad Idea

Over at Open Zion, I argued that a referendum in Israel on a final peace treaty with the Palestinians is a bad idea. While there are arguments to be made in favor of one, there are strong counter-points that, I think, demonstrate the real problems inherent in a referendum. For example:

“there was no referendum on the 1947 Partition Plan, the decision to accept the 1949 armistice lines, the 1979 treaty with Egypt, 1981’s annexation of east Jerusalem and the Golan, the Oslo Accords in 1993, the agreement with Jordan in 1994, the 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon, or the Gaza withdrawal in summer 2005. In short, on none of the big issues of peace and security—all of which directly impacted on the personal safety of individuals as well as the security of the state itself—was the public asked to decide.”

Follow the link for more.

What Did Labor Do Wrong?

As I noted yesterday, there’s some dispute over whether Labor should be called a winner of the Israeli election in any sense of the word or whether it’s a clear loser. The answer should probably be some combination: it did better than it had in the previous election (even if only by a couple seats), while at the beginning of the campaign it was polling into the low 20s but ended up with only 15 seats.

The more important underlying question, then, is why did it only get 15 seats—third place—when it was widely expected to be in second place with at least 17-18 mandates. It’s true there are some concerns over the methodology and practice of public opinion polling in Israel, but it’s also true that surveys were often within their margins of error on most of the parties. Let’s look, rather, at the campaign itself.

I’ll start off by repeating that Labor leader Shelly Yachimovich made a clear choice not to talk about the occupation or foreign affairs, and I think it was a solid decision. All indications were that Israelis simply didn’t want to talk about these things either, but they were highly interested in domestic issues, especially socio-economic ones.

Factors beyond Labor’s control

First, the appearance of Tzipi Livni and Yair Lapid clearly undermined Yachimovich’s claim to represent the only new face in the campaign. Lapid was obviously the “freshest,” especially with continuous comments about his appearance, but his was a totally brand new party. As dynamic as Yachimovich tried to seem, Labor still represented something old.

Labor, Livni, and Yesh Atid fought for the same electorate of centrist, undecided voters. Such a crowded field certainly meant a division of votes, since there was so much choice. At the same time, Labor was competing with Meretz, as usual, for those further on the Zionist left. That Meretz explicitly talked about the occupation but Labor didn’t was bound to lead to some shift in votes.

Second, Labor was operating among an electorate that was still very much interested in the right. There are some claims that Israel isn’t the right-leaning country everybody feared it was. Israel was never about to descend into a long winter of theocracy, authoritarianism, and violent militarism. Still, while it’s true the right and religious parties didn’t do as well as widely expected, demographic and public opinion trends indicate there really is a slow right-religious shift among the Jewish population. Moreover, the right and religious parties still did well (Jewish Home) or held their own (Shas, UTJ). Likud-Beiteinu is the only list that dropped, but many of their voters went to Yesh Atid—a center-right party.

Factors in Labor’s control

First, as I said, Yachimovich—against the advice of some within the party—made a conscious decision not to talk about the Palestinians, the settlements, or the occupation. This was fine as far as it went, but it was inevitable that the issues would come up during the campaign, forcing her to give some response. When she did, though, it came across as too forced, and made it seem as though she was ducking the issue as much as possible.

Again, this isn’t a big deal as far as it goes given what Israelis were saying they wanted to talk about—and Lapid himself said pretty much the same things she did—but for some it came across as deceptive. Labor was seemingly held to a higher standard because it’s the traditional party of doves, and is expected to focus on the peace process. That it wasn’t a major party issue was seen as a betrayal—even Haaretz and +972 writers were arguing that Livni was the better choice because at least she was talking about this most important of issues.

Second, Yachimovich seemed to close the door on joining a Benjamin Netanyahu-led coalition. It was clear to everybody that Bibi would become prime minister again. Closing off options before the results were even in seemed petulant to some, bad strategy to others, and inexperience to many.

Third, Yachimovich didn’t have enough security officials on her list. Labor has been a traditional home for military officers once they left the army, and the gap at the top of the list was glaring. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was there, but he’s an older, more tired version of the crop of young recruits that have long seemed to populate Labor at every election. Instead, her list was filled with dynamic, creative individuals who worked in a range of other areas. This was, again, good for the focus on domestic issues but not on security affairs.

That Lapid’s list was similar to Yachimovich’s, in that his top security official held the number 5 slot (Yaakov Peri) but the rest of his list had a variety of non-security candidates, didn’t mean anything since Lapid was not expected to campaign to foreign affairs. He could get away with things she couldn’t.

Fourth, Yachimovich angered some within the party by bringing in lots of new people, but also changing some of the voting procedures of the primary process. This led to some perceptions of infighting, which may not have played well.

Labor has been struggling for many years to rebuild itself into the party that founded the state and posed a serious alternative to Likud in the 1980s and 1990s. Some of the lessons to be learned from this campaign may not be relevant for the next one, but clearly Labor still has a long way to go.

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.

Shelly Yachimovich’s Balancing Act

This analysis of the Labor Party primary results in Israel appeared earlier today in Open Zion:

The Labor Party held its primaries on Thursday. The results give leader Shelly Yachimovich an opportunity to continue claiming the center by playing off the rightward shift in Likud, but they also pose some difficulties for her internally and on foreign policy.

I’ve argued before in these pages that Yachimovich is playing a smart long game, carefully reconstructing Labor and avoiding issues that are overly controversial and of less interest to the Israeli public at this moment. She has channeled Israelis’ disenchantment over growing income inequality, rising prices, and a general sense that the country’s drift from its former collectivist ethos is not necessarily a good thing (a feeling not shared by everyone, to be sure). These sentiments were best captured by last year’s “tent” protests, and Yachimovich has successfully built on them.

The primary enhanced her ability to campaign on this issue in a way no other party can. In second place on the electoral list is Isaac Herzog, who’s long been identified with the more liberal social wing of the party. In third spot is Amir Peretz, former chairman of the Histadrut, the giant labor federation.

Cementing the image of Labor as now focused on socio-economic issues are the spots given to two young leaders of the social protests: Stav Shaffir was elected to ninth place and Itzik Shmuli, former president of the National Union of Students, took 12th. Supplementing them are Merav Michaeli, a feminist activist, in fifth place and Mickey Rosenthal, a well-known journalist, in 13th place.

All of this allows Yachimovich to claim her party is the only genuine alternative to Likud. But Israeli party politics is known for being a sharp-elbowed game. Particularly since the 1990s, parties have become unstable in the sense that challengers are always campaigning against the contemporary leader.

This undermines party unity, shifts everyone’s attention away from policy, and contributes to a poor image of the party in the popular mind. Although Yachimovich has retained a strong grip on party politics, even she has suffered from this: Amir Peretz is considered a rival for control over the party’s ideas—she wants to keep the party centrist, while he wants to move it more left. There have also been reports of tensions between Yachimovich and Michaeli.

Indeed, Israeli journalist Lahav Harkov tweeted as the results came in that “A lot of people [Yachimovich] didn’t want got in high spots.” It’s not clear that Yachimovich will be able to avoid these internal disputes, or that potential rivals and dissidents won’t challenge her. Ari Shavit, writing at the start of the Labor leadership campaign last year, noted that Yachimovich has enough drawbacks—such as being too confrontational or ill-informed about policy issues—that raise concerns about whether she can manage domestic party affairs.

At the same time, Yachimovich has generally avoided commenting on the peace process or conflict with the Palestinians. But if she’s going to remain successful she’ll have to address it sooner rather than later. The U.N. General Assembly’s recognition of Palestine as a non-member state yesterday along with the Likud’s rightward shift will make it a more important policy issue than it would otherwise have been.

So far, when she has commented on it, she’s tried to stay within the current consensus: no Right of Return, annexation of major settlement blocs, and Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital. But Yariv Oppenheimer, director of Peace Now, was elected to the unrealistic 27th slot, making it unlikely he’ll enter the Knesset. This means Labor has fewer people with credibility and a record on the issue. While Peace Now has long been associated with the “delusional” left, it’s more careful policies in recent years have put it in a good position to make stronger arguments.

Yachimovich still has her work cut out for her. Yesh Atid and the Tzipi Livni Party, her main contenders in the center and center-left, have not been polling so well. But to be a real challenge or opposition to a Likud government, she’ll have to maintain party unity and continue to attract the bulk of the centrist and leftist vote. Not an easy task in the rough-and-tumble world of the Israeli political system.

Tzipi Livni: Return or Irrelevance?

