Yossi Sarid, 1940-2015

The veteran Israeli politician, commentator, and peace activist and former head of the Meretz Party Yossi Sarid died suddenly of a heart attack a week ago today, at the age of 75. Here are two appreciations:

• Current Meretz leader Zehava Gal-on in The Jerusalem Post: "Yossi Sarid: A Leader of the Left Who Loved Israel."

•  Yariv Oppenheimer,  Secretary General of Peace Now, "Difficult is the Life of a True Prophet."

He was often a too lonely but a consistent voice. RIP. May his memory be a blessing. ז״ל

At Last Possible Moment, Netanyahu Gets Narrowest Possible Government

Just an hour and a half before the clock was to run out at midnight Israel time, Binyamin Netanyahu was able to notify President Reuven Rivlin that he had succeeded in forming a government. The last minute deal, in doubt after Avigdor Lieberman balked at joining several days ago, is the narrowest possible majority, 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. It will be fragile and the member parties will be able to threaten to bring it down over any disagreement. It is arguably the most undiluted right-wing coalition yet, but also the weakest possible.

Likud won its victory by taking votes from its allied parties on the right, but they have had their revenge of sorts, by hard-bargaining for key portfolios, leaving Likud somewhat underrepresented in a Cabinet it leads. The exact details of the final deal with Naftali Bennett's HaBayit HaYehudi will not be finalized until next week.

Election Note: If There is a National Unity Government, the Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset Will Be an Arab

Update:  this post was written before actual votes had been counted, when exit polling suggested a tie. Since then the vote has gone more heavily to Likud, though a Unity Government remains a possibility. The Joint List now seems likely to get 14 seats however, one more than suggested below.

Despite Netanyahu's rush to declare victory, the ultimate shape of the next Israeli government  is far from clear. If the exit poll indications are borne out, with the two big parties tied at 27 seats each, Netanyahu will have a better prospect of forming a coalition than Herzog, but it would still be one with a narrow majority. Though neither Likud nor the Zionist Union want it, there may be pressure to form a National Unity Government around the two big parties. In fact, there already is pressure: Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has said he will urge them to do so, and while the Israeli President is largely powerless, he is the person who decides who will get the chance to form a government.

And if the two big parties form a unity government, then the Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset will be the head of the third biggest bloc.

And for the first time in Israeli history, that will be an Israeli Arab: Ayman Oudeh of the United List. The Arab vote, though some 20% of the population in Israel proper (within the Green Line)  has usually been divided among several Arab parties and the far left joint Jewish-Arab Hadash (and many don't vote).

This year they ran united under Oudeh's leadership, and are the third biggest bloc (if the exit poll forecasts don't shift) with 13 seats. Ironic given Netanyahu's last-ditch warnings about the dangers of the Arab vote.

Lisa Goldman has a profile of Oudeh and his innovative, inclusive campaign: "Ayman Oudeh has already Won Israel's Election."

Netanyahu Said to Reach Cabinet Deal

Binyamin Netanyanu is expected to sign the final coalition agreement sometime tonight, forming a government only two days before the period allocated ends. Likud Beitenu is to retain the Dfense and Foreign Ministries, with Defense going to Moshe Yaalon, and with Netanyahu himself holding the Foreign portfolio until Avigdor Lieberman's legal problems are resolved.

Yair Lapid will take the Finance Ministry and his Yesh Atid Party will also control Education, while Naftali Bennett of Ha-Bayit Ha-Yehudi is expected to handle Economics and Trade. Tzipi Livni of Hatnua will be Justice Minister.Netanyahu opposes naming any Deputy Prime Ministers, which seems to havbe been the last sticking point.

Wheeling and Dealing Continues on Israeli Coalition

I haven't been blogging about the coalition dealing in Israel since the January 22 elections, but the continuing delays are starting to raise some questions about whether Binyamin Netanyahu can form a viable coalition by March 16. Should he fail, another party could try form a coalition, or new elections could be called. But that also raises the specter that Israel may not have a government in place when President Barack Obama is scheduled to arrive later this month. While the White House has ended it might cancel the visit if no coalition is formed, that remains unlikely. But the party that came in second, Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid,is playing hardball, and seems likely to force Netanyahu to make concessions he would prefer not to make.

