Analysis and Comments on 19th Knesset Coalition

Analysis of the Parties in the Knesset
		17th Knesset (2006)	18th Knesset  (2009)	19th Knesset (2013)
Party Orientation	Party / List	Actual	Actual	Actual
Fluid Parties Sub-totals	Shinui Yesh Atid Pensioners Be’Aliya Beitenu Meretz / Greens Am Ehad Brit Leumi	-   -   7   - 11   5   -   - --- 23	-   -   -   - 15   3   -   - --- 18	- 19   -   -   -   6   -   - --- 25
Solid central parties Sub-totals	Labour Likud Kadima Hatnuah	19 12 29   - --- 60	13 27 28   - --- 68	15 31   2   6 --- 54
Solid right parties Sub-totals	Shas Torah Judaism Mafdal Jewish Home Echud Leumi.	12   6   9   -   - --- 27	11   5   4   3   - --- 23	11   7   - 12   - --- 30
Solid Arab parties Sub-totals	Hadash United Arab Balad	3   4   3 --- 10	4   4   3 --- 11	4   4   3 --- 11
Total		120	120	120

In order to point out some future trends and draw some conclusions from the above table the parties are grouped into four categories. The results for 18th Knesset were  analysed  after the inauguration of Netanyahu's Coalition in March 2009 and published at the time in:

Chapter 13 of Total Representation by Aharon Nathan and Prof Ivo Skrabalo ERS Publications, London 2009. (Paper Back in AMAZON at £11.99). It was prepared with full participation of the late Professor Gideon Doron.

Here the analysis is carried forward to review the formation of Netanyahu's new coalition. Being in or out of the Coalition can impact on the future of the Parties.

The assumption by the Parties  and the public that Netanyahu would lead the new Government distorted the results and confused everyone, the electorate and the various Party leaders. It also blinded Likud senior members during  the campaign for the  2013 Elections who behaved with arrogance as if success is in the pocket. Despite this we have to keep a sense of proportion.  Yesh Atid 19 + Hatnuah 6 + Kadima 2 = 27 i.e. one less than Kadima in 2009 with 28 seats. However Lapid managed to get out with his 19 more than Tsipi Livni could  manage with her 28. Our electoral System and our politics are failing everybody. A change is very  long  overdue  before we get into another debacle of 2 Ballots directly or worse through the back door destroy our parliamentary democracy by raising the threshold (Achuz Chasima) and granting presidential power to the prime minister.

Netanyahu: The moment the results were announced Netanyahu made a simple calculation and moved quickly. With Shas and Yahadut Ha-Torah he had 49.  Lapid on the other hand with Benet, Tsipi, Shelli, Zhava and Mofaz theoretically could  secure 60 and the Arab Parties would  be only too ready to be neutral.  49 versus 60 could have left Netanyahu and Likud out in the cold. He could not have met Benet without losing his only cartd/weapon of Shas/Yahdut left in his hand to threaten with. The key was Lapid not Benet. And with the former  playing hard to get and with Shelly even harder, Netanyahu had no choice but to act swiftly in secret away from the press cameras. By treating  Tsipi generously (a forced marriage of convenience) he theoretically secured 55 thus closing the door in the face of  Lapid. Netanyahu from his point of view  used wisely the few cards left to him. He actually managed to save his  premiership and his Likud Party. And with  the same brilliant stroke in  appointing Tsipi he signalled to Obama and Abu Mazen that he  was now ready for real dialogues especially as the Feiglin/Settlers faction within Likud proved an obstacle in the past and a liability in the elections. Moreover Netanyahu through  facilitating a ministerial  appointment for  Amir Peretz rendered both Labour and Hatnuah split down the middle and weakened both. All very clever  moves! However this weakening  may now open the door for Lapid to become the Centre-Left alternative to Likud in the next elections may be sooner than envisaged. Lieberman, the most likely successor to the  Likud  Leadership if he survives his Court Case must take notice.

Shelly Yechimovitch made all the mistakes in the book from the moment she was elected Labour  leader. She played the self-righteous in a field of sinners. She did not learn from Tsipi Livni's bitter experience  when in the last Knesset  she allowed Netanyahu to manoeuvre her into  the  Opposition. No credible aspiring Party leader should declare during the election that he/she is campaigning to be in the Opposition. By sidelining Amir Peretz and Mitzna she showed political immaturity and her  defeatist stance helped Lapid to project himself as the sole  alternative to Netanyahu's dominance without presuming to be next prime minister. Shelly did and compounded her defeat by refusing to join the New Government as the senior partner and secure the Finance Ministry. She led herself and Labour to a precarious and uncertain future existence as a leading party. Ben Gurion must be turning in his grave!