Today in Open Zion I argued that the only thing Tzipi Livni’s new party will accomplish is strengthening Netanyahu and the right:

As expected, Tzipi Livni has announced her return to Israeli politics with the formation of a new party, HaTnua (The Movement). Chemi Shalev argues that the results of the Likud primary, which turned the party further to the right, presents an opportunity for Livni because it might open up space for centrist parties to coalesce to challenge Benjamin Netanyahu.

What’s more likely is that she’s just created the vehicle for her own impotence. On every issue and in every practical way, Livni is boxed in by existing parties and their platforms. This, in turn, only strengthens Netanyahu.

At first glance, Livni represents a distinct challenge to Netanyahu. While Shelly Yachimovich has been careful to avoid international affairs, and Yair Lapid has only discussed the West Bank and settlements as a campaign ploy because he doesn’t have any other issues to run on, Livni has explicitly said she’d focus on the peace process.

She did serve as Foreign Minister, and she did conduct negotiations with the Palestinians. Thus, she only mentioned domestic issues with now-standard boiler-plate language, claiming she’d push for haredim to be drafted into the military and for “young people to have homes, earn a living, and live with dignity without always fearing for the future.”

But she’s really helped Netanyahu in two ways. First, she split the center and center-left vote, drawing support from Yesh Atid and Labor. A Channel 10 poll gives her nine seats, leaving Yesh Atid with five. More bigger parties on this end of the spectrum make it difficult for them to cooperate. Netanyahu knows this, and will have less to fear from them during the bargaining over a coalition government after January 22.

Second, Livni could well join a Likud Beiteinu government. Netanyahu could see her as an opportunity to play the opposition off one another, and bring her into the coalition. She’s negotiated with Mahmoud Abbas but she’s no dove (and the new Likud would constrain her if she was), and she’s no socialist on domestic social and economic issues. She’ll also have former Kadima members with her, some of whom originally came from Likud.

But where would she go in a new cabinet? Not Defense, which could still go to Ehud Barak but also possibly Moshe Ya’alon or someone else from Likud. Not to her old stomping ground, the Foreign Ministry, which, if he doesn’t take Defense, will go to Avigdor Lieberman. She doesn’t belong at Finance. Unless Netanyahu puts her in an existing extraneous ministry, like Strategic Affairs, it’s hard to see where she would fit—more, where she would matter.

What all of this demonstrates is that Livni brings nothing new to the political game. Her party is appealing right now while the public is still unhappy with the inconclusive end to the Gaza operation. She’s a known quantity, and remains popular despite having no credible achievements to her name and having been associated with major government failures (under Ehud Olmert).

There’s nothing she’ll accomplish with The Movement that she couldn’t have with an existing party. Centrist parties don’t last long in Israeli politics anyway. Her accomplishment, instead, will have been to help keep the right in power. As one operative on the right tweeted, “On behalf of the right in Israel I have two words for Tzippi Livni: Thank You.”

Yair Lapid Walks the Foreign Policy Tightrope

Yair Lapid, leader of the newly formed Yesh Atid, continues to stump for votes, but he’s lost control over where and how he does so. At first hailed as a centrist who would shift the discourse away from the conflict with the Palestinians and Iran and toward domestic issues, he’s been forced instead to the international arena, where he’s less likely to win.

Lapid has tried to narrow down his focus to issues related to inequality in Israeli society, particularly between an oligarchic class and others, and between the haredim and the rest. But as Dahlia Scheindlin put it, “It’s been hard to discern just what Lapid really stands for, other than his declaration that he represents a middle class.”

Indeed, his focus on that catch-all group, with only vague Romney-like proclamations about the need to improve conditions, means he’s essentially left most of the field of social-economic issues to Shelly Yachimovich and Labor, who have worked quickly to seize and control that ground.

This means Lapid cannot hold the left on these issues, which Israelis have been saying are very important to them. He will certainly get some votes from that quarter—he is a well-known figure who’s mostly said things that resonate with traditional leftwing voters. But he’s sharing that end of the spectrum with Labor and Meretz, both of whom are expected to win more seats than they currently have.

To garner more support, then, he’s moved to foreign policy. But he can’t be more hawkish than Likud and the other rightwing parties, though to make sure rightist voters don’t misunderstand him he’s snorted that he’s no “lefty.” Nor can he be as publicly dovish as Labor and Meretz have traditionally been: because Yachimovich has hardly mentioned the settlements or the Palestinians, he’d be focusing everyone’s attention on his own dovishness and then lose those centrists leaning right.

