Israel’s Election, in Perspective

As regular D&S readers may know, Israel does not feature prominently on this blog. Without presuming to speak for my colleagues, past and present, I suspect that this is in part due to the tendency for most Israel debates to gravitate toward a single issue with an already exhaustive reservoir of literature. If the peace process has not produced the highest volume of commentary and analysis of any issue on earth, it is certainly in the top five.

Given this fixation, it is easy to lose track of other important political issues that affect Israeli society. Certainly, there are moments in time when regional political forces conspire to yield opportunities for movement on peace, and these moments warrant reflection. However, the recent Israeli elections, while not transformative in any sense, will have a much stronger chance to dramatically reshape domestic Israeli policy than to energize the listless peace negotiations.

First, let’s start with what the elections were not. They will not lead to a change in the premiership, an office occupied by Benjamin Netanyahu since 2009. Yes, his Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu coalition party suffered a significant loss in combined Knesset seats, dropping more than 25 percent from 42 in the previous government to 31 after January’s poll. However, Netanyahu still received plurality support from the Israeli public, and the larger coalition of conservative and religious parties managed to squeak out the slimmest of majorities (61 seats of 120), keeping Netanyahu safe for the time being.

Nor will the elections produce a change in rhetoric or policy toward Iran. The parties most likely to support such a shift — Labor, Meretz, Hatnuah, and Kadima — will likely be shut out of the governing coalition, a position which affords them limited influence under Israel’s parliamentary system. The primary coalition players will remain the same, including the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu as well as settler and religious parties, all of whom support Netanyahu’s confrontational approach. If a change does occur, away from incessant saber rattling and toward tempered yet coercive diplomacy, it will result from U.S. pressure, should Obama choose to use his second term as an opportunity to push harder without fear of electoral repercussions.

So, if the previous government’s coalition partners are back, and Netanyahu still sits atop the government, what is different? Taking advantage of a perceptible decline in organized and popular centrist parties, Yesh Atid — a new party led by prominent TV personality, Yair Lapid — surged to a second place finish in the elections, securing 19 seats as well as a powerful negotiating position as Netanyahu forms his new coalition. Lapid wielded a unique brand of campaign politics, spurning issues of security or peace in favor of a populism derived from Israel’s social justice protests that erupted in 2011. Those demonstrations, which brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis out onto the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and other cities around the country, focused entirely on issues of economic opportunity, unaffordable housing, and the rising cost of living that has severely strained the Israeli middle class. Lapid tapped into those frustrations, crafting Yesh Atid as a party of middle class Israelis who need a government that understands their daily struggle; a party that would see Israel’s primary existential threat not as a belligerent foreign government, but as the suffocating economic conditions that threaten to sap Israel of its entrepreneurial initiative and send more of its young talent overseas.

However, Lapid’s agenda did not end with economic prescriptions. He sought out one of the more divisive domestic issues that has frustrated many Israelis for decades: mandatory military service. Historically, while most Israelis were conscripted into the military after high school, Orthodox Jewish youth received unofficial deferments from such service, a practice that was eventually codified in the Tal Law of 2001 and expanded a year later. In early 2012, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional, setting off a debate on how to proceed after the law reached its natural expiration date later that summer. Ultimately, the government allowed the Tal Law to expire without any action to implement a broader solution, opening up Orthodox communities for potential enlistment, but still allowing the military to determine its needs before recruiting large numbers of young religious men.

The importance of military service, and its exemptions, extends into other sensitive areas of Israeli domestic policy. The military provides young Israelis with an extensive and durable social network that facilitates economic opportunities and business relationships later in life. In effect, service creates social and economic cache. This is important, since another area of increasing contention involves state welfare support for Orthodox communities. Most individuals in these communities do not work, choosing instead to study at Yeshivas and focus exclusively on religious pursuits — a lifestyle made possible by extensive government welfare. Many Israelis resent this policy. Yet, if it were revoked, Orthodox communities would have a difficult time pursuing productive employment, primarily because most have never secured entry into the powerful network that emerges from military service. If Israelis want to change state welfare policy toward Orthodox communities in the long run, the thinking goes, requiring universal conscription must be the first step. And as the social justice protests from 2011 point out, there are many Israelis who fault the government for what they believe is an unjust distribution of state resources, particularly with regard to state welfare.

Lapid campaigned on these issues. But now, the question is how his strong electoral showing might affect government behavior. Most believe that Yesh Atid will join the governing coalition, which would significantly strengthen what would otherwise be a precariously thin one-seat majority. Netanyahu would certainly prefer a stronger coalition, yet what he would gain in personal job security might be countered by a loss in absolute control over the agenda. Lapid will reportedly demand the Foreign Ministry for himself, as well as the education, justice, and housing ministries for Yesh Atid. He may also seek to chair the finance committee in the Knesset, a powerful position that would grant him significant influence over welfare policy, among other sensitive issues. Lapid has thus far secured a verbal agreement on universal military service from Habayit Hayehudi, a nationalist party led by Netanyahu’s former chief of staff and staunch settler supporter, Naftali Bennett. If other reports are true that Lapid and Bennett will present a united front for participation in the coalition, it could significantly lower Netanyahu’s leverage in negotiations. Without Bennett — whose party secured a fourth place finish with 12 seats — Netanyahu’s right-leaning coalition shrinks to 49 seats, well below the majority threshold. His options at that point would be quite limited, and might even lead to a greater loss of agenda control if he needs to buy the support from left-leaning parties like Labor, Hatnuah, or Kadima.

So, Lapid is in a strong position to extract concessions and fulfill his campaign promises, should he choose to do so. However, much remains unknown about Lapid, the politician. By most accounts, he is a free-market capitalist who leans to the right on economic issues. Yet, those instincts did not prevent him from striking populist tones during the campaign. Further, his party list consists of individuals from all over the ideological spectrum. Yesh Atid’s number two candidate, Shai Piron, is a leader in the settler movement. Yael German, the third candidate on the list, was a long-standing member of the liberal Meretz party. Meir Cohen, the number four, served as a small-town mayor under the Yisrael Beiteinu banner, before switching his allegiance to Yesh Atid. Yisrael Beiteinu, of course, was the creation of far-right nationalist Avigdor Lieberman, whose bombastic and anti-Arab rhetoric led to international condemnation when Netanyahu appointed him as foreign minister in 2009.

In short, it’s an eclectic party, led by a man with a strong reputation for building coalitions regardless of ideology. It’s also the sort of party that seems to be built to win political battles more than significant policy changes in a given ideological direction. What sort of battles might these be? Well, the premiership of the Israeli government, for one. Lapid is a rising star, and his personality is not one that will likely be content serving under Netanyahu. But it would be difficult to make a run at Netanyahu’s job while serving within the coalition government. That sort of political maneuvering is typically conducted from the opposition, and should Lapid set his ultimate goal as the premiership rather than fulfilling his immediate campaign promises, he may step away from the coalition and let Netanyahu flounder with an unstable majority. Some reports indicate that he has already hinted at this possibility, confidently telling aids that he could replace Netanyahu in 18 short months.

This election’s significance, therefore, has little to do with security or peace, nor with any supposed resurgence of center-left Israeli politics. Rather, it has created a powerful new political actor, whose ideological disposition runs second in importance to his ability to forge disparate coalitions and generate popular support. Lapid now has the opportunity to use his significant political capital. Whether or not he joins the coalition government will not only signal how he intends to do so, but will also speak to the prospects for real change in domestic policy on some of Israel’s most sensitive issues.