A lengthy stay in power is nothing unusual, as Labor can attest, for its the ruling party’s ability to provide security that determines its longevity.
Can we ever beat the Likud? Is Benyamin Netanyahu going to be the eternal prime minister of Israel?
Members of the Israeli political left, yearning to return to power after many years in the wilderness of opposition, ask themselves these questions. And then the blame game begins. Who and what are responsible for this situation? Where did they go wrong?
Actually, a lengthy stay in power for one party is not at all unusual in Israeli politics. Remember the Labor party, in its various incarnations, in power seemingly forever since the foundation of the State in 1948? Almost thirty years! Then it was the Likud, in its various incarnations, that seemed to be the eternal opposition.
If you think back, and ask yourselves why did the Labor party in those years succeed to win election after election, the answer is clear. They seemed to be able to provide what most of the public wanted more than anything else – security. They led Israel to victory in the War of Independence. They succeeded to open the Straits of Eilat in 1956. They were in power when Israel scored a brilliant victory in the Six-Day-War. What finally brought them down was the perception that their leadership had failed during the Yom Kippur War. Even though that was Israel’s greatest victory, eventually paving the way to a peace treaty with Egypt, the public could not forgive the government’s mistake in not calling up the reserves in time and the resulting heavy losses suffered by the IDF. It took four years for it to sink in. The Labor party still won the elections of 1974, but by 1977 the Likud, after years in what seemed eternal opposition, came to power. Security was the issue that occupied the minds of the public more than anything else, and the Labor party’s seeming failure in this area finally brought it down.
From that point of view little has changed in the intervening years. The public demands security and votes for those perceived as being best able to provide it. The Labor party had a chance to restore its credentials as the party that could best provide this security. Under the leadership of a former general, Yitzhak Rabin, it returned to power in 1992, and after losing to the Likud in 1996, it was given another chance when a another former general, Ehud Barak, led it to victory in 1999. Both generals promised security through peace, and were prepared to make the necessary concessions in order to make peace with the Palestinians and the Syrians.
And the public went along with these policies. It supported the Oslo agreements with Yasir Arafat, and was prepared to turn the Golan Heights over to Syrian rule in return for a peace treaty with Hafez al-Assad. Even Barak’s egregious offers of territorial concessions to Arafat in 2000 might have had the support of much of the public had it not been for Arafat’s rejection of the offer and the subsequent wave of Palestinian terror that caused over a thousand Israeli casualties.
The “peace party” of 2005, headed by Ariel Sharon, yet another former general, had a further chance when Sharon bolted the Likud and formed Kadima, taking with him much of the Labor party. He uprooted Israeli settlements in Gush Katif and withdrew unilaterally from the Gaza Strip. That move as well had the support of much of the Israeli public at the time.
For some years now all these policies, based on concessions – the Oslo accords, the readiness to withdraw from the Golan Heights, the unilateral withdrawal from the south Lebanon security zone, the offers made to Arafat by Barak, the disengagement from the Gaza Strip – are viewed by most Israelis as having been mistaken. Outside pressure by the United States or the European Union on Israel to agree to concessions may have been encouraged by some in Israel but enraged the majority of Israelis, boosting support for Netanyahu. On security, the issue of most concern to the Israeli public, Labor and its reincarnation as Kadima have failed.
Security issues continue to dominate the Israeli political scene, and until Labor can produce better answers than the ones provided by the Likud, or else, God forbid, the Likud makes a serious mistake on this issue, Likud will most likely stay in power.
so is this why BB declared the soldier guilty without investigation? Is BB seeking a path of “tough love” from the UN, US and EU in order to pressure Israelis?
NO, he has been tried and convicted by BB netanyahu before an investigation even begins and no one is curious as to why the Jewish PM once again felt it was necessary to declare him guilty before an investigation. this should be the subject of a serious criminal investigation especially after erdan, bb, yaalon and rivlin did the same at duma.
What’s their motive… does anyone care?
so when will Israelis demand an explanation for BB’s repetitive immediate declarations of guilty criminal jews before even an investigation? Is there no interest in Israel for this strange phenomenon?
No one appears to wonder why BB and his amen chorus immediately jump up each time a jew is accused of something against a pal…. why do they immediately condemn the Jews before there is an investigation, an indictment, a trial….. it almost as if they want to influence the investigation and trial negatively for the Jew… make sure a Jew is seen to be charged and punished for the “crime”. After all, this is a highly unusual MO for any national leader on the globe today… it flies in the face of the gold standard of leadership whereby the national leaders always advise the public to patiently follow the due process of law and the verdict of a trial. So why would Bb and his partners appear to be doing the opposite? Obviously it is not a one time error as at Duma the 4 jumped up in unison and now again BB makes sure that the soldier is seen to be guilty.
But that makes no sense you say, why would, especially, a jewish national leader want to see Jews punished. Ross must be crazy to suggest such a thing.
But it does make sense when you view it through the model I have suggested here many times before over the last few years… that model which always explains BB’s odd behavior. That model which evaluates BB’s strange abnormal behaviors in the light of his understandings with the gulf arabs.
In order to understand how BB’s actions in “jumping up” fit in with that model one must understand the tactic of the UK gov at the end of the Boer War as exemplified in the true story made a film entitled “Breaker Morant”. Basically the UK and Holland had agreed a peace treaty and as a public sign to Holland that Britain was serious in enforcing that treaty they used their own officer Morant as a patsy and framed his battle as a war crime… they arranged a fake crime, trial and verdict to execute Morant as an appeasement and sacrifice to facilitate the peace treaty.
Similarly BB is doing the same… he is demonstrating to the gulf arabs and street, in each case of favor and softness to the pals and in each gov facilitated lynching of a jew for a fake crime, that he and Israel are true partners who can be relied upon to be even handed with the arabs and treat them equally. Therefore, his main MO is to convince the foreigners and arabs rather than give justice to Jews. It is his “understandings” and his deal which he is already implementing, that explain his insane traitorous treatment of innocent Jews.
Soldiers are not trained to be policeman, they are trained to kill the enemy and respond to attack with destructive force. Policemen are trained to subdue and avoid harm to the perpetrator. BB knows this but seeks to make sure that his condemnation of a jew is heard everywhere and especially so that the Israelis will accept that the party is guilty without even an indictment or investigation. BB not only seeks to sway for a trial verdict and indictment but also he seeks to sway those making the investigation to accept his version of a guilty Jew. Why else would he tell the world that the jew is guilty before even an investigation begins…. he wants to make sure that the investigators understand that they must bring an indictment of guilt because BB has already declared him guilty. What investigator would not seek to please the PM?
None of this is coincidence and is completely logical if one know why he is doing it.
netanyahu is always quick to feed his people to the dogs and wolves. we should not be surprised because he and his 3 cronies jumped up immediately to say jews burned a baby without indictable evidence. How can Israelis follow such a leader who will always abandon the Jews for the other.
In spite of this possibility netanyahu decides to convince everyone that it was otherwise. i would never send my son to join such an army where your commander immediately seeks to give you to the defamers.
Israel should be rid of this foul odor, the spectre of a man of no character, always can be depnded on to feed his own to the dogs.
It seems to me that Netanyahu is the most dominant figure in Israeli history – by far – and that as of now, Israelis don’t see anybody with remotely his stature capable of replacing him.
Look what happened to Naftali Bennett when he seemed like a possible challenger to the king.