Israel’s public school year starts on Sunday. This week, Israeli families are trudging back from abroad, from a domestic vacation, from hunkering down at the in-laws — or wherever they found to spend the sweaty, dusty dying days of August.
Besides chomping at the bit to send kids back to school, my ex-compatriots are also breathing an unusual sigh of relief this year, for having tuned out of most of September 17’s general election campaign: an unprecedented “Mulligan Election” taking place only 5 months after April’s general election had ended up a dud for all sides.
This Great Election Re-Do is unexpected and unprecedented, and so is the sudden window of opportunity to finally get rid of Prime Minister Bibi “Epoxy” Netanyahu, whose interminable reign has sucked the air out of Israeli politics.
Indeed, as the Salmon inset below says, one positive aspect of the mostly content-free election campaigns Israel has been going through in recent years, is that they are still changepoints where the Law of Unintended Consequences can strike, and relieve the country from the even more interminable reign of the Occupation Regime. It is still a far longer shot than getting rid “only” of Bibi, but there are tiny glimpses of hope.
Below the salmon, an overview of the playing field which has changed subtly yet considerably from April. There will probably be a couple more Circus Act diaries before all is said and done.
Since 1967, Israel has controlled the lives of the Palestinian people living in East Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza, without giving them citizenship; the vast majority have been forced to live as stateless, rightless subjects under military rule. Even now, as Occupation-tolerant advocates often deny and discount this basic reality (or are shamefully ignorant of it), Israel controls the freedom of movement of these territories' residents, in particular their ability to go abroad and return; controls their residency status; their airspace, currency, water supply, fuel supply, most of their electricity, and their ability to import and export products. All the while, deeply exploiting their day labor and natural resources — and further controlling their social and intimate lives via a secret police that extorts an extensive network of collaborators. THIS IS A VERY PARTIAL LIST.This Occupation regime has continued unabated for nearly 52 out of the Israeli parliament’s 70 years of existence, covering the last 14 15 out of Israel's 20 21 general elections. Apart from a couple of elections in the 1980s-90s, no major Israeli party has campaigned on ending it.
As long as this continues, the Israeli elections cannot be considered really democratic. That said, elections sometimes open the door to the Law of Unintended Consequences, in a good way.
Besides, it’s one of the world's most entertaining electoral circuses. So I'm writing this series.
This is the third straight election whose main topic is Bibi himself. He did very well in the previous two.
In 2015 he pulled off his biggest election-night surprise victory since 1996, after pulling out all stops in frantic last-minute campaigning, culminating with a racist election-day Facebook video (and a likely-illegal text message to all Israeli voters). He fended off an alliance between Labor and a motley crew of centre-left politicians. In April 2019 he brought in his biggest seat haul for Likud ever (35; they did better many times under other leaders), “only” enough for a tie with an even stranger centre-right alliance. But hard-right parties won more than half the seats which means he won.Or did he?
Turns out the right-wing margin was not as comfy as it seemed: 65 out of 120 seats, all parties but one having at least 5 seats meaning Bibi needed them all. Then small-party leader Avigdor “Yvet” Lieberman (pictured at the diary’s top), who was Bibi’s chief of staff in his first term (1996-9), decided to play hardball. In negotiations, he refused to budge on the wedge issue of Ultra-Orthodox military service (which plays a role not unlike abortions in the US), and all of a sudden Bibi was running out of time.
Rather than face the chance that the president assign someone else to set up a government, Bibi rushed through a vote for the parliament to disband itself and call a new election. So there we are.
Lieberman, a hard-right ideological settler who had spun off Likud in 1999, and a notorious racist inciter (see here a 2009 profile), has leveraged the negotiations and their aftermath to reposition his party, whose votes come mostly from immigrants from the former USSR like himself, as centrist. He stated that unlike in April, he won’t recommend Bibi as prime minister. He even signed an agreement to share “leftover votes” with Likud’s main rival.
Personally he ain’t a centrist; but regardless, this is one entire party off Bibi’s column, and at present Lieberman is polling at more than double his current 5 seats (he did win as many as 15 in 2009, so his potential is greater than 5).
What else is changing? As the title says, it’s a game of 3 R’s.