Tsipi Livni : By accepting Netanyahu's olive branch  with alacrity she kept her hope of  leading, may be with Olmert,  the Centre-Left against Lapid in time to come. 

Mofaz before, during and  after the elections managed to snatch defeat  time and time again from the jaws of victory despite the fact that he had all the right policies, on Palestine, electoral reform and on the inclusion of the religious in the army. Mofaz by retiring from politics and the Knesset could help what is left of Kadima in a  future possible survival if Olmert decides eventually to return to his old Party.  

  

Fluid Parties

Over the years Fluid parties seem to come and go. Each starts with a flourish and a fanfare, only to disappear soon afterwards. They are mainly secular in outlook and centred in and around Tel Aviv. The future fluid parties and their chances will depend which direction they go left or right. Apart from Beitenu, their voters have supported Kadima in the 2009 elections. Beitenu is the exception. Its voters, backed by Russian immigrants, have more in common with Likud. As predicted in my review  way back in 2009 its members gravitated  towards Likud  and  merged with Likud just before the elections in  2013. In view of the election  results it is unlikely that this merger will revert back to its two  constituents. Lieberman, the sworn enemy of Shas, is now inseparable from Netanyahu and Likud constituting together the Centre Right in Israeli politics.  

Meretz which lost seats to Kadima in 2009 has regained its strength to 6 seats thanks to a clear and sincere leadership of Zahava Gal-On. However without the big guns of Sarid, Beilin and Ran Cohen it cannot continue its orphan situation.  It will have to  go back to its original  home and unite with Labour to their mutual benefit and may even save Labour from extinction if the Histadrut supports this union.   

Yesh Atid, despite its protestations, is like Shinui  a secular party centred in and around Tel-Aviv. It rode on a temporary tide of the social protests of the Rothschild Bld., and  the disintegration of Kadima and drew voters from the same sector. To stay as a leading party it has to replace one of the two centre parties, left of centre Labour or right of centre Likud. With Beitenu within Likud and having shed the liabilities of Shas/Torah, Likud has established itself as the Right-Centre Party in Israel. For Yesh Atid to replace the traditional Labour it has to move to the left. It is then that the two main Parties will model themselves on the Two Party Pattern in the West in UK, France or  USA. The adoption of YESH Yitsug Shalem Electoral System(TR Total Representation) will ensure the election of two big parties as simulations have shown. This in turn will bring  stability to the government and to the body politics of Israel.

                                            

       

Solid Centre Parties

The Solid parties are the old Zionist parties with ideologies and outlooks inherited from the two main streams of Zionism, led in Israel by the two flag-bearers Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin. Labour and Likud were well defined. In 2009 it was Kadima that was left undecided after the  elections for the 18^th Knesset. Which turn was it going to take?  

Prime Minister Sharon set up Kadima to replace Likud. He then added a sprinkling of Labour leaders to facilitate his then-impending evacuation of Gaza, and in order to pave the road for peace with the Palestinians. He looked upon Tsipi Livni as a potential successor in the distant future. So the Kadima -- call it New Likud under Sharon – that he created was a right-of-centre party. Sharon untimely withdrawal from politics was followed  by an  internal  strife between Tsipi Livni and Ehud Olmert, and later on at the party primaries between her and Shaul Mofaz – a perceived hawk who was brought into Likud by Sharon.  This had created a new situation that  forced Kadima to fight to replace Labour as a new left-of-centre party. It had  no chance of  replacing Likud after 2009 as the latter had already consolidated its position in the Knesset, in the government and in the country at large as the right–of-centre party. The big question was  which party will lead the left-of-centre in the country. The fight for this position was going to be life or death for one or the other of Kadima or Labour. Unexpectedly it was Kadima not Labour that disintegrated at the end  leaving Labour in command of the Centre-Left  backed by the Histadrut. 

Towards the 2013 elections the utter failure  of Labour, Kadima and Hatuah to unite and the untimely defection of Amir Peretz to Hatnuah resulted in Netanyahu's Likud-Beitenu staying ahead to produce the biggest faction in the new Knesset with markedly reduced majority. None of the leaders of the former  three parties could project a credible Prime Minister's image. Moreover their collective failure to unite left their voters  demoralized and disorientated leaving a gaping space for Yesh-Atid to forge ahead. This result created a tug of war between the two sides of the Centre-Left. Labour unwisely, declared that it would lead the Opposition to Netanyahu. But with  Yesh Atid  joining the government together with Hatnuah (with Tsipi and Amir Peretz) Labour is left vulnerable. In the new situation it is most likely that Lapid's Yesh Atid will replace  Labour as the future Centre-Left Party.

