Martin Sherman explains why Israeli election results are often meaningless
By Martin Sherman
Consider the following remarkable facts regarding Israel’s parliamentary history:
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(a) For 20 of the 28 years between 1977- when the Likud first won the elections on a platform of “Greater Israel – and 2005 – when a Likud government withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in stark contradiction to its electoral pledges – the Israeli government was headed by a prime minister from the Likud.?
(b) When the Likud came to power, the entire Sinai Peninsula was under Israeli control, any suggestion that Israel might evacuate the Jordan Valley was virtually unthinkable, any thought of dividing Jerusalem was tantamount to blasphemy, and any hint of withdrawal from the Golan was almost akin to treason.?
(c) Yet today, over a third of a century since Menachem Begin’s dramatic electoral victory, all the above are either already faits accomplis or are widely considered inevitable in the not-to-distant future.
This clearly demonstrates that although the “right-wing” consistently wins elections, it never really gets into power. It is a phenomenon that can only be explained by the existence of some influence extraneous to the political system that imposes policy outcomes that diverge radically from those that should be expected from regular operation of political routine.?
As such it is a phenomenon that has virtually emptied the Israeli democratic process of any significance.?
Thus, Yitzhak Rabin who in1992 was elected on the basis a series of hawkish “nays,” radically switched his policy mid-term, transforming them all to dovish “yeas” which begot the Oslowian fiasco. Even more dramatically, Ariel Sharon, elected on a platform opposing any notion of unilateral withdrawal, adopted precisely such policy, advocated by his Labor party rival and rejected by the electorate.
Far-sighted wisdom??
Two claims not infrequently espoused to account for these cases of flagrant disregard for electoral pledges must be summarily repudiated.
The first is that they were the result of international – particularly US – pressure. However, nothing could be further from the truth.?
In the case of Oslo, the entire unfortunate process was covertly conceived exclusively by Israelis and Palestinians in remote Scandinavia without any international coercion. In fact, the PLO, cosignatory to the accords that emerged from this ill-considered initiative, was still listed a terror organization by the US governments at the time of their conclusion. Likewise, the disastrous disengagement was not a product of American pressure. Quite the reverse, Washington initially opposed unilateral initiatives and had to be convinced by Sharon as to the merits of the idea.?
The second claim that needs to be dispelled is that these mid-term policy reversals reflect some far-sighted wisdom in dovish policies of territorial concessions and political appeasement that made the post-election abandonment of more hawkish political platforms inevitable.?
Indeed, one of the most astonishing aspects of the Israeli political system is of ostensibly “hawkish” politicians adopting, once in power, “dovish” policies they previously repudiated. After all, these policies have consistently and continuously proved disastrous failures.?
So if the most dramatic political initiatives over the last two decades cannot be attributed to international pressure, or to the far-sighted wisdom of Israeli leaders, or the preferences of the Israeli electorate, what can it be ascribed to??
Trinity of influence?
The answer is to be found more in Israel’s sociological structure than its political mechanisms. More specifically, it lies in composition of its civil society elites who control the legal establishment, dominate the mainstream media, and hold the sway in academia (specifically in the social sciences and humanities faculties – where the politically-correct dominates.) These groups comprise an interactive trinity of influence that in effect dominates the socio-political process in Israel, sets the direction of the national agenda at the strategic level and imposes, with great effectiveness, its views on elected politicians and the general public.
Thus, for example, the legal elite can impede any assertive initiative that the elected polity may wish to implement. Similarly, the media elite can promote any concessionary initiative that the elected polity may be loath to implement. And when the stamp of professional approval is required for either, the amenable academic elite is ever-ready to provide it.?
It requires little analytical acumen to identify that these were the mechanisms that generated most of the major political processes over the last two decades. Accordingly, the ability to understand the political realities in Israel is contingent on understanding the worldview and the cost-benefit analysis of these powerful and influential elites.
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For them, the approval of peer groups abroad is far more important in determining their agenda than the approval of Israeli citizens at home. Invitations to deliver keynote speeches at high-profile conventions, sought-after appointments as visiting scholars at prestigious institutes, lucrative grants for research projects are far more forthcoming if one in identified as empathetic to the Palestinian narrative than as committed to the Zionist one.
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This reality has far reaching effects. For example, it prevents the adherents and all those under their considerable influence from portraying the Arabs in general, and the Palestinians in particular, in their true light. After all, such an assertive portrayal would make the dominant elites’ worldview look outrageously irresponsible. They are thus compelled to depict the Arab/Palestinian side in a far more favorable light than reality warrants while portraying the Israeli side in a far more negative one – otherwise there would be no justification in handing over areas of vital strategic importance to Arab/Palestinian control.
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Grave consequences
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After all, to acknowledge Arab brutality and backwardness, to focus on the repression of women, the suppression of dissidents, oppression of homosexuals, to draw attention to the harassing of critical journalists and the hounding of political opponents would gravely undermine the prudence of any policy advocating establishment of a Palestinian entity barely a mile from the national parliament, overlooking Ben-Gurion airport, adjacent to the Trans-Israel highway and atop crucial water resources.
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It is difficult to overstate the gravity of the consequences that the imposition of elite political preferences on Israeli policy has – for both the preservation of Israeli security and Israel democracy.
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Firstly, with regard to security, the aversion to drawing attention to the real nature of the Arab world prevents Israel from persuasively presenting its case and creating international understanding for the dire dangers that it faces in contending with such adversaries.
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Secondly, with regard to democracy, the dramatic elite-induced policy reversals since the early 90s constitute a powerful disincentive for partaking in the electoral. For what is the point of voting any party or person into power if they end up implementing precisely what was rejected by the voters?
