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.

An Opportune Moment For Peace Talks

Last week I wrote in Open Zion that this is an opportune moment for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, followed by some suggestions for how to take advantage of that opportunity:

I get the exhaustion that everyone feels each time reports of “new” efforts to bring Israelis and Palestinians together emerges. Especially since, as usual, the contradictory statements of Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans make for a confounding experience. But having said that, and while certainly there are plenty of suspicions still in the way, we are at the most opportune moment to restart serious talks in the last five or six years, if not more.

Obama’s recent trip to the Middle East is now paying dividends. Secretary of State John Kerry is pushing hard to create the conditions for a return to negotiations, while the Arab League has revised its Arab Peace Initiative to be more flexible to meet Israel’s demands. More importantly, the political winds in Israel seem to be blowing in the same direction: members of Israel’s government have accepted the change and called for Jerusalem to begin negotiations (not unexpectedly Tzipi Livni, but even the Prime Minister’s Office and Netanyahu himself have hinted at the moment); Labor has publicly stated its willingness to serve as a safety net should the coalition fall on account of real negotiations; and the opposition in the Israeli Knesset has done what it should have been doing all along—critiqued the official government policy and pushed back against it.

Lots of work remains to be done, of course, to overcome serious obstacles. These include: Israel’s insistence on being recognized as a Jewish state; Yair Lapid’s ambivalence on the peace process; the inability to mobilize Israeli public opinion on the issue; Hamas; events in Syria and or Iran; a deflation of will in the Obama Administration in the face of resistance from the Israeli or Palestinian governments; and timidity on Mahmoud Abbas’s part.

We cannot overstate these impediments and difficulties. But if this is an opportune moment to restart genuine peace talks, it’s also time for us to recognize that standard methods must at the least be supplemented by new initiatives and ideas. Let’s be honest: Yes, there are spoilers out there who might derail the process; no, settlement projects won’t be halted beforehand; yes, Palestinian rhetoric in Arabic will continue to rail against Israel; no, the Arab states aren’t going to suddenly love and accept Israel.

But there are some things that can be done outside of existing conditions that might help smooth the process from here.

First, Washington will need to recommit itself, firmly, to the peace process. It seems like it might have done this already, but given new developments in Syria, growing American interest in Africa, and plenty of other foreign policy issues for the administration to deal with, the temptation to put the peace process back on cruise control and leave it “for now” might be strong. American will and commitment are needed to keep Israelis and Palestinians on track.

Second, real American pressure will need to be applied on both Israel and the Palestinian Authority (I think Hamas can be left aside for the moment). Carrots are great and necessary, but if the history of U.S. involvement in the peace process has taught us anything, it’s that sticks are relevant, too. Regarding both, real consequences in the international diplomatic arena (e.g., initiatives in the United Nations or other international organizations) are a good choice: the consequences for either actor are serious (loss of international political support) but won’t be life-threatening.

Third, a genuine and powerful leftist movement in Israel must be constructed outside of existing parties and groups (which is not to say these are irrelevant or should not be part of such a movement). There are already indications that Israeli leftwing groups are aware of this, but I’d argue that this needs to be translated into concrete action: the formation of grassroots movements across the country that will mobilize in the political arena and promote an agenda that calls for an end to the occupation not through dreamy slogans but through awareness of the actual costs to Israelis, which in turn will change the balance of external forces to influence the Knesset and the government.

This is the reality in which we’re operating. It’s time to simply accept it and work around it.

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.

Bibi’s Coming Unstable Coalition

Over at Open Zion I argue that the coalition government Bibi is about to bring together will have tensions automatically built into it. This will likely cause the coalition to collapse before it serves out its full term:

By all accounts, the coalition negotiations in Israel will conclude in the next day or two, with a government in place by the end of the week. It’s been expected for some time now that the government will be composed of Likud-Beiteinu, Tzipi Livni’s HaTnua (which has already signed a coalition agreement with Benjamin Netanyahu), Yesh Atid, Jewish Home, and Kadima.

With a total of 70 votes in the Knesset such a coalition would be—in theory at least—very stable. But it’s more likely that the coalition will build into itself the very conditions for its early demise.

Netanyahu could well be the only one involved in the coalition discussions who isn’t happy about leaving the haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, out in the cold. Though it might seem as though general agreement on leaving them out is a stabilizing factor, it could instead lead to a greater effort by these parties and their constituents to push hard to change the calculus of voting and politicking in the next round of elections, or even before then.

