Israel’s Politics Today

Efraim Inbar is the Director of the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies, is Professor Emeritus at Bar-Ilan University and Fellow of the Middle East Forum. A Professor in Political Studies, Efraim Inbar’s area of specialisation is Middle Eastern strategic issues with a special interest in the politics and strategy of Israeli national security. He has written over 80 articles in professional journals and edited volumes and has authored five books. Efraim Inbar addressed The Sydney Institute on Monday 1 February 2016 to discuss the Middle East and the state of Israeli politics. Efraim Inbar’s visit to Australia was sponsored by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.

ISRAEL’S POLITICS TODAY

EFRAIM INBAR

 The international press does not always give the reader an accurate picture of Israeli politics. I will try to do justice to this subject by elaborating on three themes. The first is that there is great consensus in Israel on many issues, despite what the newspapers say. Second, PM Benjamin Netanyahu is probably the only game in town. And, third, as long as national security issues remain dominant in Israeli politics, the Likud party has a good chance of continuing to lead the state of Israel.

Widespread consensus

When I was a student many years ago, we were taught that there were several cleavages in Israeli society. When I look at our society today, I can see that those cleavages are no longer there. First of all, in terms of the economy, you will recall that Israel was once a socialist state. This is no longer so, a state of affairs that most Israelis are happy about—we are all now good capitalists. If there was once a cleavage about how the economy should be run, that cleavage has ceased to exist. Economic issues, in ideological terms, are no longer a significant factor in Israeli politics.

Another cleavage dating back to the early 1970s was between Jews of Middle Eastern origin and Jews coming from Europe. At the time, this was a source of discrimination and a spur toward political affiliation and action, but it is no longer a major issue in Israeli politics and society. A third of the marriages in Israel are now what we call “intermarriages” (not what you call “intermarriage” in Australia). Jews from different origins meet in a variety of Israeli locales. When they marry nowadays, their backgrounds are of almost no consequence, except in ultra-Orthodox circles. Basically, the origin of the family is a non-issue. What counts much more in contemporary social interaction is education and socioeconomic background.

Israel is even absorbing – and rather successfully at that – Ethiopian Jews from Africa who are very distinct in their colour and cultural background. We see Ethiopian officers in the paratroopers, which is a ticket to upward social mobility. Israel’s education system and ethos of great tolerance have enabled her to successfully integrate immigrants from a variety of countries.

Another important issue that once divided Israeli society is the question of what to do with territories that were conquered in 1967. The Sinai desert has not been a matter of dispute since 1979, when it was offered as a quid pro quo in exchange for a peace treaty with Egypt. The wisdom of relinquishing the Sinai is no longer debated in Israeli politics.

The Golan Heights was hardly ever an issue of discord in Israeli society. Most Israelis – about 70-80 percent – supported the Israeli government’s decision in 1981 to annex the Heights. And when we look at what is happening in Syria today, it is quite clear that there is no longer a Syria to whom to offer territorial concessions in exchange for peace.

Since the 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, very few Israelis long to return there to live. We all know what happened. Hamas took over, and Gaza became a base of Palestinian terror against Israel. Nevertheless, most Israelis have no appetite whatsoever to conquer Gaza and resettle there.

With regard to the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), there is a similar widespread consensus. The movement for Greater Israel is no longer a potent force in Israeli politics. All polls show that most Israelis are ready for territorial concessions, if not the territorial concessions the Palestinian Authority wants. The majority are prepared to part with large parts of the West Bank, despite its being considered by most to be the cradle of the Jewish homeland.

At the same time, some 60-70 percent of Israeli Jews understand that there is no real peace partner. This is an insight that almost 80 percent of Israelis have had since 2000, when the Camp David summit between then Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian national movement, failed to reach an agreement. What the Israelis saw was an intifada, a campaign of terror, despite the incredible concessions offered by Barak. Since then, Israelis of all political hues have understood that there is no serious Palestinian partner that can negotiate with Israel and deliver. A historic compromise between the Zionist movement and the Palestinian national movement is simply not in the cards, which makes disagreements over what can be ceded irrelevant at this time.