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Contending with this phenomenon is no easy matter within the constraints of democratic norms, and the operational details of a strategy to address it are beyond the scope of this article. However, whatever form such strategy may take, its point of departure would need to be an accurate articulation of the problem and its overriding objective to publicly expose those responsible for the dangerous distortions they impose on the nations political mechanisms, unveil their myopia and/or their malice, undermine their standing, and erode their status. This is the only way to neutralize their influence and contain enormous damage that they inflict on the nation.
I am not a malcontent nor as you and Ted describe me as a contraian. I only ask from you what you in turn have demanded from others: To be specific and define your terms and context especially when you throw out unsupported statements as a given.
I don’t agree with this statement and just ask that you explain what you consider caving to international pressure. What you consider to be caveable pressure applied to is? See this Post as a case in point as to why I challenge your statement. If you were to review an honest history of Israel you will find most of the so called cases of outside pressure were fictitious but invented as a fig leaf for our leaders either for making unpopular decisions or not deciding and using mild foreign pressure as an excuse for not making certain decisions.
Yamit, you are a malcontented contrarian as regards just about anything I might say.
The evidence has been canvassed 6 ways to Sunday, even by you about Israel caving to international and American pressures. Did you forget that?
As for my advice that the sooner Israel gets started to change her social, political and legal structure the better, I would expect nothing less from you then a sarcastic retort like Blah….
You rage about Israel’s problems, but you offer no cogent answer or solution to Israel’s problems. Raging at the way things are that aggrieve you about Israel, is not a cogent answer and it definitely is no solution.
You rage that Israel stand up to international pressures and cut herself off from America, because Israel is too vulnerable and weak in the face of such pressures. Such an act defies reason. You don’t explain how the benifit to Israel by such action, would outweigh the costs.
We live in a world where nations for their own best interests must deal with others, even nations that are hardly what one would call friends, on economic and political levels for reasons that are obvious. Obvious that is, except to you.
You repeatedly also advise the answer to Israel’s problem with the Palestinians can be solved by Israel waging war against the Palestinians to deliver a devastating and decisive blow that will doubtless cause a great many casualties and leave Israel to reclaim their ancestral homelands of Gaza, J & S for their exclusive sovereign use as the Palestinian survivors of such an Israeli onslaught would be sent running for refuge away from Gaza, J & S.
With all this vitriol that you spill out on the pages of Israpundit Yamit, I would have thought you would manage to channel your energies to be part of and active in an organization that advocates views and positions in keeping with your own.
So far, you have ignored my suggestion and instead carry on with your harangues on Israpundit.
For Israel change for the better in her political and social structures will take obvious effort. Leaders and followers to that end must take personal responsibility to do what they can to effect change for the better. That journey begins with a first step. That is obvious.
Perhaps because the obvious seems beyond you, you find yet another excuse to belittle my comment that is rooted in the obvious.
I’ll get right down to it Yamit.
What are you prepared to do to make that effort to effect change for the better for Israel, beyond railing on Israpundit?
WHAT EVIDENCE?
BLAH, BLAH, you like to give useless advice.
It does not serve understanding and analysis well for Sherman to deny instances where successive Israeli governments have been swayed by international and American pressure to reverse their positions after being elected. The evidence is incontrovertible in that regard.
That said, Sherman does provide valuable insight into the Israeli political system, how that system works and how politicians once gaining power can and have reversed positions, not necessarily just because of outside international pressures.
Sherman claims that instances where Israeli governments have defied the Israeli will that they played to in order to be elected, has more to do with Israel’s sociological structure than its political mechanisms.
Sherman breaks down the sociological structure into what he labels the Trinity of Influence, being the composition of its civil society elites who control the legal establishment, dominate the mainstream media, and hold the sway in academia.
This sociological structure controlled by Israel’s elites is an interesting and less identified cause of the instances where Israeli governments have acted contrary to their electorally promised positions. Whether it is this sociological structure or international pressure that accounts for Israeli politicians reversing position once gaining power, what does seem from how Sherman presents his case that sociological structure does play a significant role in this regard.
Sherman is correct of course in trotting out a variation on the theme that before one can set about to solve a problem, they must first correctly identify the problem.
Sherman is one of I imagine several voices to do that. There must be more.
The solutions lie in social structure engineering, the law making powers of the Knesset and of course the will to effect positive changes in the Israeli political structure by law and otherwise that specifically addresses the inherent weaknesses and problems with that existing structure and begins to make the Israeli government more responsible to the people then the members of the Israeli government being more responsible to their leader and to stand by what decisions that leader takes.
The task is great, but not insurmountable. It must however begin. Those that best advocate on these issues, such as Sherman, Eidelberg and others must bring their formidable knowledge, insights and intellectual powers together to start the ball rolling.
Bibi, King of Israel: Democracy is the soul of Israel
Where’s a Divine lighting strike when you need one?!
England is finished.
If these politicians had strength of character and any true convictions, such policies could not be imposed upon them.
Very good article. Must say, I’ve heard this before, from Feiglin and others. But, until israelis are willing to give these new, religious/faith based guys a try, nothing is going to change.
Incorrect – this is the banned footage – read the description here under the video – mind numbing repression of news in UK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to7uR2Zbubk
“The UK Muslim march the BBC didnt let you see.”
Retrat that – no t sure – they banned BNP video of street demonstrations by Muslims etc.
Who’s in charge?
This is always my question.
O/T
News from Londinistan:
Muslims In UK Openly Call For Murder Of Dutch Politician Geert Wilders On Public Street In London!
News footage was apparently banned and censored from BBC TV.