After all, despite the fact that they have already begun preparing for their exclusion, the haredi parties aren’t out of the game yet. There are enormous implications to their absence from government, including a redistribution of the resources that used to go to their communities; the nature of the military draft; the status of halacha in personal status issues ranging from marriage to divorce to citizenship; and genuine reform of the electoral and political systems. Because all of these would directly affect their political power, they can be expected to continue to fight even after the agreement is signed to return to power. This includes enticing Netanyahu away from Jewish Home, the party they apparently now see as their primary obstacle if not enemy.

There are still some issues to be hammered out in the coalition bargaining, including which party gets how many and which ministries and the framework that will govern Israeli policy toward the peace process (which may require a renegotiation of Bibi’s agreement with Livni). It’s likely the intense discussions between Likud, Yesh Atid, and Jewish Home continuing to take place will resolve at least most of these issues, but it’s just as likely they’ll paper over the differences. Signing an agreement on these policy problems and actually following through on them are not the same thing. The latter will be even harder than the former. In other words, any of these issues could crack open the coalition.

Personal ambitions and differing party objectives will probably also serve to make the coalition more fragile than it might appear on the surface. Yesh Atid’s leader Yair Lapid is skeptical about taking on the Finance portfolio. Given the necessity of major changes to the economy and the budget, whoever takes that Ministry will be extremely unpopular among much of the population and will be subject to intense and competing demands from other ministers for a share of the shrinking pie. Whatever comes out of such reforms could well affect his party’s ability to compete as successfully in the next election, and thus change the distribution of votes. He’ll be very much aware of these implications.

Similarly, Jewish Home’s position on settlements and Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank is at odds with all of its coming coalition partners except Likud-Beitinu. Despite Naftali Bennett’s insistence that the peace process should not lead to any serious change in the status quo (unless it’s to annex parts of the West Bank), Livni’s presence in the government, President Barack Obama’s coming visit to Israel, and a host of other conditions all point to a renewed interest in the peace process. If Obama is successful at convincing Israel to adopt his position regarding Iran, he’ll be able to demand something in return.

Similar to George H.W. Bush’s trading of Iraq for Madrid, Obama could well demand something concrete on negotiations with the Palestinians, and Netanyahu will be open to such pressure. This, in turn, would likely push Bennett out of the coalition.

A successful conclusion to the negotiations would be welcome so that the government can get back to the process of governing. But the fact that it was so difficult to get to this point, and that there are plenty of issues requiring urgent attention but with no easy solutions, indicates that plenty of uncertainty will remain even after the agreement is signed.

The Knesset’s Opportunity

Amir Mizroch has smartly laid out what Israeli party leaders, especially Yair Lapid, need to do for the good of the country. But today the Knesset also has an opportunity to effect real change in Israel.

Historically Israel’s parliament has not been very strong vis-à-vis the government. The structure of the electoral system, the nature of coalition governments, the sheer variety of parties in the Knesset, and the security situation (which privileges government secrecy and allows for lots of latitude in decision-making) all combine to strengthen the executive at the expense of the legislature.

But if enough of its members work together on specific issues, the Knesset can, I think, push for important changes on a wide range of domestic issues. Of course some members will be inside the government and some outside of it. But with coalition agreements always resting on a knife’s edge, and many new activists now in parliament, there are several issues they can find common ground on, even apart from the most prominent one (sharing the burden). There is a real need for changing societal attitudes about race and ethnicity, improving the status of women, reforming the education system, developing infrastructure, finding a more equitable distribution of resources, and teaching tolerance between communal and sectarian groups.

Yesh Atid’s list is filled with people who have worked in these and other areas. So is Labor’s. Even Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua has Amir Peretz and Amram Mitzna. A strengthened Meretz and a bloc of Arab parties that are also concerned with the same issues could add further votes to any such efforts.

Moreover, Livni and the Arab parties could leverage their support for domestic issues into reinforcement for their other concern, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This, in turn, has a feedback loop for the reduction in militarism in Israeli society, the clamping down on dissent, and a decline in the politics of fear.

The obstacles to this kind of cooperation are numerous, obviously. That doesn’t make it any less important to try. If the speeches that many Knesset members have given at their inauguration are anything to go by, and individuals can put aside their own political ambitions and petty squabbling, there is a chance.

