Days ago we published Alex Kane’s analysis that the occupation won in the Israeli election. That view now has support from several other poll-watchers. Yesterday I pointed out David Remnick’s view that Israel did not move to the left with this election, and that the Israeli indifference to Palestinian suffering is tragic. Yousef Munayyer sounds the same themes in a grim post analyzing the results and finding that “Israel runs a brutal military occupation over millions of disenfranchised Palestinians and has done so for decades, but the vast majority of Israelis are detached from this reality. The occupation has become relatively cost-free for Israelis.”
Munayyer focuses on the great middle of Israeli Jewish voters, to whom Yair Lapid appealed:
How is the non-settler, non-Arab Israeli vote split? Rather than perpetuate these misnomers of right and left which are less appropriate for this type of system (I explain more of this here), I’d rather look at it as the divide between Netanyahu’s friends, or natural allies, and his “frenemies” (those who have been in opposition but could still join his coalition).
Well Munayyer says that vote splits 56-44 for Netanyahu’s friends. I.e., the centrist mass of Jewish voters is right-leaning. Indeed, as I discovered when I interviewed Jerusalemites in November. Munayyer says the long-term trend is for Israeli Jewish society to get more rightwing:
The Zionist parties in opposition to Netanyahu consistently exclude Arabs from possible coalitions. But a steady and growing Arab voting block means the space for the Zionist non-Netanyahu vote continues to shrink. Add to this the fact that the settler vote, which is naturally allied with Netanyahu and again not reflected in this chart, is also steady and growing, significantly.
So this means that, yes, structurally Israeli politics is set on a high-speed course toward the right. There really isn’t any other realistic option. There is only one way this really changes. Something revolutionary needs to occur among non-Arab, non-settler Israeli voters to shake up this dynamic. In a sense this already has, and the popular mobilization that brought Israelis into the streets in 2011 to protest the high price of cottage cheese, among other things, was reflected in the relative success of parties like Yesh Atid and Labor.But the total absence of political mobilization against Netanyahu’s colonial policies toward the Palestinians was also reflected. Parties like Labor and Yesh Atid, which are the so-called “center-left,” are largely mute when it comes to challenging the occupation. If anything, Lapid’s support for perpetual Israeli control of settlements like Ariel and Maale Addumim, plus his insistence on the perpetual occupation of of Jerusalem, shows that the “center” itself has moved right on issues related to occupation and Palestinians.
Does the opposition have any potential to push for an end to the occupation? Put simply, no. That opposition will be led by Labor, whose showing in this election was extremely disappointing. They won only two seats more than they did in 2009, despite the demise of Kadima, which should have meant lots of voters for them to pick up. But even if they had done better, it would have been discouraging. Labor leader Shelly Yachimovitch avoided the occupation like the plague in her campaign. Indeed, she did almost nothing to challenge Bibi [Netanyahu] on defense in any way. If Livni does not join the government, she will be the loudest voice in the opposition calling for negotiations, but, as we saw during her time as Foreign Minister from Kadima, her willingness to actually conclude a deal does not match her rhetoric, which itself is the product of the failed Oslo process to which she remains wed…
But anyone who believes this government is going to do anything more to end the occupation is simply dreaming. What it does have the ability to do is cast more of an illusion than its predecessor. With all the new settlement units that were announced just in the past year, this government can actually accelerate settlement growth significantly without announcing new plans. In other words, they can expand quietly, without the controversy the last government constantly courted. This government can also say nicer things to the Palestinians, even find a way to sit down with them if they can do the dance well enough, without ever having to make any real progress. That’s what this election left us. The picture is not pretty.
For the counter-view, here is the latest from Jeremy Ben-Ami at J Street, “Window of Opportunity” in which he sees Obama throwing himself into the peace process:
We should take heart that the centrist heart of Israeli politics is alive and well, and the seemingly inexorable rise of the ultra-right has been halted. There remains a solid majority in Israel for a two-state solution. Netanyahu’s do-nothing policies were rejected by both the right and the left. Given the circumstances, this result is almost the best we could have hoped for and far better than expected.
An ultra-right wing government stacked with backers of the settlement movement would have made it very difficult to make progress toward a two-state solution. A broader, center-right coalition including some prominent supporters of a peace deal opens a window of opportunity for President Obama to launch a new initiative to solve the conflict with the Palestinians. The State of the Union Address on February 12 presents an early opportunity to make his intentions clear.