Let's go back to the election results in January. The combined Likud/Yisrael Beitenu bloc won only 31 seats, down from 42 in the old Knesset. Two relatively new parties came in second and fourth: Lapid's Yesh Atid running second with 19 (it is new since the previous election), and Naftali Bennett's rightwing Ha-Bayit Ha-Yehudi with 12 (up from only 3). (Running in third place was Labor, with 15 seats.

During his initial month to form a coalition, Netanyahu persuaded only one party, Tzipi Livni's Hatnua, to join his coalition. (He needs 61 votes to win a confidence vote in the 120-seat Knesset.) As a result, he asked for the 14-day extension he is permitted; that's common; Israeli Prime Minister designates often run out their clock.

Lapid, who as leader of the second largest party could be theoretically offered a chance to form a government if Netanyahu fails, probably knows most other parties are probably not willing to make a newcomer the Prime Minister, is nevertheless trying his best to call the shots in a new coalition. To further increase his leverage, he has now formed a working alliance with Naftali Bennett's party; though seemingly ideologically far apart, they have agreed to not compete with each other for specific portfolios, and thus have essentially made it difficult for Netanyanu to play them against each other.

Today, Lapid cancelled a round of coalition talks; depending on the account the dispute is either over whether to reduce the number of ministers from 28 to 18 (Lapid wants it smaller; Likud wants enough to keep its senior members in the Cabinet); or whether it is over Lapid's demand for the Foreign Ministry; Likud has reportedly offered him Finance, but he wants Bennett in Finance.

What is clear seems to be that Lapid will not join a Cabinet with the religious parties. (Though Bennett is Orthodox, and his party in part derives from the old National Religious Party, today it is more a rightwing nationalist party.) That could allow the government to resolve the controversy over the question of military service for yeshiva students, but would mark an end to Netanayhu's policies of alliance with the religious parties.  Some see an opportunity there, but it does not appear to be a welcome prospect to Netanyahu. Nonetheless, it is probably going to be forced upon him.

It's highly likely that a coalition including Lapid, Bennett, and the already-on-board Livni will emerge, but the exact division of the spoils is still in play.

What's Bibi Thinking?

 An Israeli photo comment. Perhaps more on this theme later. Though I fear it isn't this simple.

The Likud-Yisrael Beitenu Merger

The announcement that Benyamin Netanyahu's Likud Party and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu will merge prior to the January elections will, assuming is approved by the parties, create a consolidated rightwing secular bloc to fight the Israeli elections, something the two men (who often have been at odds on specific issues) calculate will strengthen their hold on power.

An early poll, however, suggests the merged party might win fewer seats than the two parties running separately, which might frustrate the intention, though they would still easily win the largest bloc of seats. It's also likely that the merger on the right will increase pressuire among the splintered parties of tf the center and left to form some sort of unified bloc of their own,

The calculus is not necessarily as simple as it sounds. Likud has always been a secular party of the right, but it has not been openly hostile to the religious parties, which are almost always necessary to coalition building. Lieberman's party, on the contrary, has been an outspoken opponent of the power of the religious bloc, and vigorously secularist like much of its ex-Soviet immigrant support base. In a year when military service for Yeshiva students has been a divisive issue in Israel, it will be interesting to see how a Likud-Yisrael Beitenu merger handles such issues.

One thing is clear: Yisrael Beitenu is clearly the junior partner. Netanyahu made clear that he never considered any merger plan that would have required a rotation of the Prime Ministership between the leaders: Netanyahu would serve ss PM the entire term. Lieberman seems content with this, acknowledging that compromises must be made.

The fragmented center-left parties have now had a gauntlet thrown down by the rightist parties, who are hoping to lock in their dominance of the Knesset. Whether the center-left can counter with some kind of bloc of their own, or whether indeed they are increasingly irrelevant, may become clearer as the campaign proceeds.