Reduce on the right:A more recent Likud spin-off is crash-landing back at home base. Moshe Kahlon, who won the Treasury ministry on account of a strong 10-seat showing in his first solo campaign in 2015, barely cleared the minimum threshold in April with 4 seats. Both he and Bibi were relieved to reunite, a decision which took approximately one second.
on the left:The Joint (Arab) List made history with 13 seats (and almost 14) in 2015, becoming the third-largest parliament faction and earning a historic committee chairwomanship (in Israel committee chairs are given by faction size, not only to the majority side).
Lamentably, after years of petty squabbling mostly over seat rotation, the Joint split in two in April. Voters punished them severely: only 10 seats combined, with the smaller bit clearing the 3.25% threshold by only 0.08%. Chastised, Arab politicians wholeheartedly supported Bibi’s move to redo the election, despite being his staunchest opposition.
It still took tedious talks and brinkmanship to bring the Joint back together, but back together they are. Whether 2015’s glory will be repeated or even exceeded, remains to be seen; but we’re probably looking at better performance than April.
And last week, List leader Ayman Odeh upped the ante by saying the Joint would consider joining a centre-left coalition under certain conditions, first and foremost ending the Occupation and agreeing to an independent Palestinian state. This set off a firestorm in both Jewish and Arab political scenes, but one thing’s for sure: he’s affected the political narrative, and the Joint List won’t be easily ignored.
Is a young secular Tel Aviv woman the new face of Israeli Nationalist-Orthodox politics? Or is it just a savvy charade? Your guess is as good as mine. ReuseApril’s second most spectacular failure belongs to far-righters Bennett and Shaked, whose Narcissistic New Right List fell 0.03% short of the threshold (a threshold which was raised in 2014 with the transparent aim of entrapping Arab parties, but has mostly trapped far-right parties thus far). Once out of the parliament, both lost their high-profile cabinet positions, but were grateful for a chance to crawl back into any outfit that accepts them for September.
After shopping around, they ended up scoring a pretty good deal: re-forming the same alliance with Orthodox “Jewish Home” they had in 2013 and 2015, the main change being that now Shaked is at #1 rather than Bennett. This is a bit of a shocker since the parties involved, and nearly all voters, are Orthodox and Shaked is a young secular city woman.
But I wouldn’t read a feminist, pluralist sea change in Orthodox politics into this; just a savvy tactical move to place the most popular face at #1 and gain a few PR points. Most components of this Reuse list (brand-named “Rightward”) are still narrow-minded, Paleo, chauvinistic, racist-supremacist pricks (well, the last part is true of Shaked herself too).
In the process, the Jewish Home component tossed aside its April alliance with ultra-extreme Kahanist factions (that alliance was chaperoned by Bibi himself). Meanwhile, the Kahanists have had most of their leaders disqualified by the court for explicit racism (one in April and two just yesterday), and their prospects look bleak. This might depress some far-right turnout (“The system is rigged”, sounds familiar?), which is great.
There was also talk of incorporating kooky libertarian-messianic Feiglin into the Reuse alliance, but it didn’t go anywhere so he’s running alone after missing the threshold by 0.5% in April. Idiocy-driven electoral inefficiency on the far right is a hallmark of Israeli elections; here’s hoping the trend continues in September.
Do you recognize this baby-faced grandpa? Pretty horrifying, if you ask me. But who knows. Last but not Least: Recycle an alliance with say who????Yet another List that was almost eliminated in April is Meretz, the progressive-Zionist party, the only Jewish party officially opposed to Occupation. In fact, Jewish voters did eliminate them, and if it wasn’t for Arab voters pissed at the Joint List who handed them an unprecedented entire seat’s worth of votes, Meretz would have been completely out of this short-lived parliament, for the first time in its 27-year existence.
Alarmed, Meretz both replaced their leader (a young woman) with a somewhat older and bland (but savvy?!) white man, and looked for any possible alliance. They ended up scoring one, with…
...none other than Ehud Barak.
Yes, the same Barak who had brought us the bloody “No Partner” lie under whose long shadow Israel-Palestine still struggles 19 years later. The same Barak who with this lie decimated his Labor party in 2000 and destroyed any semblance of good faith with Arab citizens, was foolishly elected to lead it again years later, then decimated it again in 2009 by allying with Bibi, directly helping Bibi start his continuous 10-year reign.
The very same Ehud Barak used Israel’s post-April political clusterfuck to launch yet another comeback at age 77, setting up an insta-party and placing it further left than he’s ever run before, under the brand name “Democratic Israel”.
Now, regardless of what a terrible and failed leader he’s been, someone of Barak’s stature always attracts a substantial following. So everyone in the anti-Bibi camp was looking to close a deal with Barak and avoid splintering.