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.

Coalition Considerations after the Vote

The Israeli election is upon us, or at least upon them. There have been lots of good analyses about the campaign and likely results of the voting—though there has been less discussion of possible outcomes of coalition bargaining. But this is important—the voting itself will heavily influence what government eventually emerges after several weeks of discussions, but several other factors will come into play, including how the parties determine their interests, the number of seats each got, and the regular give-and-take of politics.

Most of those who have considered what a post-election government will look like have assumed it will be a right-religious one. This is entirely plausible, but as I’ve argued already I don’t think it’s a given. Here are some of what I think are these other factors, all predicated on the assumption Netanyahu will be asked to form the government:

- Benjamin Netanyahu is more interested in stability and maintaining his position than anything else. He’s a pragmatic opportunist, and he can be pushed (through domestic and international pressure). He’s very committed to making Israel a free market economy, as his work in the 1990s and 2000s and his spinning away from promises to account for the demands of the 2011 tent protests have demonstrated. But he is open, I think, to moving around on other domestic issues like electoral reform, the haredi draft, and religious freedom. On the peace front, while I don’t think he wants to actively pursue an independent Palestinian state and does believe settlements are a legitimate expression of Jewish identity, he has in the past signed agreements (Wye River, Hebron) under the right conditions. In other words, his conceptualization of interests opens the door to more potential coalition partners than it seems.

- Tzipi Livni is desperate to make something of herself out of this election. I won’t say it’s her last chance, but she did nothing constructive when she served as leader of Kadima. Her perhaps surprising ability to garner 7-10 mandates, according to polls, is an indication that her name still matters. Look for her to try to enter the coalition; if she doesn’t, she’ll have nothing to show for two election cycles, which could well end her political career.

- Yair Lapid seems to have surged toward the end of the campaign, again according to polls. He, too, isn’t interested in remaining outside of government. Look for him to get in so that he can work on his credibility, legitimacy, and experience.

- The coalition negotiations will prove trying for Shas. In addition to competing with another religious party (Jewish Home), it will have to compete on the social-economic front with Yesh Atid, Labor, and possibly Am Shalem as well. Its position is the weakest it’s been in for a long time because of the emergence of so many rivals to its key positions.

- Final thought for now: whatever coalition does emerge, don’t get too excited or lose hope (depending on your views of it). It would not be a surprise if the coalition doesn’t stay together for four years. Bibi has a lot more choice than usual, but this also makes whatever government he puts together more unstable in the sense that the more parties there are inside and the more waiting for their chance in the wings, the more he and they can play everybody off everybody else.

There are some shared ideas between different sets of parties, but each of them still represents a set of very narrow interests. Those parties in government will have to stay true to them if they want to remain credible to their constituencies—and that includes those with narrow constituencies and those that are fighting for the same ones. But if they stay too true to them, in the face of competing demands from coalition partners and policies they don’t like, they can lose their position in the government. I suspect these dynamics will very much matter.

For other good posts about things to consider at this point in the election, read Michael Koplow’s piece and Noam Sheizaf’s analysis.

Coalition Math

The talk on Twitter this morning is of Naftali Bennett and the sudden surge his Jewish Home is making at the polls. The fear is that if Bennett is included in a coalition government under Bibi, he’ll drag Bibi further to the right. As Michael Koplow has already shown, even before the bargaining over government spoils has begun, Bibi has been announcing settlement expansions all over the place. It will, conventional wisdom suggests, only get worse after January 22.

But the coalition math indicates that a Likud-Beiteinu-Jewish Home government is not a sure thing. As I’ve argued before, Bibi isn’t an extreme rightist who wants to build and build in the West Bank and damn the international consequences. If he think Bennett is pulling him too much in that direction, he’ll think twice about such a coalition.

It’s true that right-religious bloc is maintaining its majority. But it’s malleable; Jewish Home could easily be replaced with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid and Tzipi Livni’s Tzipi Livni Party. Both are more centrist than leftist. Lapid’s election program has been more vague than anything else, and although Livni has a history of hostility with Bibi, she’s a natural fit for a rightwing government.

In addition, both have worked hard for centrist and center-right votes by staying within the Israeli consensus on settlements: keeping the main settlement blocs (probably including Ariel) but willing to evacuate the rest.

