BICOM

Key Points

• The post-1967 ideological split in Israeli politics has classically been about whether and how to give up territory in return for peace.
• The collapse of the peace process in 2000 and the outbreak of the Second Intifada forced both left-wing and right-wing ideologues to question their positions.
• The ‘mainstream’ parties are seeking to attract votes from a hazy centre ground. They are playing down distinct ideological positions, and campaigning on the relative strengths of their leaders. If the leaders succeed in avoiding taking clear ideological stances, the options for coalition building after the election will be broad.
• There have always been parties in the system representing the narrow interests of specific sectors of society. Israel’s electoral system has given them a powerful role in government formation.

Introduction: The classic left-right split in Israel

In Israel, a family friend is introduced to a newborn baby for the first time. He asks with a smile, ‘well what is he, left-wing or right-wing?’ It’s a joke that hints at how much politics defines identity in Israel, but nowadays it’s a little out of date. The old divisions of left and right can still be discerned, but in this election, all the major parties are attempting to steer away from firm ideological positions to a murky region on the electoral map called ‘the centre’.

When Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Six Day War, the major political blocs orientated themselves around the question of whether and how to give up captured territory in return for peace. The right-wing bloc, which eventually coalesced around a grouping called the Likud, wanted to keep the captured territory. The left-wing bloc, which coalesced to form Labour, was broadly more supportive of the principle of making territorial compromises for peace with Israel’s Arab neighbours.

The emergence and disappearance of smaller parties and factions within and outside the main blocs has always been a common occurrence in Israeli politics, but this left-right split still defined the political map for many years. Yet the divide was never a clear-cut division between doves and hawks. The left-wing camp also held strong roots within the IDF and boasted an unwavering commitment to the nation’s defence. And it was a right-wing government under Likud leader Menachem Begin which gave up the Sinai Peninsula in return for peace with Egypt.

It was the fate of the emotionally and strategically more sensitive West Bank, every mile of which is steeped in Jewish history, that was the most potent source of division. As well as defining left and right for the mainstream, secular, Zionist camp, this became an issue of central importance for modern national-religious (‘knitted kippa’) camp, as well. National-religious parties were often partners in coalition with left-wing governments up until the late 1970s. But since then, the national-religious camp has become increasingly associated with the settler movement in the West Bank, making them unlikely partners in a left-leaning government.

The ethnic dimension

Whilst Israeli politics have this classic left-right division, it was never a single dividing line that defined the electorate as in Britain. Since the founding of the state in 1948, Israeli society has been built up like a layer cake, with different ethnic and religious strata. The ingredients of the cake have been constantly changing, as the country absorbed immigrants from different parts of the world. Hundreds of thousands of Ashkenazi European Jews flocked to Palestine prior to World War II; Sephardic Jews of Middle Eastern origin came in similarly large numbers after Israel’s establishment. Close to one million Jews arrived from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. In addition, Israel’s diverse population of Arab and other minority citizens have been a constant part of the picture. 

There have, as a result, always been groups within Israeli society for whom their own sector’s interests have been more important than the big ideological issues of land and peace. That is why, since the founding of the state in 1948, there have been parties in the Knesset representing Arabs and ultra-orthodox (‘black-hat’ or ‘haredi’) Jews.  In the early 1980s, the Shas Party was formed to add to this mix a party representing religious Jews of Middle Eastern background. After the massive influx of nearly one million Jews from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, a succession of parties formed to represent their interests, most recently the ‘Yisrael Beiteinu’ (Israel is our Home) Party. Because of Israel’s directly proportional election system, these smaller parties representing sectoral interests have succeeded in gaining a significant share of the 120 Knesset seats, and have been able to gain concessions for their voters in return for supporting the major parties in government. The sector-based parties have not refrained from taking positions on the peace-security issues, but their positions have tended to be more flexible.

Camp David 2000, the Second Intifada and the shattering of the ideological divide

In the 15 years since the signing of the Oslo Accords, the picture has changed considerably. When Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres shook Yasser Arafat’s hand on the White House lawn and recognised the PLO, they set in motion the process towards Palestinian self-determination. It started with handing over control of Palestinian population centres in Gaza and the West Bank to a newly formed Palestinian Authority. Even the government of Binyamin Netanyahu which came to power after Rabin’s assassination did not stall this process completely, signing the Wye River agreement which advanced the redeployment of Israeli forces from Palestinian population centres in 1998. The process culminated when Ehud Barak, at the head of a left-wing government, accepted the Clinton proposals for Israel to give up control of most of the West Bank and Gaza in order to create an independent Palestinian state. Barak’s offer was seen as a moment of truth for the ideological question that had divided Israel for decades: could and should the territories be traded for peace?

When Arafat rejected the proposal and launched the Second Intifada – a conflict which, by the time of Arafat’s death in 2004, had led to 1,000 Israeli and 3,000 Palestinian deaths – he badly damaged the credibility of the peace camp in Israel. But the Second Intifada also made clear that it was not feasible for Israel to maintain its security whilst continuing to rule over the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank. The operation was too costly for Israel, and the growing Palestinian-Arab population in Israel and the territories looked as though it could overtake Israel’s Jewish population in the future, endangering Israel’s legitimacy as a democratic state with a Jewish majority.