Israeli Elections Likely on January 22

Israeli elections will be held January 22, according to press reports citing the Prime Minister's office's draft proposal for the dissolution of the Knesset. (In the Israeli system, the Knesset dissolves itself, which is expected to occur by early next week.)

Last-Minute Netanyahu-Mofaz Deal Scuttles Elections, Upends Israeli Political Scene

In the early hours of Tuesday (tomorrow) morning, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Shaul Mofaz reportedly agreed on a government of national unity, canceling September elections after the Knesset had already passed the first reading of a motion to disperse (dissolve itself). Reports from Haaretz here and The Jerusalem Post here.

The immediate deal appears to give Kadima the right to work on modification of the Tal law, which involves exemption of haredi Yeshiva students from military service, and which has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. 

If, as initial reports indicate, Mofaz may become a Minister without Portfolio, which may seem odd since Kadima actually has more seats than Likud; on the other hand, Kadima was expected to lose heavily if elections were held.

How this may affect the threat of military action against Iran, which Mofaz opposes, remains to be seen. It also may lead to a moderation of the government's policies overall. One interesting issue will be the role of Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu Party, which has been the second largest in the government.

There is some political sense, however, in avoiding elections for now, as both Kadima and Likud might have stood to lose seats; in any event Netanyahu avoids having to campaign this year. But the eleventh-hour deal on the brink of Knesset dissolution came as a surprise, and if it holds — uncertain at this point I suspect — and doesn't unravel, it will transform the political scene.

If more details emerge tomorrow, I may have more to say,

Likud Submits Knesset Dissolution Bill; Elections by September?

The Likud Party today submitted a bill for dissolution of the Knesset, the first move towards long-predicted early elections. The motion could pass next week and lead to dissolution by May 13; Likud reportedly wants the elections to be held on September 4, and Labor, Yisrael Beitenu and others agree; other parties reportedly favor August 28, and Kadima, which actually has the most seats is said to favor September 16.

In any event, as had already seemed increasingly probable, it's clear Israel is about to move into an election cycle. This will obviously have implications for tensions with Iran, and probably for the US election cycle as well. More on those subjects as things get rolling.

Shaul Mofaz Beats Tzipi Livni for Kadima Leadership

Maybe the whole "Israel Loves Iran" fad isn't just an Internet meme: Israel's main opposition party, Kadima (technically the largest party in the Knesset by one seat over Likud), has just elected an Iranian-born leader. Former IDF Chief of Staff and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, born in Tehran (of parents from Isfahan) in 1948, defeated Tzipi Livni for the party leadership in today's primary.

Shaul Mofaz

Mofaz, who followed Ariel Sharon into Kadima from Likud, had challenged Livni in 2008 but lost; this year he assembled a number of key allies and won a hard-fought race. Although Kadima won more seats than Likud in the 2009 elections, it was unable to form a coalition, while Likud under Binyamin Netanyahu formed the current strong rightist bloc.

A third candidate for the Kadima leadership, former Shin Bet Director Avi Dichter, recently withdrew and threw his support to Mofaz.

Shelly Yachimovich Elected Leader of Israel's Labor Party

Israel's Labor Party is a mere shadow of its onetime self, down to only eight seats in the current Knesset since Ehud Barak's defection, but there are some who think it still could stand a chance of replacing Kadima as the main opposition party if it can redefine itself as a party running on social and economic issues in the wake of recent nationwide economic protests.

The election of Shelly Yachimovich in yesterday's party runoff yesterday gives  labor its first woman leader since Golda Meir. (And Kadima, of course, is led by Tzipi Livni.) A former journalist and anchor, Yachimovich is a relative newcomer to politics. She beat out former Party chief Amir Peretz for the leadership.

For an admiring editorial on Yachimovich, see here.

Israeli Spring?

Although it's tempting to draw parallels,. there are obviously vast differences between the wave of protests building in Israel in the last few days and the waves of protest sweeping the Arab world. After all, there are people camped out in tents, crowds of protesters blocking highways and streets, chants demanding the leader step down, tensions between religious and secular . . . oh, wait, those are the similarities.

