The Circle Game

Now that Obama and Barkat are safely esconsed in their new offices we can direct all of our political angst toward the upcoming Israeli elections for the Knesset on February 10, 2009. The current surveys are predicting a major comeback for the Likud, which is expected to catapult from its current eight seats to more than thirty, soundly defeating Labor as it crashes and burns with under ten seats, and overtaking its current rival Kadima, with Tzipi Livni at the helm, with around twenty-six. With eight weeks to go, anything can happen to upset these predictions but the way things are looking now, our next prime minister will be Benjamin Netanyahu.

After being defeated, Israeli politicians don't trudge home with their tails between their legs and retire quietly from public life. Instead, they wait patiently for the disgrace to dissipate, and then rise miraculously, like a phoenix from the ashes, to return to the political arena and save the country from imminent disaster. The magic words seem to be, "I've changed. I've learned from my experience." The Israeli voter, who has a notoriously short memory, buys into the whole cycle - or recycle, as it were - no matter how bitter the disappointment was in the first round.

(Let it be noted that succesful paradigms for the reformed leader do exist, the best case-in-point being Yitzhak Rabin, who fell from grace thanks to his wife's illegal American bank account in his first round as prime minister in the early 80s. Like the idolotrous people of Israel sent back into the wilderness as a punishment, Rabin waited patiently in the political desert for close to ten years but ultimately returned to the prime minister's office, big-time, to initiate negotiations with the Palestinians with the blessing of an overwhelming majority of the electorate. In a theoretical mode, I can't help thinking what Hillary could have done with health care reform second time around, with the wealth of bitter experience she has accumulated. Wouldn't we all be better parents if we had to start over again when our children reached eighteen?)

Yet, the expected return of the Likud is not a simple case of Israeli amnesia. Instead, it signifies a deep flaw in the Israeli electorate's perception of the conflict with the Palestinians since the signing of the Oslo Accords. The cycle goes like this: the Palestinians initiate a wave of violence that claims a critical mass of Israeli casualties. A right-wing leader who, in the campaign claims to be a tough guy, is elected to put the Arabs in their place. He sends the peace process to the deep freeze, incurs the wrath of the family of nations and the security situation deteriorates. He is ultimately forced to make conciliatory gestures to the enemy, proving that there is no possiblity of maintaining any kind of status quo. The Israeli electorate realizes that the right cannot make the giant steps necessary to bring about significant change. The leader is booted out of office and the left is back in the driver's seat.

An earlier example of this pattern is Yitzhak Shamir's defeat by Rabin in 1992. The next round in the cycle was Netanyahu's election in May 1996, following Rabin's assasination and three major suicide bombings not long afterwards. Many who had voted for Rabin now questioned the remaining Labor leadership's ability to navigate the process and the Palestinian's committment to it. Bibi rode in on a campaign of 'full gas in neutral,' and attempted to halt the significant concessions Israel had planned to make to the Palestinians. In addition to isolating Israel from the international community, he was not able to stop the suicide bombings and was ultimately forced to rejoin the Palestinians at the negotiating table at the Wye plantation, even shaking hands with Arafat. Bibi was not able to fulfill the promise of improved security by putting the process on hold and suffered a humiliating defeat by Ehud Barak and the Labor party in 1999, one year before the expiration of his term of office.

Barak suffered his own fall from grace when he bankrupted the left's account by failing to negotiate a final agreement with Arafat in August, 2000 at Camp David. The 'true face' of the Palestinians was revealed when the second intifada broke out in September, 2000. In the face of Palestinian violence the people cried out for an iron fist and Barak was sent home by Ariel Sharon, the consummate Israeli tough guy. Sharon was not able to stop the waves of suicide bombers and the drive-by shootings with a hard line, hawkish approach. However, in one of the most brilliant maneuvers of Israeli politics, instead of allowing the left to unseat him, he chose to become the left by adopting two far-reaching strategies that were vehemently condemned by his own party, the Likud: the building of the separation wall and the disengagement from the Gaza strip. In fact, in order to implement these strategies he had to break away from the Likud and form Kadima, a new, centrist party, together with many of his political comrades who had come to the same conclusion - that the Likud was not capable of making the painful concessions demanded of Israel to put an end to the conflict.

And now we see the latest version of the cycle: the new wave of Palestinian violence is of course the constant rocket fire from the evacuated Gaza strip on Israeli civilian settlements. Everyone consciously understands that, given the current Palestinian political constellation, the only way to stop the rockets is the complete recapture of the Gaza strip, an undertaking that will no doubt result in many casualties and will have far-reaching implications for Israel and should therefore be considered very carefully. However, Bibi's meteoric rise in popularity indicates that the people want a tough guy in charge. Just as a leapoard cannot change his spots, Bibi is the same Bibi. The people clamoring for his reelection do not hear him speaking from two sides of his mouth - the belligerent, "they give, they get; they don't give, they don't get" side and the "Yes, Obama, I will work with you to bring peace to the Middle East" side. Irrelevant is the fact that Bibi's plan for 'economic peace' has been proven many times over to be a sham. The Israeli public wants to punish the Palestinians by electing someone who will give them nothing. The Likud, riddled with incompetent leadership and corruption and nearly erased from the political map just a few years ago, is once again poised to take the helm of the government of Israel. (It goes without saying that this scenario makes me sick.)

Ehud Olmert as prime minister was crucified for rushing into war with Lebanon. Ehud Barak as defense minister is roundly criticized for not launching a military operation into Gaza. Political leadership should be sent home when they fail but our reality is so complex that in many cases success and failure can only be measured in retrospect. The Israeli public wants instant results; the repetition of these voting patterns can perhaps be understood as a refusal to acknowledge that change is a slow process. Heaven help us.