Pity Israel’s mainstream voters

Elections

Israel is going to elections. So from now on, everything you hear from Israeli politicians is campaign propaganda. No, Israel isn’t going to elections because of Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s foolish insistence on an incomprehensible Zero-VAT bill (a proposal to exempt some first-time home buyers from taxes on new residential construction). And it is not going to elections because of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cynical insistence on an uncalled-for Basic Law determining that Israel is a Jewish state. And it is not going to elections because of the failure to reignite negotiations with the Palestinians. Nor because of Iran, or the budget, or relations with the Obama administration. Israel isn’t going to elections to focus on issues — it is going to elections over personalities. 

Netanyahu wants to be prime minister. Lapid (fired by Netanyahu on Dec. 2, along with Justice Minister Tzipi Livni) wants to be prime minister. Naftali Bennett, Minister of the Economy and leader of the Jewish Home Party, wants to be prime minister. That is two too many prime ministers running one coalition — and having to constantly ensure that their backs are safe instead of taking care of government business. Netanyahu suspected, and not without reason, that Lapid is trying to set him up, to make him pass a budget, including a Zero-VAT bill, and then topple his coalition. Lapid suspected, not without reason, that Netanyahu had no intention of actually passing his Zero-VAT bill — the one bill he vowed to pass, or else. 

Looking back at the battles of recent weeks, it now seems fairly clear that most were merely a cover for what was really going on — Netanyahu was seeking a respectable exit strategy, one that could be justified and that would help him win the next round. Does he truly want the nation-state Basic Law? It is fair to wonder. If his next coalition is once again a combination of parties from the right and center, he would not have the votes to pass such a bill. If it becomes a right-Charedi coalition, he also would not have the votes — the Charedi parties are traditionally (and wisely) suspicious of Basic Laws. Netanyahu is more familiar with the math than anyone, and more than likely understands that the nation-state bill in its current form is a lost cause. The only remaining question is this: Would he really be upset about not being able to pass the bill? Or is he, in fact, satisfied that he was able to eat the cake (fight for the bill) and still maintain the status quo (save Israel from having this unnecessary bill). 

Basic Law

There is an overarching flaw in Israel’s political system — and quite ironically, this flaw is even more pronounced when the government in power is supposed to be conservative in outlook: Israeli Knesset members have too much faith in the power of legislation. Instead of limiting themselves to legislating only when necessary and when the legislation has a clear and desired outcome — if you cross when the light is red, putting yourself and others at risk, you get a fine or lose your license — they tend to use legislation for more amorphous aims, such as to get the attention of the public, to make a point, to enrage their opponents, to feel needed. 

Case in point: the story of the nation-state law. It is a story of an overreaching legislative agenda. This law is the opposite of a simple and useful tool for making policy; it is, instead, a declaration that does little more than spite its opponents. In her report to Livni regarding the proposed legislation, law professor Ruth Gavison (full disclosure: I was a member of her team) attempted to rationalize the motivations behind the legislation in a way that now, just a few short weeks after the report’s submission, sounds almost comical: The proposed laws, Gavison wrote in her report, “are meant [according to their authors] to strengthen the endorsement, within Israel and with a view to the entire world, of the vision of the state, including its Jewish character.” 

Instead of adding strength to the endorsement of the vision, Israel got the exact opposite. The vision itself is being debated, becoming a political football. The vision is so polarizing that Israel had to ponder early elections because of it. It is so divisive that not even centrist parties could accept it. And all this for a law that states what most Israelis already consider obvious — Israel is a Jewish state, it is a democratic state, and it is a state that respects human rights. 

In “Outlawed Pigs,” High Court Judge Daphne Barak-Erez’s seminal review of the peculiar story of anti-pig laws in Israel — the laws that regulate “pig-breeding and pork-trading” in the Jewish state, where pork is not just a meat but also a symbol — Barak-Erez entertains several potential explanations for the waves of interest and disinterest in these laws over the years: intensive discussion in the 1950s and ’60s, an abandonment of the subject in the ’70s and a rekindled interest beginning in the ’90s. 

She recounts four possible reasons for the challenges to restrictions on pork consumption in Israel in recent decades: 

A sociological explanation points to the wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s (Jews who love pork), the secularization of the public and the overall distancing of many Israeli Jews from the Jewish tradition. 

A legal explanation emphasizes the passage of Israel’s two human-rights-focused Basic Laws in the early 1990s — laws that made it more difficult for the state to restrict personal freedom. The debate, she explains, turned from one about bureaucratic proceedings to one about constitutional values.

