Israeli Elections To Come — 24 December 1998

Heady from being on the verge of winning my $500 bet that Bibi wouldn’t last his term, I am yet filled with trepidation in trying to comment on this subject. 

Coming up is a very chaotic and hostile situation which will last probably through April (or whenever the election date is set next week) and it is a given that a run-off second round will take place to elect a prime minister. At this point nothing is clear and little can be predicted. The Likud party led by the current prime minister is imploding as tensions created over the past decade boil over and party princes bolt to form their own parties. The Labor Party is suffering the same thing on a smaller scale since few people care for its leader either. Lipton Shahak, until today the army’s chief of staff, will decide in the next week whether he will head up a new centrist party or cooperate with any one of several people creating centrist parties. While people are still positioning themselves, it is fruitless to waste time creating endgame scenarios but here are my observations at this point: 

1. Bibi: Bibi is strongly disliked by most anyone who counts except for poor illiterates who count on election day. Others see him as a lesser of evils and could bring themselves to vote for him, but both the Likud and Labor parties know they will come out of this election with fewer seats than they currently have. Bibi and Barak (Labor party chief) control their parties’ machinery but the Likud is so broken up now that it is my opinion that he will be unseated as the party’s candidate if Ehud Olmert and Yitzhak Mordechai decide this week to get together and challenge him. The party rank and file does not want to lose the election and they will desert him overnight, particularly if people such as Dan Meridor, Ron Milo and Benny Begin are willing to give up their newly-founded parties and come back to Likud if Mordechai and Olmert join forces and throw Bibi out. I don’t think that Mordechai would leave Likud or run on his own and Olmert (current mayor of jerusalem and a real political animal more so than ideologue, but one who knows how to play the game well and is thus respected) will not try a coup unless he is assured of victory. 

2. Various people: Begin (Menachem Begin’s son) has little support in the big picture and his backers know it and worry that he and other right-wing nationalists who want ideological purity will self-destruct politically by not joining up with Likud. Meridor is not prime minister material and is thin-skinned and too nice a guy but people like him. Mordechai also doesn’t have the guts to go the distance but people like him. Lipton-Shahak might turn out also to be thin-skinned and not stand up well to criticism and since no one knows where he stands on anything he could fall apart quickly when he comes out as a candidate (historically the halo surrounding chiefs of staff comes off real quick when they go into politics). But people in development towns who have heard Shahak say he doesn’t come across as a Leftist which is what Bibi will try to paint him as. Barak also doesn’t take criticism well but he has had a year to get used to it. Ron Milo was a crummy mayor of Tel Aviv and has taken very pro-secular and anti-religious stands which have won him a following but alienated a large voting bloc which won’t have anything to do with any party he’s a part of. But Milo has money. So does Olmert. Shahak I am told has money backing him and several prominent people in the Labor party such as Haim Ramon are biting their fingernails trying to decide whether to go with him but I think most of them will ultimately stay put. Barak is saddled with much party debt. Much of the money backing Bibi last time will not be there this time around (ie: Lubavitch and Izzy Moskowitz). 

3. Wild Cards: Shahak and Olmert are the big wild cards and at least within a week we will know what position these two are taking with regard to elections. If Olmert knocks out Bibi, then you have a bigger tent in Likud that will unite the factions and make them a stronger contender in the overall picture. Otherwise, any coalition that courts the Right will have to deal with half a dozen splinter parties and each of them will blackmail with a premium in the second round. Olmert will not attract Leftist or secular votes (since he is so close to the ultra-orthodox) though Barak could get some Right-center votes to cross to him. If Shahak runs with Meridor (if the two have truly agreed that whichever is ahead in the polls will run as head of the party) and leaves Milo in the background and manages not to alienate religionists (Meridor is OK with the religious), the next question is (a) will Barak and Shahak destroy each other in the first round while Bibi stands in the background so that Bibi can clean up in the second round, or (b) will the two of them keep the focus of the game on Bibi and agree in advance that whichever one of the two polls behind the other will back the other in the second round. Shahak is avoiding any affiliation with Barak and the Labor Party both because the two men don’t get along (too many army career grudges) and because the Labor Party cannot and will not attract religious, sefardi and russian voters and these are the swing voters that have helped keep the Likud in power all these years. Both Likud and Labor are seen as stale parties, hostile to newcomers and, to a great degree now, a distinction without a difference ideologically. Problem is that a centrist party without clear positions, when there is little difference between the two major parties, is a force that will not last a day beyond elections and people know this from the country’s history where such centrist movements surged at the ballot and fizzled thereafter. Keep in mind though that people don’t like either Barak or Bibi; Barak is not a good campaigner and he is seen as a Napoleanic overrated asshole just like Bibi who waffles on his positions. Except that he is seen to have more scruples and more substance on issues and is no pushover Leftist. He will also be advised by James Carville and other Clinton sharks and, if he listens to them, will give Art Finkelstein on Bibi’s side a run for his money. 