Although Israel has a democratic electoral process inside the Green Line, there is a great deal of frustration over the economy and the government's unresponsiveness, and it has spilled over into the streets. It all has nothing to do with the peace process or the Palestinians, and everything to do with the economy. The main thrust of the protests is over housing, There are tent cities throughout Israel demanding more housing at affordable prices. although some protesters reportedly charge that haredi or ultra-religious Jews are getting most new housing, some haredim have joined the protests themselves. Prime Minister Netanyahu has now canceled a trip to Poland, presumably due to the protests.

Adding to the issue is the fact that a longstanding protests by doctors over low pay during residency has now been turned into  a general strike by doctors.

The protests are essentially a middle class revolt,  but they could seriously undermine what many have taken to be a government that could not lose its majority to one where disillusionment with Netanyahu could weaken his previously seemingly unassailable position, even calling into some question of his leadership of his own party.YNet is quoting "a senior Likud Minister," unidentified but said to be previously known as loyal, as blaming Netanyahu for the problems.

Over the history of Israeli politics, more coalitions have come apart over domestic issues than over foreign policy.

Some Recent MEI Publications

Pausing a moment from talking about Egypt, MEI has a new Viewpoints on ":The Environment and the Middle East: Pathways to Sustainability. The full PDF is available here.

Other recent publications include Alex Bain's Policy Brief: Israel's Flawed Electoral System.

Back on Egypt, I'd also refer you to Graeme Bannerman's Policy Insights: Inside the Egyptian Army.

The Decline and Decline of the Israeli Labor Party

Time to talk about something other than Tunisia. Since Ehud Barak's announcement on Monday that he was resigning the leadership of Israel's Labor Party in order to form a new party, called Atzmaut (Indpendence), and the realignments that have followed, what is left of Israel's Labor Party now holds only eight seats in the 120-seat Knesset.

There was a time when Labor and (before it was created in its present form in 1968) its largest direct ancestor, Mapai, could count on winning as many as 45 to 47 seats in the 120 seat Knesset. (No single party has ever won enough seats to govern without forming a coalition.) In the 1950s, 1960s, and a good part of the 1970s, Mapai and later Labor were consistently at the core of government. All that began to change with the Likud victory in the 1977 elections.

Still, Labor alternated power with Likud throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and in the 1990s became the champion of the Oslo Peace Process. As popular opinion turned against Oslo, it also deserted Labor. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 marked a turning point, leaving Shimon Peres as the last of the founding generation still in Labor (though he had often been outside the mainstream as an ally of Ben Gurion in Rafi in the 1950s and 1960s). The formation of the centrist Kadima Party by Ariel Sharon and others (eventually including Peres) drained the party of more loyalists in the past decade. Throughout the 2000s, such leaders as Amram Mitzna, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Amir Peretz were barely familiar faces outside Israel, as the party's influence shrank. Even so, in the 2006 elections Labor won 19 seats, running second to Kadima, with Likud relegated to third place. Barak returned to the leadership in 2007, after Amir Peretz' performance during the Lebanon War of 2006 came in for criticism.

In 2009, however, Labor won only 13 seats, reducing the once dominant party to fourth place in the Knesset, behind Kadima, Likud, and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu. Barak's decision to join Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud in what is otherwise Israel's most right-wing coalition in its history has split the party, with four MKs threatening to leave, but now, Barak and four allies have bolted, and the four who were planning to leave (Amir Peretz, Eitan Cabel, Raleb Majadele and Daniel Ben-Simon) find themselves half of the Labor Party caucus. Ha'aretz has dubbed them the "Final Four," though they are really part of the final eight.

That leaves only eight Labor MKs. Barak and his allies in Atzmaut, will get four portfolios in Netanyahu's Cabinet, while three Labor ministers who did not join Barak have quit the government, so Labor is no longer part of the coalition.

Barak's move has drawn a great deal of criticism; it also further marginalizes a once dominant party, now seemingly a shadow of its former self, and further fragments what remains of the Israeli left. It also makes the current coalition even more firmly rightist than before, with Kadima now firmly identified as the main opposition bloc.

The party of David Ben-Gurion (sometimes), of Moshe Sharett, Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, and Yitzhak Rabin disappeared some time back. Now Labor isn't even the party of Ehud Barak, who may be remembered only as the last Labor Prime Minister. Ever.