A third potential explanation is mainly political: In the 1950s, politicians were used to a culture of religious-secular compromises; whereas the 1990s, with its slew of new parties that emphasized an uncompromising cultural-religious agenda, were the age of warring. 

A forth explanation looks at the way Israeli society treats the value of personal rights. If in the 1950s more Israelis were willing to adhere to personal restrictions in the name of the concrete or amorphous good of the public, 40 years later their inclination to sacrifice, and their belief that sacrifice is still necessary, had eroded.     

Thinking about Israel and the consumption of pork is very similar to thinking about Israel and its current fierce debate over proposed legislation that is supposed to anchor its vision as a Jewish state. In each instance there is an attempt, or a supposed need, to translate issues of national culture into legal language. In each case, the legal language falls short, and the legal maneuver proves to be problematic in its handling of a matter that is, essentially, one of identity.

This is to say: When people want to eat pork, you can make it more difficult for them to get it at the local store. But if the public views that as a political ploy, the message that pork is bad for their culture does not come across. Instead, they may get the message that their culture of Judaism impinges upon the ability to have a good life. 

Similarly, when the public is less strong in its support of a Jewish-state vision (and I’m far from certain that it is), you can pass a law that burdens it with stronger language to emphasize the Jewish component of the vision. But if people see this as a political ploy, the bill will not convince them that weakened support for that vision is bad for the state. Instead, it would make people suspect that the state, the Jewish state, is contrary to many of the things they cherish.  

Thus, those who desire stronger support for the vision of Israel — a Jewish nation-state, no apologetic excuses needed — should be the first to oppose the new legislation. Thus the above-mentioned cynicism: They are busy now strategizing as to how the legislative battle for a vision will play out in their next electoral campaign.

The Next Coalition

I began with a warning: You can’t believe anyone when elections are on the horizon. Thus, don’t expect to really know whether Netanyahu has a deal with the Charedi parties for after the election, as the parties to Netanyahu’s left are sure to continue to contend. He might have an understanding with the Charedis, or not. They might hold to this understanding after the elections, or not. The next coalition will depend on the outcome of the elections, not on prearranged agreements. And the outcome can be tricky. No one truly knows what the voters might do, as the dilemma they face in the coming elections is much more complicated than the one they faced two years ago.

Think about the last elections, the ones Israel had less than two years ago. Soon after those elections, I wrote an article with the headline “Israel is a Moderate Country: 20 Short Notes on the Election.” That reality hasn’t changed. I wrote that the voters sent a message to Netanyahu: Get new friends. That is to say, they wanted to keep him as prime minister, but did not want him to head up a coalition of right-wing and Charedi parties. Most Israelis, according to recent polls, seem still to want exactly that. They see no viable alternative to Netanyahu as prime minister (and this is a problem: Israel has to find a way to have alternatives). But their enthusiasm for the old right-Charedi formula is low. 

The failure of the current coalition is what makes the voters’ dilemma more pronounced. In the last round, Israelis could dream of a kumbaya coalition — the reasonable right and the hawkish-enough center-left, the Jewishly sensitive seculars and the moderate religious. Leaving out the disliked Charedis, leftists, Arabs. Building bridges between the parties of the mainstream Zionist majority.   

Alas, this formula did not work. The center-left were led by an inexperienced and ineffectual leader. The moderate religious were only half-moderate. The ruling party has too many populist elements. Constant infighting ensued, prompted by the personal ambition of the leaders, and by the more extreme members of each of the parties. It did not work, and clearly now the prime minister, yet again, wants a different coalition — a stable coalition. So Israel’s right-wing and Charedi voters don’t have much of a problem: They’d vote for a coalition that is acceptable to them. But Israel’s mainstream voters (a mainstream that includes voters from Likud, Habayit Hayehudi, Yesh Atid, Israel Beiteinu, Hatnuah, Labor, Kadima, Cahlon) face a much more difficult choice: Since they could not get what they wanted, they’ll have to consider a lesser option. And that would be either a stable coalition that is tilted more to the right, or another coalition that could be unstable and schizophrenic. Or, they can choose — the polls currently don’t make such option seem viable — to replace the prime minister and the ruling party with someone else who they believe is not as competent. Would they do such thing, having seen an inept finance minister in action for the last two years? 

Pity Israel’s mainstream voters. Their options are not great.