So there is consensus. On many of the issues that most of the world thinks we are fighting about, we are not in fact divided. We understand very well that if there were a partner, we would make concessions. Labour leader Isaac Herzog made this quite clear to the president of France in December 2015, telling him the two-state solution is a nice idea that simply cannot be implemented in the near future. In the meantime, we have a three-state solution—Israel, a proto-state in Gaza ruled by Hamas, and a semi-independent political entity called the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

There is another historic cleavage: that between religious people and secularists in Israel. This cleavage has not disappeared, but is being managed. There is still a great deal of debate over the role of religion in the public sphere, which is not dissimilar to identity debates in other countries. In the United States, there are debates over issues with religious connotations, like abortion and same-sex marriage. The same issues are debated in Israel, but they do not indicate a stark dichotomy between the religious and secular camps.

What we have is a continuum. About 25 percent of Israeli society is religious. Another 35-40 percent, maybe more, are “traditionalists” who keep a variety of religious injunctions. We also have secularists, whose numbers are declining because they have fewer children relative to the traditionalists. For many secularists, it is a difficult to cope with this new demographic reality. Some of my secularist colleagues and friends feel that Israel is no longer theirs. Once they were the elite that called the shots. It is a different country now in many ways, and it is indeed no longer theirs. This type of frustration is not healthy in politics.

One modern-day cleavage we have to recognise is the growing divide between poor and rich. Among OECD countries, of which Israel is one, we probably have one of the largest gaps between poor and rich. This is a political problem everywhere, but its effects are somewhat mitigated in Israel because the country retains remnants of a welfare state. Moreover, the Likud, which became the ruling party in 1977, is sensitive to the issue because a large proportion of Likud voters are from the working class. The working class in Israel, as in other countries, does not vote socialist. Fortunately for Israel, unemployment has been low in recent years—under five percent. You really can’t get much lower than that.

Polls are occasionally conducted that measure happiness in different countries. Israel is one of the happiest countries in the world, rating consistently among the top ten. Israelis are happy to be in Israel. We have terrorism, we have wars, but somehow the other aspects of Israeli life compensate for these troubles. We usually come in at around the seventh- or eighth-happiest country in the world.

The popularity of Netanyahu

My second theme is leadership. Benjamin Netanyahu is the most popular politician in Israel, and he enjoys a high rate of support. I would say, also, that Netanyahu is probably the only game in town. He has been Prime Minister since 2007; he had a previous stint in 1996-99. I follow politicians, and Netanyahu clearly has a learning curve. He doesn’t make the same mistake twice. When he makes mistakes, as all politicians do, he is able to recover. He is now much more adept at domestic politics than he was during his first stint. This helps him keep his party more or less happy—people have ambitions, they are hungry for positions, but he can deal with them. There are no other real contenders inside the Likud for his position.

In Israel, we don’t have your style of semi coup d’état, in which a prime minister in the middle of a parliamentary term is forced out and replaced by someone else. Israeli contenders for the leadership actually leave the party. Gideon Saar, for example, was a very popular politician who left Likud. Moshe Kahlon, who is now the Minister of Finance, ran on a separate party. By leaving the ruling party, they probably lost the chance to gain a leadership position. Another young contender, Danny Danon, was sent abroad by Netanyahu to serve as ambassador to the UN.

Some contenders wait patiently for luck to turn their way. Ariel Sharon was a good example. He never resigned from any position. He used to say that politics is a wheel: you may be down, but eventually the wheel will turn and you will be up. Several ambitious politicians are patiently serving in Netanyahu’s government now.

Outside Likud, there are no real contenders for the premiership. Israeli polls are indicative. Responses to the question of who is suitable to be prime minister leave no doubt about the popularity of Netanyahu: no one gets close to him. Labour leader Herzog, whose father was president of Israel, is growing weaker. It is possible that Herzog will move to the centre in order to win the next election, as one of Labour’s main problems is that it has turned too much to the left.

