Israel Nears Its 'Most Fateful Election.' American Jews Could Care Less.
It's not too late to focus on a vote that could produce 'a coalition of the anti-StartUp nation.'
Billboards in Jerusalem for Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Likud party.
As weary Israelis are preparing to vote in national elections for the fourth time in two years on March 23 – a contest that may well result in the country’s most divisive and dysfunctional coalition ever – few American Jews are paying attention to what could well be a major crisis in the making.
It’s not hard to understand the lack of interest on our part. For starters, we’ve grown numb to what some call Israel’s “forever election,” the drawn out and largely inconclusive contests of the last two years. In each, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, currently on trial for charges of bribery, breach of trust and fraud, wa on the political ropes before he somehow managed to eke out a government. But one too narrow to pass a national budget.
American Jews, still recovering from their own political trauma and focused on getting vaccinated, don’t view Israel as being in crisis. On the contrary, most see a Jewish State that leads the world in vaccinating its citizens and has experienced a breakthrough year on the peace front. Thanks to the Abraham Accords, after a decades-long stalemate with the Palestinians, Israel has circumvented Ramallah and signed normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signaling a new path toward peace with its Arab neighbors – maybe even Saudi Arabia, down the road.
Why is it, then, that Mideast experts from differing political perspectives are warning that the upcoming election could mark the end of Israel as a democratic state, and lead to an even deeper divide with the diaspora?
Yossi Klein Halevi, the American-born Israeli author and journalist whose writings on the Mideast conflict over the years have won major awards, is deeply worried about the prospects of another Netanyahu government.
“If Bibi wins,” he told me, “we’ll have a coalition of the anti-StartUp nation, a failing state.” He said he fears young Israelis will see their country as “uninhabitable” and leave.
Unlike previous Israeli elections that focused on left vs. right views on the Palestinian conflict, Iran, the settlements, the economy and/or military service for charedim (ultra-Orthodox), this one is not about ideology, Klein Halevi explains. It’s between two halves of the political right – the largely secular right vs. the largely charedi right. But it’s about one issue – rather, one person: Netanyahu.
With strong parallels to American politics today, Israelis are deeply divided and caught in up in a psychodrama over their leader who, already the longest-serving prime minister in the country’s history, is seeking to extend his 12 consecutive years in office.
Even Netanyahu’s biggest critics credit him with unmatched political savvy and success in protecting Israel from its outside enemies. Even the prime minister’s most loyal defenders acknowledge his own lack of loyalty to political colleagues and his single-minded efforts to cling to power.
Netanyahu is highly motivated to stay in office by the fact that he could go to jail if he is convicted and out of government. He is extracting pledges from his coalition partners to pass legislation that would give him immunity as long as he is prime minister.
“There are two Israels today,” Klein Halevi suggested. “One leads the world in a positive way,” in the race for vaccinations, “and one in a negative way,” with one of the world’s highest Covid infection rates, which he attributes to the large numbers of charedim who defy the Covid-prevention rules.
Klein Halevi, and many others, blame Netanyahu for giving the charedim a pass because he needs their support in his re-election bid. Two charedi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, have joined Netanyahu’s Likud in a coalition which also seeks backing from the highly controversial religious party, Otzma Yehudit, widely described as anti-Arab and Kahanist.
If such a coalition would come to power, says Klein Halevi, “we would be on our way to becoming a pariah state in the eyes of the world. It would be a moral and practical nightmare.”
The longstanding secular-charedi divide in Israel has come to a boiling point in the year of Covid. Open and often violent defiance of the anti-pandemic rules of masks and social distancing by many charedim have underscored that, according to Klein Halevi, “they [the charedim] have become a state within a state,” acting in their own interest -- primarily by taking part in large gatherings for prayer, weddings and funerals -- at the expense of the well-being of others. And Netanyahu is blamed for looking the other way.
The prime minister’s political opponents are likely to gain more seats than the required 61 (of the 120-seat Knesset) to form a government.
But ranging from the far-left Meretz party to the far-right New Hope (led by Gideon Sa’ar), the only common denominator they have is a fervent desire to dethrone Netanyahu, who leads the Likud.
Last September, Benny Gantz, a highly respected military leader with no political experience, formed the Blue and White party and bested Netanyahu, 62 potential seats to 58. But he failed to form a government because of the lack of a common ideology among his partners. He then broke his pledge not to join a government led by Netanyahu, alienating many of his supporters and leaving his Blue and White party in a political tailspin.
Michael Koplow, the Israel Policy Forum’s policy director, based in Washington, D.C., said that over the last several years he has been contacted often by members of Congress to brief him on the Israeli elections. Not this time, though. He attributes this to “election fatigue, and because we have our own problems here at home.”
He, too, envisions the election yielding a majority of anti-Bibi parties from the left and the right who “won’t sit with each other” in a coalition. The tipping point – or person – could be Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett, a right-wing advocate for annexing the West Bank. Unlike other Netanyahu critics in the race, he has not stated that he would refuse to join a Likud-led coalition.
“He’s a smart guy but a bad politician,” Koplow says of Bennett, because “his numbers would be better if he committed to one side or the other” on the Bibi issue.
While Koplow feels the March vote will lead to continuing stagnation in the government, he points out that it may not be the last Israeli national election this year. That’s because Netanyahu and Benny Gantz made a power-sharing deal last year that would have Gantz become prime minister in November 2021. Few, including Gantz, believe Netanyahu would make good on his pledge.
But it represents “a ticking clock for Bibi, who will try to do anything to form a new government” to continue his immunity, said Koplow. That could lead to yet another trip to the polls.
And so it goes, with the prospect of “the forever election” continuing, and many American Jews becoming increasingly disenfranchised from the goings on in Jerusalem.