Sharon‘s revolution

The personal transformation of prime minister Ariel Sharon in the period of his premiership from 2001 to 2005 symbolised the rupture that had taken place and gave it form in the shape of a new policy and a new party. Having previously been a prominent advocate of settlement building and maintaining territory for Israel’s protection, Sharon recognised that the ‘Greater Israel’ dream of controlling perpetually all the territories was no longer the way to keep Israel secure. He synthesised the two lessons of the post Camp David years: that there was no Palestinian partner and that Israel could no longer maintain control over the Palestinian people, and took two practical steps. He set in motion the building of a security fence that would divide Israel from the West Bank, keeping most of the settlers in the major settlement blocs close to the Green Line on the Israeli side, and he withdrew all Israeli settlers from Gaza and part of the northern West Bank. This split the Israeli right into two camps, those who accepted Sharon’s prognosis and those who did not. Sharon’s followers, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni the most prominent among them, joined Sharon in the formation of the Kadima Party. Whilst Sharon was personally incapacitated prior to the 2006 election, the party was elected with a policy of continuing the process of unilateral withdrawal from large parts of the West Bank, whilst holding onto the major settlement blocs close to the Green Line.

They never got the chance to implement the plan. Unilateral withdrawal was discredited by the Second Lebanon War and the rise to power of Hamas in the territories, especially in Gaza. Whilst the underlying assumption remains that the Greater Israel project had run its course, the distinctive Kadima commitment to further unilateral withdrawals has withered. In the past, centrist parties in Israel have not endured.

Lack of clear policy options puts focus on personality

In the current electoral context, with the Israeli electorate fatigued by the conflict and the failures of the past, the large parties with a national agenda are avoiding being branded as left-wing or right-wing. The major parties are trying to attract the votes of the centre ground, and are being led by the polls as to how to form their messages. Whilst the centre is not fixed, a glance at some recent opinion polling gives some clues as to its general location. According to a survey published in December by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 69% of Israelis support and 28% oppose mutual recognition of Israel as the state for the Jewish people and Palestine as the state for the Palestinian people as part of a permanent status agreement.[1] But a survey commissioned by the Geneva Initiative in July found that 34% believe and 62% do not believe a permanent status agreement can be reached with the Palestinians to end the conflict.[2]

As a result, Israel’s main political parties are showing commitment to the peace process, but are avoiding being too committal about the final conclusion. Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu has talked about continuing peace talks with the Palestinians and the importance of Palestinian economic development, and promises no new settlements. He also did everything he could to prevent far-right candidates from dominating the Likud Party list. Meanwhile, Labour leader Ehud Barak and Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, who are more clearly associated with the peace process and the belief in territorial concessions, are guarded about their position on the peace process, but play up their commitment to Israeli security. Ehud Barak has worked particularly hard at this as defence minister in the last two years. Had the Annapolis process reached some form of conclusion, and had the Palestinians been united behind a leadership committed to the peace process, then the dynamic of the election might have been very different. The public could have found themselves voting in an election defined by a deal with the Palestinians which was on the table. But with the Palestinians divided and the conditions for an agreement far from ripe, the major leaders are hedging.

The most striking evidence of the fact that the main parties are downplaying any distinctive ideological ground is the extent to which they are campaigning first and foremost on the personal characteristics of their leaders. Whilst campaigning stopped almost completely during Operation Cast Lead, the parties are all now gearing up for a final push. Tzipi Livni is campaigning on her reputation for honesty, and is consciously taking a leaf out of the Obama campaign’s ‘Change’ agenda with posters proclaiming ‘Tzipi Livni: A different kind of leader’. Ehud Barak made extraordinary efforts to overcome his reputation for lack of warmth with a series of posters proclaiming ‘He’s not nice/likable/a buddy/trendy; he’s a leader’, and is now building on his credibility with the defence portfolio with the slogan ‘Barak: At the moment of truth’. Netanyahu began with the slogan ‘Because of the need to manage the state’, and is now campaigning on the line ‘Strong on security; strong on the economy’. Even the Meretz Party, firmly positioned in an ideological slot to the left of Labour, have been in on the act, proclaiming ‘Jumas [the nickname of their leader Haim Oron] – you thought we didn’t have any more leaders like that’.

Another consequence of the lack of big divisive issues dominating the agenda is that space is created for more controversial figures to grab the agenda with deliberately provocative positions. Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Russian immigrant Yisrael Beiteinu Party, for example, has a campaign focusing on the question of loyalty of Arab political parties to the state. In so doing he is trying to reach beyond his Russian support base and grab disaffected voters from other sections of the electorate.

Conclusion

Issues of peace and security are deeply ingrained in Israeli political culture and will again play a major part in this election. But the relative importance of ideological distinctions has declined in Israeli politics. This is because of the discrediting of firm ideological stances on both the left and the right of the spectrum. The discrediting of big ideas in Israeli politics and the lack of clear policy agendas mean that the promotion of personalities has dominated the campaign so far. As the campaign proceeds, party leaders may find it harder to avoid being more explicit about their stances on Israel’s key diplomatic challenges, but for now they want to win the trust of the public for their competence and abilities as individuals.

The lack of clear blue water between the parties on policy will also affect the formation of the government after the election. The pragmatism of the leaders, and their unwillingness to fix themselves to clear policy positions, will create greater flexibility in forming a coalition, meaning a wide range of government compositions could be possible once the results are known. The role of the sector-based parties is likely to be as prominent as ever in making up the numbers for a majority coalition. As a result, the characteristics and policies of the next Israeli government may not be known until the coalition formation process is complete, anything up to two months after the election.

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[1] Poll conducted jointly by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, between November 26 and December 5, 2008. Full results can be seen here.

[2] Poll conducted by Marketwatch commissioned by the Geneva Initiative; published 13 August, 2008