Interestingly, and with no irony whatsoever, Barak’s strongest negotiation condition seems to have been no entry into a Bibi government no matter what. This has left only Meretz as a potential partner, and so the strange shotgun wedding came to be.
Still remains the teeny issue of leftie voters having to stomach Barak in their List. Before coming here in 2002, Meretz was my regular vote, and I could never put up with this. But then, in subsequent elections I would have voted to the left of Meretz anyway (specifically, Joint this time) if I could. So I asked my brother and sis-in-law, both regular Meretz voters (especially him), who had just visited here.
They’re fine with that. Why? Because Barak cleverly asked to be placed in the back, at the 10th spot — right now, a long reach goal for this List. So he likely won’t be in the next parliament. It wouldn’t be enough for me, and will certainly not be enough for most Arab citizens who chose Meretz as their protest vote this April. But the move will likely be a net electoral winner.
If you think this is strange, wait till you read the next Recycle story.
Did he take off his moustache to look less Moroccan? It’s a possibility, given the sublimated racism of so-called “centre-left” voters which is vehemently denied, but quite evident. whatever you do, don’t mention ethnicityLabor saw the very most spectacular failure in April, falling to 6 seats; unbelievable for a party that had competed for first place in nearly all previous elections. So of course they replaced their leader, with…
Amir Peretz, who in his long career has managed to leave Labor (1999), return in 2005 to upset octogenarian legend Shimon Peres and lead Labor to the 2006 elections, get kicked out not long afterwards (and eventually replaced by… yes, Ehud Barak), then leave Labor again in 2013 for an opportunistic centrist List, eventually serving for 1.5 years in Bibi’s government as environment minister. And now he’s leading Labor again.
Feeling dizzy yet?
Despite this jumpy career, Peretz hasn’t caused nearly as much damage as, say, Barak, and comes across as a genuine progressive on all fronts. He’s also Mizrahi (Middle Eastern Jew), born in Morocco. All of Israel’s prime ministers to date have been Ashkenazi (Eastern/Central European Jews). In fact, Peretz’s 2006 run was the only time that a Mizrahi leader was a viable general-election candidate for the role. (The two populations are roughly equal-sized.)
The reason Peretz didn’t win in 2006 was an exodus of notable Labor figures led by Shimon Peres himself, and followed by masses of voters. The very sad truth is that in Israel, “Left” and “Right” are largely ethnic labels. The 2006 electoral map was among the strangest in Israeli history, with traditional (Mizrahi) Likud strongholds giving Labor a nice vote share, while traditional (Ashkenazi) Labor strongholds deserting Labor for other parties (but not for Likud). Jewish Meretz voters may be able to stomach Ehud Barak; but in 2006, Ashkenazi Labor voters could not stomach voting for a Moroccan with a moustache.
Now, the wrath among “Left” voters and pundits is upon Peretz: why didn’t he join the Meretz-Barak wedding? is he planning to fall in with Bibi again after the election? (note the double standard vs. their treatment of Barak) There’s a near-universal distaste for him in (Ashkenazi) circles, but his true “Original Sin” goes unsaid. After all, he was born that way.
Say what you will about Peretz, he’s got balls. He did strike up an alliance, with… Orly Levy, a centrist ex-parliament member who ran her own List in April getting only 1.7% of the vote. She had entered parliament as a “non-Russian figleaf” in Lieberman’s party, but quickly distinguished herself as highly capable, dedicated parliamentarian, laser-focused on social justice issues. She too is Moroccan, very popular in Mizrahi feminist and social-justice circles. It was far too little for a solo run, but with Peretz and Labor things may look different.
Peretz isn’t hiding that his main mission is to win traditional right-leaning votes in Mizrahi Likud/Shas strongholds. He’s not holding high hopes from Labor’s traditional Ashkenazi base anyway; if they didn’t vote for him in 2006 when the premiership was within reach, why would they now? The goal is one: to bring down Bibi and his far-right majority, by whatever combination of Lists necessary.
Last night Peretz showed up at the TV studio, with his signature 47-year moustache gone. Read my lips, he said. Under no condition will I enter Bibi’s government again.
So…If these three cynical, jaded old hands, Lieberman Barak and Peretz, each in his own don’t-look-at-our-sausage-making way, end up toppling Bibi and breaking the far-right’s stranglehold… it will be quite the story.
Stay tuned.