4. Arabs: The counterweight to the religionists (100% for the Right and even Bibi) is the 25% who are Arabs. Last time they shied away from Peres and I think they regret it now because they allowed apathy at the polls to let Bibi slide into power. I expect that Arafat via Ahmed Tibi will strongly back any challenger to Bibi and I suspect that they will not be apathetic though their vote will likely be split as it has in the past. They don’t like Barak either and I don’t know how they will feel about Shahak (but I do know that Arafat and his people would be very happy to deal with Shahak) though they might like Meridor. Olmert will certainly not get their votes as he has been lousy for Arabs as head of Jerusalem. Some say that Likud has good ties to Arabs and will surprise people with higher than expected votes from Arabs; I don’t believe it on Election Day but I haven’t checked this sector myself yet and won’t until I know who’s running for what. If the Arabs come out for either Labor or Shahak, it will matter particularly if either Barak or Shahak breaks the taboo and comes out in advance saying that it will take real steps to bring Arabs into the government. Personally, I’d rather see a coalition including Arabs than religionists because the blackmail and diversion of resources to religious factions is corrupting the clergy and making secularists hate religionists and I personally find a good deal of Israeli Arabs to be more zionist or at least patriotic to their country than many of the ultra-orthodox. 

5. Sidelines: Who are we not talking about? David Levy. He is out for now and he really doesn’t matter anyway and is a prima donna with no interest in actually working who i hope will disappear. He won’t go with Meridor and no one will believe him going with Bibi. Maybe with Barak? The Shas and Russian immigrant parties will win big and their voters tend to be closer to Likud than Labor. I also suspect that Barak will keep Peres far away from him during the campaign and afterward. Bibi, as election period finance minister, will do great damage parceling out goodies for votes. Sharon is best backing whomever but not running himself. I don’t think he will do that. At the end of the day, he knows Bibi is both a loser and a worm. 

6. Terror: Meanwhile, all the peace process is on hold for a few months. Hopefully, Arafat will keep Hamas under control and not let them do the terror thing and drive the electorate into Bibi’s hands again like in 1995. I expect he will not talk so much about declaring a state on May 4 or have Fatah rioting as the election draws near. Better to sit back a few months and wait for a better climate unless he truly enjoys being saddled with a weak prime minister who doles out crumbs under pressure. 

7. Predictions: Hmm. Am I nuts or what? This is strictly preliminary and will change based on who runs for what and when elections are held. If all parties act rationally and put the national interest before their own egos (and the finiteness of financial resources indicate an eventual turn toward this direction): (a) Bibi will not run as head of Likud if the Likud wants to survive this election. Olmert will take over and bring back all the defectors. (b) The Centrist party has too many egos and not enough positions for them. Shahak will be attacked by the media as a substance-less newcomer without enough experience. The media has too many vested interests in both Likud and Labor to permit an upstart to challenge the equilibrium that exists and favors the economic aristocracy as a whole. If Meridor goes back to Likud, Shahak will be left only with Milo and will be under tremendous pressure to back Barak. Barak and Shahak will come to some kind of accommodation with Shahak as Barak’s defense minister and the two of them will take on Olmert and Company. You will then have a real two-way race with real choices. History and coalitions say that Olmert will win unless the Arabs come out strongly for Labor and Barak can get some cross-over votes from the Right. But Israel is a place where you have 25 parties backed by voters who think very provincially and care more about hot lunches and other government handouts that these parties deliver. For any prime minister to succeed, Barak warns, he must win a majority in the first round. Otherwise, he will be blackmailed in the second round by each of these parties. Olmert, who survives as mayor due to his deals with the ultra-orthodox, knows this all too well. Bibi survived and died from this. I hope that the parties will act rationally and force a two man race in the first round so that whoever wins can move forward decisively. But don’t bet on it.

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