Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 1999, pages 16-20

The Israeli Elections: Another Chance for Peace Or Just Domestic Job Rearranging?—Three Views

There Is No One to Lead Israel Into the Next Millennium

By Neve Gordon

It is not hyperbole to say that in the imminent Israeli elections the country’s fate—and in many ways the region’s as well—is in the voters’ hands. With the introduction of direct elections for prime minister a number of years ago the electoral system in Israel has changed dramatically.

A vast amount of power has been conferred on the premier, giving him unprecedented authority to shape government policies. Accordingly, the number of parliamentary seats each party secures has become less consequential. What counts most this time around is who will be chosen to lead Israel into the next millenium.

The person elected will have the power to pursue peace with Israel’s Arab neighbors, or, conversely, to preserve the existing stalemate, thus risking the possibility of another regional war. He can either terminate the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip by reaching a final agreement with Yasser Arafat, or he can choose to continue oppressing over two million Palestinians.

In addition, Israel’s next prime minister will be able to promote religious pluralism by undercutting the monopoly held today by ultra-Orthodox Jews, or he can continue supporting the ultra-Orthodox, alienating secular, Reform and Conservative Jews, both in Israel and all over the world. Indeed, Israel’s next leader can stride ahead correcting wrongs and doing justice, or he may linger on the myopic path.

Three men are competing for the number one spot: incumbent Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the Labor Party’s Ehud Barak, and former Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, who left the governing Likud Party to head a new center alliance. It is fairly evident that there will be two rounds in this race, since in order to be elected one must procure over 50 percent of the vote and none of the contenders will be able to do so outright. The two who gain the most votes in the first round will compete in the second.

Pundits seem to think that Netanyahu will have no trouble making it into the second round. Polls suggest, however, that Mordechai will easily defeat him if the two meet in the concluding match; whereas if Barak ends up competing against Netanyahu, it is unclear where the die may fall. That’s the information currently available; and, since I am not in the business of predicting, I can only state for whom I intend to vote and explain why.

Voting for Netanyahu is out of the question for four major reasons. First, Netanyahu is hostile to peace. He has done everything in his power to annihilate the peace accords signed with the Palestinians, and his policies have led Syria to freeze all bilateral negotiations.

Other Arab neighbors that were previously warming up to Israel no longer want diplomatic relations with the country, and even Egypt’s President Mubarak has publicly stated that he does not believe a word that comes out of the Israeli premier’s mouth. Within three years, the promise the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin brought to this conflict-ridden region has all but evaporated and talk of war is once again in the air.

Second, the prime minister has adopted Thatcher’s ruthless economic strategy. He has encouraged rapid privatization of publicly owned industry and services, at the expense of benefits provided to the underprivileged classes. Indeed, he has abandoned Israel’s poor. Third, he constantly bows to the ultra-Orthodox Jews, forsaking all other Jewish denominations.

Finally, Netanyahu has seriously damaged the country’s political culture. His divisive political appointments have threatened the essential separation of the executive, legislative and judicial branches, and, in this manner, he has endangered Israel’s democracy. Moreover, he has made lying his modus operandi, so that even his confidants cannot rely on him. In the past few months, three leading Likud members have deserted the party because they could no longer work with him. One of the three is Binyamin Begin, the son of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, the Likud Party’s founder, while another is Yitzhak Mordechai.

Like Moshe Dayan, Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Barak and many others, Mordechai is a former army general and gained entry into the political establishment by virtue of his membership in Israel’s military oligarchy. However, unlike past Israeli prime ministers, who were European either by birth or ancestry, Mordechai is a Sephardic Jew—a Kurd born in northern Iraq. This is the first time in Israel’s 50-year history that a non-European Jew has a chance to become prime minister. In this sense, he is a refreshing phenomenon on the Israeli political landscape, not unlike John F. Kennedy’s appearance in the late 1950s.

Unfortunately, Mordechai is neither charismatic nor an inspiring figure. Indeed, he is a man without an apparent ideology, and frequently changes his view. As one former aide put it: “Mordechai makes decisions according to the polls.” What unites the center party that he now leads is not so much a substantive platform but rather animosity toward Netanyahu.

Mordechai, I think, supports the Oslo accords and favors a peaceful solution with Israel’s Arab neighbors, but he has yet to present a program regarding the peace process. He has no clear economic policy and surely no plans to separate synagogue from state. Since he decided to join the fray, he has been pandering to the ultra-Orthodox, even as they attack the Supreme Court and reject all forms of religious plurality.

Mordechai, it seems, is willing to accept their dominion over Judaism. Notwithstanding these and other drawbacks, he just might receive my vote, primarily because Labor’s leader, Barak, has little to recommend him.

Barak’s blandness reminds me of former U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis on a bad day. Like Mordechai, Barak is not a man of principle, so when the religious right raise their voices, he cringes. Lately, he sounds more hawkish than Netanyahu. Despite the fact that he sees himself as Rabin’s heir, I have yet to hear him say the two words—“Palestinian state”— together.

Barak criticizes Netanyahu for abandoning the poor but is nettled when called a lefty. He is afraid to antagonize big business, since the Labor party receives most of its support from the affluent classes—not from low-wage employees. People who have worked with him say that he is authoritarian and does not heed others.

Perhaps most importantly, Barak has no vision for which he is willing to stand up. Neither he nor Mordechai joined the 50,000 demonstrators who supported the Supreme Court against an unprecedented attack launched by the ultra-Orthodox zealots. Their fear of alienating the fanatic Jewish voters overrides their concern for democracy.

That’s the bleak situation, and I must admit that it hurts to write about it for, as an Israeli, I am extremely anxious for the country’s future, the quality of its democracy and the peace process. The Bible recounts periods where the people of Israel were lead by myopic leaders, and underscores the dire ramifications of unjust rule. In the current political constellation, where Israel lacks a worthy leader, it is crucial to support one of the smaller parties like Meretz or Hadash which are fighting for a better and more just Israel. Simultaneously, it is important to choose a lesser evil. So while I have yet to decide whether to vote for Barak or Mordechai, one thing is clear: any one will be better than Netanyahu.

Neve Gordon, an Israeli peace activist who lives in Jerusalem, is completing his Ph.D. in political science at the University of Notre Dame. His book, Torture: Human Rights, Medical Ethics and the Case of Israel, is available from the AET Book Club.