 

Jewish Religious Parties

The Jewish religious parties, with the exception of Torah Judaism, were  weakening as their supporters were slowly moving to the main stream  parties. 

Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) halted this trend amongst the Jewish ultra-nationalist religious factions by recruiting seculars and appealing to the traditionalists. Its leader Naphtali Benet was the biggest winner of the elections by unexpectedly allying  himself to Lapid.  Will his success  strengthen his party and revive the glorious days of Hapoel Hamizrachi of the 50s!? 

Shas made a fatal mistake. While Benet allied himself with Lapid it allied itself with Yahadut Ha-Torah. Even if Lapid could have tolerated Shas at  least as a Sephardic and socialist partner he could not swallow its sandwich with Charedic Yahadut HaTorah. Shas  has two sides to it. On the one hand it is religious, the way Arab Jews generally were in their diasporas. Unlike in the West a Jew could not be both an Arab and a Jew at the same time the way English, French or German could. But in Israel  things are moving on.  Without the  spiritual leadership of  Rabbi Ovadiah Yossef it is difficult to predict the fortunes of Shas as a Sephardic Party.  It has another side to it, the welfare and socialist. It is seen by many poor in the Sephardic communities  as protector of their welfare  But for how long? Unless it emphasises its social side and accept traditional but not strictly religious Jews along the lines of Benet, it will continue to weaken. The emergence of Jewish Home in this context and the efforts of  Derii inside and Amsalem outside Shas in the same direction will hasten the disintegration of Shas especially now that it was left out of the Coalition. Sooner or later membership of both these Parties will merge officially or through movements of members' allegiances. This applies   especially to Shas voters as the label of Sephardi does not appeal anymore to the second and third generations of its oriental  immigrant populations  themselves.

That leaves Torah Judaism as the only true religious party drawing more and more support from the young generation of  true Ashkenazi Charedim helped by increasing birth rate in those  communities and  near 100% voters' participation. It will continue to draw financial and moral support from its diasporas in America and elsewhere.

Arab Parties

The power of the Arab vote has to be taken together with the Druze vote. The Druze have secured four seats out of 120 in the 18th Knesset, far beyond the proportion of their numbers in Israel’s total population which is only 1.6 per cent. The reason for this is that they serve in the army and have no problem swearing allegiance to the state. Their communities are used to this in Syria and Lebanon. Moreover, while the Muslim and Christian Arabs in Israel distance themselves from the  Jewish parties, the Druze don’t have any problem with that. They claim Jethro, Moses' father-in-law to be  their exclusive Prophet!  Being a minority everywhere they learnt to  run with the rabbits and hunt with the hounds. Things may change now with the increasing anti-Israel belligerence of the Muslim MKs and the encouraging spirit of the Arab Spring. The chasm between Arab MKs and their Jewish counterparts is widening. This chasm will draw the young Druze towards the Arab Muslims. It is a worrying trend. 

The Arab, mainly Muslim parties,  are becoming stronger as independent groupings. That is fine and is what democracy is all about. The problems will arise when Islamist elements infiltrate and take over one of them, which would sharpen the conflict with the main Jewish Zionist parties and could lead to conflict and even violence. Political leaders in Israel need to wake up in time to bring about internal reconciliation and pave the way to integrate all their Arab citizens into the social and political fabric of the country. The introduction of YESH/TR can help in that direction.

Meantime the three Arab parties stood still in 2013. The elections brought no change in their fortunes. However few undercurrent trends could be detected during their campaigns. On the one hand Daam an urban Arab/Jewish voice that called for Arab-Jewish integration in Jaffa was  completely ignored by all sides. Hadash faired no better. That left the field wide open for the militant extremists headed by Balad and Hanin Zuabi. Unfortunately that will be the voice which will unfairly  project the allegiance of the Arabs of Israel in the present Knesset and impact on the image of Israel abroad.  A reform of the electoral system based on 60/60 will strengthen and these Parties. A threshold of more than the present 2% will unify the Arab Parties and merge them into one big party that can theoretically secure  more than  20 seats in future  Knessets.   

TR YESH 90/30 can avoid this danger and bring real transformation  by integrating the Arab citizens and their representatives within the main stream parties. 

YESH avoids the necessity of corrupt primaries and  simplifies the  elections of Party Leaders. It  bestows representation for all voters in the peripheries and ensures the accountability of MKs and Parties. It is simple to introduce and cheap to operate. It creates two big parties and avoids the need to leave the country without effective government 6 months before and 45 days after each elections. Moreover it can save at least one billion Shekel out of the 1.5 Israel Treasury has to dish out. It will be irresponsible for all the Parties in Israel not to study its details seriously.

Aharon Nathan, 

London, 16th March 2013