That means he needs to work the foreign policy center, and here he’s been doing an admirable job of balancing the nationalist vote and the dovish vote. His speech yesterday in the settlement of Ariel nicely captures his effort. (Aluf Benn goes further, writing that Lapid displayed “political courage” in his speech.)

He proclaimed the importance of and his intention to hold on to the main settlement blocs—that he gave his speech at Ariel University Center was a brilliant physical demonstration of this—and that Jerusalem wouldn’t be divided. He insisted there will be no Palestinian right of return, but that there is a partner for peace among the Palestinians. He was clear that there must be two states, and that he won’t sit in a government that won’t negotiate.

In the ultimate balancing act, he asserted that “The far left and the far right are advancing unchecked…the dangerous and distorted idea of a binational state,” arguing that only a genuine peace agreement would keep Israel Jewish.

On Iran, he said that Netanyahu “took a wrong turn” in the debate over the Iranian nuclear program. This implies criticism of Bibi’s belligerent and aggressive insistence on the issue, but Lapid was also clear that the military option couldn’t be taken off the table as a “last resort.”

It remains to be seen if Lapid can hold to the balancing act he’s developed. But the fact that he’s being forced onto issues rather than controlling his own messaging suggests he’s going to have considerable difficulty doing so. This, even as his rivals consolidate and assert themselves. We certainly shouldn’t count Lapid and Yesh Atid out, but if they don’t get a substantial amount of seats in January, enough to matter either in coalition bargaining or as a real opposition, like any “third party” in Israeli history, the chances of making it to the next election diminish considerably.

If I Were An Advisor to Tzipi Livni…

Tzipi Livni continues to be coy about her political future, refusing to commit to joining another political party and working under another politician, but providing regular commentary on her Facebook page. This isn’t benefiting anyone. If I were an advisor to Livni, this is what I’d tell her:

You need to be more far more realistic. Let’s be honest, you weren’t the most inspiring politician out there, and you weren’t the most successful party leader. But you are popular, you can be firm in your convictions, you have ideas, and your name carries cachet. And you’re being courted by both Labor and Yesh Atid.

I realize you aren’t interested in taking a secondary or tertiary position to others, but face it: you’ve lost your political base after you left Kadima and politics. You don’t have a political vehicle for returning to the game. Drop the delusions of grandeur and don’t sulk: you’ve got a real opportunity here, and you need to seize it.

Think of Hillary Clinton. She lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama. She could have left politics and the party, but she accepted the position of Secretary of State—with responsibility for foreign policy but still subject to the overall guidelines from the president, her former political enemy. She may indeed still harbor political ambitions. But by agreeing to join the government she not only came across as interested in the greater public interest, she built herself up as a serious candidate should she decide to re-engage for the nomination.

Let’s take a page from her playbook. Yesh Atid and Labor are both polling well, under the circumstances, and you didn’t lose an electoral contest to either of them. Labor, especially, under Shelly Yachimovich is rebuilding itself, and there’s a good chance it’ll be in a strong position both in the coming election and the next one.

If you lend your name to one of these parties, it will strengthen that party, the political opposition (necessary for a strong democracy), and your own position for the future. You’ll also be close to the top, so you’ll have influence.

If you don’t pick a party, you’re taking yourself out of the game. While Israeli politicians often do come back after being away for some time, the political game is changing, with new faces, new tactics, new priorities. Get in now, while you can.

The Return Of Labor

I wrote a piece for Open Zion on how the leader of Israel’s Labor Party has been carefully rebuilding the party throughout this election season.

Here’s a teaser:

Noam Sheizaf argues that this election campaign is all about continuity: the right-wing bloc, led by Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud, will win—again—a majority of seats in the Knesset and then form the government. He may be right about the outcome, but for the Labor Party, the election is all about change. Seth Mandel recognizes this but contends that Labor is engaged in a risky gamble that might or might not work, moving further left while the electorate has shifted right.

Both Sheizaf and Mandel miss the long game that Labor leader Shelly Yachimovich is playing, and the opportunity this election provided her to do so. She has carefully rebuilt the party by adding dynamic new members and concentrated on social and economic issues. In fact, the sudden alliance between Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu strengthens her hand by allowing her to claim centrist and center-right voters who’ll be turned off by the joint ticket.

Check out the piece in the original at Open Zion for more…