A Second Act for Amram Mitzna?

Amram Mitzna was once a rising star in Israel's Labor Party: retired Major General, successful Mayor of Haifa, and in 2003, the Labor Party's nominee for Prime Minister. Ariel Sharon's Likud not only trounced Labor that year and won twice as many seats, Labor's worst performance up to then (matched in 2009 with only 19 seats), and Mitzna stepped down. He spent five years as Mayor of Yeruham, a post from which he recently stepped down; he stopped being active in Labor in 2005.

Now, Haaretz is reporting, Ehud Barak is trying to lure Mitzna back into active Labor Party politics. Perhaps, they suggest, as his successor. Mitzna, like Barak, is a former general, though he has a rather dovish record for an IDF general, and clearly Labor is struggling to find a future leader.

But is one of its worst-performing candidates ever the right answer? Labor, of course, is not its old self. Likud is the ruling party; Kadima heads the opposition. Barak has brought Labor into an uncomfortable coalition. The party that utterly dominated Israeli politics from 1948-1977, the party of David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Sharrett, Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin, has seen leaders like Mitzna, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, and Amir Peretz. (If you said "Who?" to any of the last three, you're not alone.) If Barak's best hope for the party is to woo Mitzna back to a leadership role, or to try to forge a new leftist bloc around him, it may be a sad indicator of how far downward Labor has come. Kadima is full of people who spent their career in Likud, but is oddly enough now the opposition in Israel.

Political Repercussions of the Carmel Fire

The big fire on Mount Carmel, which I posted about last week, has now been brought under control, but with heavy dependence on international assistance. Not surprisingly, this huge natural disaster — given the relative populations, a comparison to Hurricane Katrina is only slightly exaggerated, I think — has led to the usual recriminations. Akiva Eldar sees it as a sign of Israel's overreach in its image of itself, though that's probably stretching the parallels a bit.

Prime Minister Netayanhu is opposing an in indepedent inqjiry into the fire, though several in his Cabinet have called for one. One of those calling for an independent inquiry is Minister of the Interior Eli Yishai, of the Sephardic Ultra-Orthodox Shas Party. Yishai is looking like bearing the brunt of the blame, especially after the (rightist, pro-Likud) Jerusalem Post reported that he had blocked the donation of state-of-the-art fire trucks on the grounds they were coming from a Christian Evangelical group.

Not surprisingly, Yishai is blaming the Treasury. but his resignation is being demanded by some in the Knesset, and of course by the Israeli left/center, Some on the right are piling on too. It's interesting to see a major political issue in Israel that involves neither the peace process, secular/religious divides, divorce or marriage.

Levi Eshkol in the Six-Day War

Following up on my recent posts on the anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War, here's a useful piece by an IDF vet in Ha'aretz on rehabilitating the reputation of Levi Eshkol in connection with the preparedness of the IDF for the war.

If you saw any presentations on the anniversary of the war, I'll wager you saw pictures of Moshe Dayan, with his rakish eyepatch, striding in combat gear through St. Stephen's Gate (Lion's Gate) into the Old City. Most likely you saw pictures of Yitzhak Rabin here and there too, but Levi Eshkol?

If you're old enough or have read the more detailed studies of the war from the Israeli side (Michael Oren for the political/military, Tom Segev for the social context), you'll certainly be aware that Eshkol was Prime Minister during the war. But he certainly doesn't play a major role in most people's mental imagery of the narrative of the war. Since by now my regular readers eill be aware that I need to let the latent history professor loose on the blog now and then, this is one of those times.

The writer in Ha'aretz, Eliyahu Sacharov, wants to rectify that, and he's not alone. Many people thought Eshkol received poor treatment from his countrymen at the time, and since. Segev's book 1967 (2005 in Hebrew, 2007 in English) pays attention to Eshkol, and Segev credits long conversations with Miriam Eshkol, the Prime Minister's widow, among his sources.