As soon as the new coalition is in place, Secretary of State Kerry should visit the Middle East to lay the groundwork for renewed diplomacy, as he intimated he might in his confirmation hearing yesterday.
We will then urge the President to put forward his own blueprint and timetable for an agreement and to visit Jerusalem and Ramallah later this year to kick-start the process.
I guess we’ll know pretty soon how likely is this scenario, of American action.
Here’s the thing that everyone, even smart people like Remnick, have missed. The only reason Lapid got so many votes was because he understands one fundamental truth: there isn’t any serious debate inside Israel on the Occupation anymore. The Israeli public know Lapid won’t rock the boat, so then it became a referendum on the economy, where Bibi’s neoliberal policies are quite unpopular. Bibi would have preferred a candidate like Livni, no matter how flawed she is, she is still far more focused on the ‘peace process’ such as it is.
Therefore, the Israeli (Jewish) consensus on permanent Occupation and Apartheid would have emerged and people would have taken an economic hit in exchange for Likud policy on the foreign arena and on the Occupation.
Remnick didn’t buy the myth of Lapid the peacenik, but he never went far enough to explain just how meaningless this victory for Lapid is. Simply because the right has already won the debate. It’s over. As soon as you see a genuine pro-peace emerge, no matter how fractured, the Israeli public will overwhemingly vote for Likud and the settlers.
Finally, something many missed is that a record 40 MKs are now Orthodox Jews in the Knesset. If you look at the Jewish Orthodox parties they are Shas and United Torah Judaism, together they hold about 19 seats. But then you got a bunch of Orthodox Jews in Likud too as well as in Bennett’s party.
Netanyahu could form a coalition of 61 with only the Orthodox parties. With Kadima he gets to 63, and it’d be a quite stable coalition. He doesn’t really need Lapid but he needs a public face to drive the austerity through and Netanyahu also understands that the Israeli public wants more from the Haredi. After all, Bibi wants the next term as Prime Minister as well. He knows what needs to be done to get re-elected a fourth time.
A final word on the comic mass delusion among liberal Zionists in America.
My favorite delusional Zionist was and remains J.J. Goldberg from the Forward, who went straight ahead last summer when Mofaz and Netanyahu made their ‘megacoalition’. Goldberg almost spat out his excitement – after all, he has bought the myth of ‘moderate Bibi shackled by his right-wing coalition’ full stop – that now, finally, “Bibi is unwound to begin his push for peace that he couldn’t do earlier”. A few weeks later the coalition collapsed.
Now he’s back, at Beinart’s Open Zion and sarcastically slams the ‘smart money’ for being totally wrong. Lapid is a peacenik and how dare we not see this?
If history is any guide, JJ Goldberg will be wrong this time too.
In fact, it’s suffice just to make some basic observations about the MK’s who got elected. Israel has shifted further to the right on the Occupation and Apartheid, but now cottage cheese prices from Jews in Tel Aviv matter more too, that is true.
Much the same as elections in this country revealed a total lack of mobilization against war, extrajudicial assassinations, extraordinary rendtition, etc. etc. The societies in both Israel and the U.S. have at their core a narcissistic mind set. Just one of the “shared values” we hear so much about.
The Mideast peace process and two-state solution as hatched by liberal Zionists like Shimon Peres and Dennis Ross was a con game from the very start — and liberal Zionists are struggling to stretch out this con game for as long as possible, while the Israeli government continues to establish facts on the ground to support the messianic mission of building biblical Greater Israel.
For anyone to be taken in by this scam in the year 2013 would be utterly shameful and disgraceful — and speak poorly of one’s mental faculties.
re: going from the ultra right to the broad center right?
for giving peace a chance?
or for the final stand?
masada?
on whose mind?
“As soon as the new coalition is in place, Secretary of State Kerry should visit the Middle East to lay the groundwork for renewed diplomacy, as he intimated he might in his confirmation hearing yesterday.
We will then urge the President to put forward his own blueprint and timetable for an agreement and to visit Jerusalem and Ramallah later this year to kick-start the process”
Oh sure…lol
Nope, O should not go and not give them what they want—->which is to be center stage in “phony peace talks” to tamp down or remove the heat they are getting from EU and the rest of the world.
It’s another ploy, don’t do it.
Better to ignore Isr entirely unless O is ready to go in loaded for bear and actually ‘intervene’ and I doubt he’s up to that.