The polls show quite clearly that if there were elections today, Likud would take the same proportion of Knesset seats it took in the last elections. As a long-time observer of Israeli politics, I would argue that having Netanyahu as the only game in town is not a healthy phenomenon. Israel seems to have trouble recruiting leadership politicians. It takes time to nourish a politician to become a prime minister—particularly in a country like Israel, which has a lot of problems.

Netanyahu now holds a coalition of 61 seats in the Knesset out of 120. This is what is known as a “minimum winning coalition”, a situation many believe is inherently unstable. In fact it is not. Political science literature about this kind of coalition argues that a 61 majority is stable because everybody wants to be a part of the ruling government. It is not in anyone’s interest to risk undermining it.

There are, of course, people on the horizon with prime ministerial aspirations. I mentioned Kahlon, who heads a satellite party of Likud on the right. Naftali Bennett is the head of HaBayit HaYehudi (The Jewish Home), a religious party. He is in the wrong party. The orthodox are natural partners for almost every prime minister because what they want is both clear and limited. They want money for their projects, which governments are usually willing to give in exchange for political support. The other orthodox demands are rather limited and manageable, particularly in a country that has become more affluent. Basically, the ultra-orthodox electorate prefers Likud.

If you look at Netanyahu’s record, he is very good on the economy. Most people are not political: they want to work, they want a salary, and they want economic security. Netanyahu liberalized the Israeli economy and is personally identified with the big jump in Israeli economic progress and employment. His success at changing the economy was not easy to achieve, as the country still retains remnants of its socialist heritage. A big gas deal in the eastern Mediterranean, for example, met substantial opposition before it was approved. Some in the government wanted to extract more in taxes from the companies involved, causing the issue to drag on for several years. Eventually, through various political machinations, Netanyahu made the deal for the benefit of Israel.

Dominance of national security concerns

I’ll move now to the third subject. In terms of foreign policy, Israelis have a realpolitik orientation. Most understand that international politics is about power, and that the use of military force is popular among the Arabs around us. Israelis for the most part trust Likud, and particularly Netanyahu, to do well on national security issues and on defence issues.

One important issue that Israelis are very sensitive about is the relationship with the United States, Israel’s biggest ally. There was a great dispute between Jerusalem and Washington over the Iranian nuclear deal, and Netanyahu was not afraid to go to Washington and criticize the US President about it. This did not go down well among the many Israeli citizens who are apprehensive about the state of the relationship. Still, Netanyahu had been accepted by President Obama for a visit, vindicating his assertion that bilateral relations were strong and that Israel had the leeway to express its opposition to the nuclear deal.

In December 2015 we saw a demonstration of Netanyahu’s foreign policy acumen when a formal alliance was forged between Greece, Cyprus and Israel. To some extent it is an anti-Turkish alliance, and its architect was Netanyahu. The alliance indicates that Israel is not as isolated as some on the Israeli left claim. Netanyahu has pushed Israel toward the east as well, making India, China, and Australia clear priorities for Israeli foreign policy. He understands very well that international attention is moving to the Pacific Rim, and deserves good grades for it.

Nowadays, Israel has perfectly good relations with the moderate Arab states. We have never had better relations with Egypt than we have today. The Egyptian government faces a real problem of Islamic radicalism in Sinai and in Egypt itself. Jordan has been our traditional strategic partner for decades. Even Saudi Arabia is doing more and more things in public with Israelis. And, of course, if we need an air corridor, they’d be happy to supply it. I’m sure if we sent a bill, they’d pay for it.

The Gulf States are now more openly willing to do business with Israel. Israeli businessmen are working in the Gulf. We have a problem in Europe, true, but Europe is less important. I wouldn’t put my money on the Euro right now. On a bilateral level, Israeli relations with countries like France, Germany, Britain and particularly the Eastern European countries, which still see a threat from Putin and Russia, are very good.

As long as national security issues are dominant in Israeli politics, Likud will have a strong chance in the next elections. We have too many elections, but Likud is doing very well.