Eshkol was Israel's third Prime Minister, but like Moshe Sharett before him, he rose to power in the shadow of David Ben-Gurion, and that was a very large shadow indeed. When Ben-Gurion split with Mapai (the core of Labor) and former Rafi in 1965, Eshkol led the new Labor Alignment to victory over Rafi in 1965 elections. Eshkol became Prime Minister; Ben-Gurion his critic from the wings.

As was frequently the case at the time, Eshkol held the Defense portfolio as well as that of Prime Minister. Over several years he presided over the development and professionalization of the IDF, helping to create the instrument that would win the Six-Day War.

As tensions with the Arab world built up in early 1967, Eshkol worked hard to secure Israel's position internationally within the context of the post-Suez settlement, also building a relationship with US President Lyndon Johnson. Although Ben-Gurion criticized Eshkol for weakness and indecisiveness, today his efforts are seen as having strengthened Israel's hand internationally.

Under pressure to create a Government of National Unity, with Rafi and many others calling for the naming of Moshe Dayan as Defense Minister, Eshkol fought to keep the portfolio.) (Dayan, a Rafi ally of Ben-Gurion, had won fame as Chief of Operations in the 1956 Sinai Campaign.) When King Hussein of Jordan flew to Cairo to sign an alliance with Nasser and put Jordanian troops under an Egyptian general, Eshkol ran out of political capital. Eshkol was confronted with a loss of support within his own Cabinet, within the Army, and in public opinion. On the afternoon of June 1, he named Moshe Dayan Defense Minister.

Note: On the afternoon of June 1. Four and a half days later, at a little after 7:00 am on June 5, Israeli aircraft took off for their first wave of strikes against Arab air forces. (Assuming Arab air forces would patrol at dawn expecting an attack, then land to refuel and breakfast, Israel sought to strike in that window.)

Major military operations are not planned in four and a half days; pilots are not trained in four and a half days. Yet in the wake of the victory, Dayan won the accolades and his eleventh-hour appointment was seen as the salvation of the state, though he had been a politician in opposition during the planning stages of the war.

Eshkol had no choice but to name Dayan, and certainly Dayan performed ably, though Chief of Staff Rabin and the IDF Command had their war plan mostly in place already. Dayan took the honors, and Eshkol's role was largely neglected.

Eshkol remained in office, dying of a heart attack in February 1969, less than two years after the war, and thus never wrote a memoir to defend his position, as everyone else did. Eshkol was not forgotten — a national park and the suburb of Ramat Eshkol, the first built over the Green Line, are named for him; he has appeared on both paper notes and coins. But until fairly recently, only his partisans have sought to give him due credit for the war. That does seem to be changing.

Ratcheting Up the Pressure?

A BBC report notes the possibility that the US might abstain on, rather than veto, a possible Security Council Resolution on construction in Jerusalem. That's an interesting development if true. From 1945 until 1970, the US never used the veto and made Cold War propaganda over the USSR's reliance on it. But beginning in the 1970s it has used the veto some 82 times, most commonly to block unilateral condemnations of Israel that do not also condemn Palestinian attacks.

Certainly there is a new willingness on the part of the Obama Administration to apply pressure on the Netanyahu Government. Even the dovish Ha'aretz has quoted Israeli sources as being concerned that the US might be thinking of an imposed Israeli-Palestinian settlement, not to mention Laura Rozen's column over the weekend which suggested a split between George Mitchell and his team and Dennis Ross over how to deal with Netanyahu. (The link includes the updates with denials, but the column has sparked a lot of blogosphere debate with its suggestion that Ross is more sensitive to Netanyahu's political considerations than to US interests.)

This might actually be getting interesting.

Oren and J Street

A fairly lengthy piece in Haaretz on Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's giving up his American citizenship and the Embassy's decision to snub J Street, the new dovish Israeli lobbying group seeking to offer a different approach than AIPAC. Some of us remember when Yitzhak Rabin (privately, though it promptly leaked) accused AIPAC of essentially representing Likud. Now that Likud is back in power, J Street is ignored by Israel's Embassy.

A reminder that 1) not all Israelis are a cheering section for the present government and 2) Haaretz can write things that the Washington Post would be lambasted for.