“Third” or “centrist” parties such as theirs’ don’t last long in Israeli politics. And neither of them entered the race in order to stay in the opposition; they both want a piece of the action, which they believe is in the government. They’ll make themselves available, and Bibi will know this.

None of this is to say either a far-right government or a centrist government is a done deal. The joint ticket with Yisrael Beiteinu might have leaned Bibi toward the latter. But this is why the Likud primaries are so important: the staunch pro-settlement, illiberal-leaning rightists who now occupy top positions on the list will constrain Bibi from moving toward the center. It’s one thing to leave Jewish Home out of a coalition; it’s another to go against the politics and trends within his own party.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens: Jewish Home’s momentum might not last; Bibi might be stronger than most assume when it comes to dealing with other Likudniks; or Shas or Avigdor Lieberman might upset the balance one way or another. But at this point we shouldn’t assume outcomes. Israeli politics is fluid, and this election is no exception.

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.

The Abba Eban Factor

This piece was originally posted at Open Zion:

Ehud Olmert’s appearance at the Saban Forum last week was a big hit in Washington. The former prime minister spoke passionately and combined an adequate amount of humor, politics, and mystery. He said all the right things: that Benjamin Netanyahu has done terrible things for the peace process and hinting that he, Olmert, might at some point return to Israeli politics to repair the damage. Observers loved it.

Call it the Abba Eban factor. Or, if you prefer, the Shimon Peres factor.

Eban was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations and Foreign Minister. Shimon Peres occupied several offices, and today is President of Israel. Both were seen as urbane and cultured—Eban’s Cambridge accent and Peres’s eastern European inflections were both endearing—and not at all representative of the quintessential Israeli quality of aggressive pushiness bordering on rudeness.

More than these qualities, though, was their orientation toward compromise with the Palestinians. Both were seen as having shifted from hawkishness to dovishness on the peace process. Eban was famous for referring to the 1967 lines as “Auschwitz borders” (though he later regretted the term) while Peres was one of the fathers of Israel’s defense industry and the one who fought Yitzhak Rabin on behalf of settlers in the early 1970s.

Today, both are considered to be smart former insiders who know what’s best for Israel. On this basis, both had larger, more dedicated constituencies outside of Israel than inside it. Eban was seen in Israel as a delusional leftist unaware of its real security threats. In addition to that accusation, Peres was for a long time viewed as a politician interested only in furthering his own position.

Olmert is their latest incarnation: he initiated two terrible wars during his term, but now speaks fervently of how close he came to peace. And his legal troubles, political maneuverings, and bad decisions are derided in Israel.

The near-hero-worship in Washington rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of Israeli politics itself. Natan Sachs has convincingly shown that neither the numbers not the politics add up to an Olmert victory in the Israeli election. Yet observers continue to hope.

This is facilitated by pundits’ direct comparison of Olmert to Bibi. (Blake Hounshell’s interview with Olmert is titled “The Case Against Benjamin Netanyahu.”) Let’s be honest: Olmert certainly comes off favorably. There is a real dislike for Bibi, who’s seen as something like an aggressive war-monger with a superiority complex. Steven Cook put it best when he tweeted during a conversation about the issue, “Olmert has a bigger constituency in D.C. (where polite company disdains Netanyahu) than Israel.”

There is also the conviction that Olmert has made a major transformation in the name of peace. There is great frustration in D.C. about Israeli actions on the peace process. Olmert, like Peres and Eban before him, is considered to represent the heroic Israeli who is willing to lay it on the line for peace.

When Olmert said near the beginning of his Saban discussion that the “Government of Israel has to be changed,” there was some applause from the audience. Olmert’s contention, reported in Open Zion, that he supports the Palestinian bid for non-member state status at the U.N. was tweeted over a thousand times. And in his write-up of the Saban meeting, David Remnick notes that Olmert moved “courageously to the left on the Palestinian issue.

For a while, analysts made the same mistake with Tzipi Livni. The latest poll has her eponymous party winning six seats. Contrary to expectations, that’s not enough to challenge Bibi, but it is enough to strengthen him —the opposite preference.

The longstanding admiration for Israeli hawks-turned-doves in Washington is a problem, because it leads to unrealistic expectations. Waiting for Israelis to elect the leader Washington prefers is simply not good policy.