Are Soldiers Still Sacred?

Last week, Israel’s opposition leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced a perplexing decision. He said that his party, Likud, will vote unanimously against a coalition bill to help pay tuition for recently released Israeli troops. Repeat: The Likud party, a rightwing, nationalist, patriotic party, is going to vote against a bill to help pay tuition for soldiers. The bill is popular. The tuition is popular. The soldiers are popular. And yet, Israel’s most popular leader is forcing his party to vote against it. How can that be?

Let’s try to understand it without getting upset (update—no reason to get upset: on Monday evening, the Likud party caved under public pressure and the bill passed). Obviously we all love the soldiers. So it is easy to get upset with Netanyahu’s position. And yet, we must ask: Should we expect the opposition, in such a case, to vote in favor of the bill? Or does the opposition have good reasons to oppose the bill, even though it’s a bill that very few mainstream Israeli voters do not support? Let’s look at the main arguments.

The main argument against the opposition is substantive: If you support the troops, why would you vote against the bill? In the daily lives of citizens, when people support a cause, they do not show their support by resisting the cause. This sounds almost like an absurdity: We support the troops by voting against helping the troops. 

The secondary argument against the opposition is political: a large majority of the public supports the soldiers. Therefore, when a party votes against the soldiers, it risks losing votes—first of all, the votes of the soldiers themselves, those who are slated to receive the scholarships. Some soldiers are very angry with the possibility that they will not get the scholarship. Justifiably angry. If they see the Likud as the party responsible for their not receiving the scholarship, they and perhaps their parents, uncles, nieces and nephews will be angry with Likud. 

Is there a way to defend Netanyahu’s decision? Let’s try. You might get upset with these arguments, but you should still consider them. Opposition leaders may be cynics, but they are not stupid. If they decided to go into this battle, there is probably a logic behind their decision. What is the logic? There is a principled basis and a political basis. 

The principled basis is this: The role of the coalition is to pass laws. The role of the opposition is to block laws—especially when stopping a law will prove exactly what the opposition is trying to prove: That the coalition relies on the votes of those who are not legitimate partners in running the country. Again, one can agree or disagree with such argument, but the move led by the Likud is a move that aims to warn the public against a coalition that includes members who do not share the admiration most of us feel toward the IDF and its soldiers. Voting against the tuition is exactly what the opposition needs to prove its point. You see, they will tell the voters, when it comes to IDF matters, the coalition is helpless. It must beg for the support of the opposition. 

Is such a position upsetting? Definitely. We want the soldiers to get their tuition. And yet, it is hard to deny that there is some justice in this claim of the opposition. The coalition does have a problem when it needs to find a majority to support the IDF. 

Now for the political basis for Netanyahu’s position. This is both the most difficult to accept and also the most disturbing: Netanyahu probably estimates that Israel’s society is so polarized, so dedicated to beating political opponents, that even harming the soldiers to achieve such goal is acceptable. That is, he assumes that in the current state of affairs, it is more important for his voters to hammer “the other side” than to take care of those who wear uniforms and go out at night to ambush the enemy. 

In fact, he believes, unlike some of his Likud members who initially voiced weak voices of protest, that there will be no political price to pay for his perplexing decision. He assumes that opposition voters despise the government so much, that they will accept the denial of benefits to IDF soldiers as a necessary evil. If that’s what it takes to embarrass Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, then so be it. 

So you see, the battle isn’t really about the bill. It is about who better understands the state of mind of the Israeli voters. PM Bennett is convinced that Netanyahu made a mistake, and that he will now finally absorb a significant blow. Netanyahu believes that Bennett is wrong: The PM does not understand that Likud supporters despise the government so much, that they will close their ears to the cries of the discharged soldiers, provided that a victory is achieved in the Knesset.  

The battle isn’t really about the bill. It is about who better understands the state of mind of the Israeli voters. 

Which of them is right? Bennett gambled, by presenting the law to the Knesset. Netanyahu gambled, by insisting on opposing the law. He ultimately caved. Meaning either he realized that he crossed a line that could hurt him in the polls or crossed a line that would drag his own party into insurrection. Thus, we will never know who was right and who was wrong. From an analyst’s viewpoint, that’s a pity – and yet, if it’s better for the soldiers we’d happily pay the cost.

Something I wrote in Hebrew

I am running a poll on Israel’s morality in handling its foreign affairs. Here’s a first nugget of information that I was able to share from the results:

A very large majority of Jews in Israel believe that Israel is a moral state in its foreign and security policy. Only a few believe that Israel is as moral as an average state in the world, and very few believe that Israel is immoral. But there is one exceptional group. The small group of self-defined “left wingers” (they are about 5% of Jews). It is easiest to see this when comparing the “left” to the group closest to them, to see how different the “left” is from the “center left.” True, even in the center left there are those here who think that Israel is immoral, but mostly there are those who say that it is “average,” not worse than other countries, which, on the whole, is not really a negative opinion. On the other hand, on the left we found a majority—a majority!—who believe that Israel is “somewhat immoral” or “very immoral” (about 25% for every possibility). This is clearly a finding that justifies a claim that the left is exceptional compared to all other groups. 

A week’s numbers

Yes, this is what Jewish Israelis think. 

A reader’s response:

Frank Neumann responded to last week’s article “Who Killed Shireen Abu Akleh?” He writes: “Why did you not mention the attack on her funeral?” Short answer: I didn’t have enough room to discuss it. Another short answer: It is a different issue. And another: It’s possible that policemen were not sensitive enough as they responded to attacks on them by funeral participants. And yet, I would insist on not confusing the attack on police officers with a police response to such attack. 

Shmuel Rosner is senior political editor. For more analysis of Israeli and international politics, visit Rosner’s Domain at jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain.