Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves as he speaks before a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 3, 2015. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
As part of our continuing series of Monkey Cage Election Reports, the following is a pre-election report from George Washington University political scientist Evgeny Finkel.
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On Tuesday, Israelis will go to the polls to elect the 20th Knesset and a new government. Coming slightly more than two years after the last election in January 2013, this round of voting was initially widely expected to produce just more of the same — a fractured and polarized parliament and an unstable coalition led by Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu and his Likud Party. For Netanyahu this would also be a historically unprecedented fourth term as the Israeli Prime Minister. Yet, just four days before the election there is suddenly a feeling in the air that Netanyahu and the Likud Party might actually lose.
And no, this will not be because or despite Netanyahu’s Congress speech. The Congress appearance probably has had an impact, but an indirect one. The current election is not about Iran (as Netanyahu would have wanted it to be), the peace process, or even the toxic relations with the United States. They are about the mundane stuff of daily life: housing prices; social services, such as the struggling health-care system; the prime minister’s leadership style; and the extent to which the Israelis detest Netanyahu’s spouse Sara.
When Netanyahu left Washington last week the situation was not very different from the earlier Monkey Cage’s election report: Likud and the Zionist Camp were in a dead heat with several polls indicating a slight Likud lead. The electoral prospects of the right-wing coalition seemed bright. But just a week later, the situation is different. The most recent polls converge on a not large, but persistent and constantly widening, lead of the Zionist Camp. The numbers are not final— large portions of the electorate are still undecided, but the trend is unmistakable.
What happened? Scholars will undoubtedly devote substantial attention to this past week, especially if the outcome is a change of government. At this stage we can only offer some educated guesses.
The Congress Speech. Contrary to Netanyahu’s desires, the speech did not boost his security and foreign policy credentials at home. Contrary to the opposition’s hopes, the head-on collision with the Obama’s administration did not destroy them either. This, however, does not mean that the speech did not play any role at all. The conflict with the United States, while not a major concern for the general public, did alarm many current and former leaders of the Israel security establishment. One of them — Meir Dagan — a decorated general and a widely respected former chief of the Mossad security service was sufficiently worried to speak up against Netanyahu in a mass rally on Saturday. The Likud representatives’ reaction was to accuse Dagan, a security hawk and a war hero, of being delusional, irresponsible and premeditatedly harming national security. In a state where going negative is not a staple of political campaigning, and war heroes are revered, the strategy backfired.
Likud’s List. The decision to go negative against Dagan and other like-minded former security leaders might not have backfired if Likud could present a credible security and foreign policy team of its own. Given the polls, the Likud faction in the Knesset will include only two generals, one of whom is the former spokesman for the military. The current Minister of Defense and former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe (Bugi) Ya’alon came only seventh in the party’s primary; the former Internal Security Service chief Avi Dichter was relegated to the unelectable 26th spot on the party’s list. The top names on the Likud list are people with little prior experience in key military or governmental roles. Their main strengths are two: they are liked by the party base and are loyal to or not perceived as a threat by Netanyahu. A recent politico-psychological analysis of Israeli prime ministers confirms what many observers of the Israeli politics witnessed over the years: Netanyahu prefers the company of non-threatening associates who support his views and decisions; those who disagree or challenge him are instantly sacked or pushed aside. Only recently, a number of key Likud personalities announced their retirement. When Likud recently came under attack from highly esteemed formers leaders of the security apparatus, it had very few people who could credibly counteract such attacks.
Promised territorial concessions. One of the main accusations made by the Likud against Dagan was that he was a Leftist, willing to partition the homeland. Yet, last week, the Israeli media revealed documents demonstrating Netanyahu’s not so recent support for the two-state solution with the Palestinians. That the seemingly hawkish Netanyahu was willing to make such concessions is not in itself surprising — Zionist parties and leaders do change their views on the state’s borders and territory, but this revelation certainly did not help Netanyahu to win or keep the votes of the right wing members of the electorate, who have more ideologically pure alternatives.
Timing and agenda setting. Over the recent several weeks, Israel’s state comptroller issued several reports highly critical of Netanyahu’s policies and behavior. The first report dealt with the behavior of Netanyahu’s controversial and often disliked spouse Sara, the state-funded lavish lifestyle the couple leads, and the illegal employment of a personal friend as contractor in the prime minister’s official residence. The second report, the release date of which was set before the early elections were announced, accused the government of failing to recognize and then mishandling the acute housing crisis in the state. Both reports were released before Netanyahu’s travel to Washington, and overshadowed the Congress speech in the public and media discourse. Netanyahu’s return from the United States coincided with a crisis of the health-care system. Netanyahu’s inability to successfully set the agenda eventually translated into a growing unwillingness of many Israelis to keep supporting Likud.
Now Out of Never, Israeli style. Israel is certainly not communist Eastern Europe, and even if Likud loses power, it will not be a revolution of any sort. Yet, in the context of the 2015 Israeli elections, Timur Kuran’s argument about the surprising and astonishingly quick East European revolutions of 1989 might offer some interesting insights. For years, Netanyahu’s main message was that there was no alternative to his leadership, and there was no one besides him capable of leading the state. Thus, any member of the very broadly defined mainstream center of the Israeli politics should vote Likud regardless of true electoral preferences because there is no alternative. For some time this message seemed to take hold, but the weekend’s mass rally against Netanyahu -– the largest in years -– might have showed the average Israeli that the “no alternative” argument no longer holds and that large swaths of the Israeli society feel the same.
What to pay attention to over the coming days? First, keep an eye on turnout, especially among Arab citizens of Israel and young middle-class Jews. Historically, turnout is much lower among Arab citizens. Yet, this election the Joint List for the first time gives the Israeli Arab minority the opportunity to achieve representation that somewhat resembles their share of the population. A powerful Joint List might block Netanyahu’s attempt to create a right wing coalition. High turnout among the middle-class non-religious will also harm Netanyahu and benefit his challengers.
Sunday news. Unless something extraordinary happens, Sunday news will be dominated by the litigation between Sara Netanyahu and the prime minister’s residence’s manager over labor law violations. Following Sara Netanyahu’s failure to submit a court-ordered affidavit earlier this week, a new deadline was set for Sunday, March 15. A second failure to comply with the court’s order if the affidavit is not submitted – or the dirty laundry of the prime minister’s residence if it is – will be all over the news 24 hours before the election. The key question is the actual level of damage sustained by Netanyahu and his party as a result.
What to expect. As of now, it is easier to say what not to expect. We should not expect a landslide victory of either camp. What we should expect is a tight race, the eventual outcome of which will be decided in negotiations between the leaders of the Likud and the Zionist Camp with smaller parties, who will have the final say over who will form the next government.
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For an earlier Monkey Cage pre-election report on the Israeli elections, see here.
