Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel, 1965 - 2001

Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel, 1965–2001

SUNY series in Israeli Studies Russell Stone, editor

Ideology Party Change and Electoral Campaigns in Israel, 1965–2001

Jonathan Mendilow

State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2003 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207 Production by Judith Block Marketing by Jennifer Giovani Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mendilow, Jonathan. Ideology, party change and electoral campaigns in Israel, 1965–2001/ Jonathan Mendilow. p. cm.—(SUNY series in Israeli studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-5587-4 (hc : alk. paper)—ISBN 0-7914-5588-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Representative government and representation—Israel. 2. Israel—Politics and government. I. Title. II. Series. JQ1830.A58 M464 2003 324.25694—dc21 2002002513 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Tables

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Chapter 1. Introduction I. Four Variants of the Israeli Party System, 1965–2001 II. The Literature on Party System Change and the Case of Israel III. Some Methodological Considerations

1 1 7 24

Part I. The Cluster Party System

27

Chapter 2. The Formation of the Cluster Parties I. Introduction: The First Israeli Party System II. Party Clustering on the Right, 1955–1965 III. Party Clustering on the Left, 1959–1965

28 28 36 50

Chapter 3. The Logic of the New Party System I. Cluster Parties: Organizational and Ideological Dimensions II. Ideological Depolarization III. Structural Polarization IV. Changes in Party Competition, Membership, and Finance V. The Yom Kippur War and its Effects VI. Summary and Conclusions

59 59 66 71 74 80 87

Part II. The Party-Bloc System

91

Chapter 4. The Transition to the Party-Bloc System I. Introduction: The Twilight of the Cluster Party System II. Party Cluster Stability and the Elections of 1981 III. Campaign 1984: The Turning Point

92 92 95 109

Chapter 5. The Campaigns of 1988 and 1992 and the Heyday of the Party-Bloc System I. 1988, 1992, and the New Rules of the Game

122 122

v

vi

Contents

II. The Campaign of 1988 and Labor’s Forced Conversion III. 1992—The Coercion of the Labor and Likud Campaigns IV. Summary and Conclusions

126 139 154

Part III. The Parlia-Presidential System

157

Chapter 6. The Logic of the New System: Candidates in Search of Centers I. Introduction: On Feeble Parties, Weak-Strong Prime Ministers, and Other Schemes of Mice and Men II. From Oslo to the Opening of the 1996 Campaign: The Likud in Crisis III. Campaign 1996 and the Strategy of Contrived Bipolarity

158 158 172 179

Chapter 7. Straddling the Millennium I. The Center That Could Not Hold II. Barak, Mordechai, and Netanyahu: Alternative Routes to the Center III. Again the Center Cannot Hold IV. Parlia-Presidentialism’s Last Hurrah V. Summary

186 186 192 214 221 227

Chapter 8. Epilogue: A Comparative Perspective I. The Cases of India and France II. A Note on the Future of Change

231 231 242

Notes

250

Bibliography

283

Index

293

TABLES

Table 3.1 Content Analysis of Electoral Appeals Appearing in the Israeli Press in 1959, 1961, and 1965 Table 3.2 Breakdown of Party Expenditure for the Elections of 1961 and 1969 Table 3.3 Content Analysis of Electoral Appeals Appearing in the Israeli Press, September–October and November–December 1973 Table 4.1 Voting Intentions 1981 Table 4.2 Content Analysis of Electoral Appeals Appearing in the Israel Press, April 10–June 30, 1981 Table 4.3 Content Analysis of Electoral Appeals on Israeli Television, June 1–28, 1981 Table 4.4 Alignment and Likud Showings in Public Opinion Polls, July 1981–July 1984 Table 4.5 Analysis of Alignment Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, July 1–21, 1984 Table 4.6 Public Reaction to the Alignment and Likud Television Campaign Table 5.1 Analysis of Labor Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, July 1–21, 1984 (Alignment), and October 4–29, 1988 (Labor Party) Table 5.2 Agenda of Issues by Voter Intention Table 5.3 Content Analysis of Labor and Likud Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, June 1–22, 1992, and October 4–29, 1988 Table 5.4 Content Analysis of Labor and Likud Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, June 1–22, 1992 Table 6.1 Content Analysis of Likud Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, May 8–27, 1996 Table 7.1 Content Analysis of One Israel Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, April 26–May 15, 1999, in Percentage of Total Net Time vii

65 78 81

94 107 108 112 117 120 134

137 140

148 182 199

viii

Tables

Table 7.2 Content Analysis of Center Party Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, April 26–May 15, 1999, in Percentage of Total Net Time Table 7.3 Content Analysis of Likud Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, April 26–May 15, 1999, in Percentage of Total Net Time Table 7.4 Content Analysis of Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, January 16–February 1, 2001, in Percentage of Total Net Time

203

210

223

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would have not been authored without the help of my wife, Shlomit. Not only did she push me to write, but also almost daily conversations with her helped me clarify my ideas and come to grips with the problems I encountered. During the course of writing I have benefited immeasurably from the stylistic advice of my father, Adam Mendilow; my son, Daniel; and my friend and colleague Frank Rusciano. Maureen Kyle typed the manuscript with great skill and took great care in proofreading it. Her sharp mind, professionalism, and commitment contributed much to the final product. I express my gratitude to them all.

ix

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

I. Four Variants of the Israeli Party System, 1965–2001 An anecdote is a short, concentrated, and structured narrative leading up climactically to an unexpected point whose significance may extend beyond the particular event described. One example is the meeting arranged by Menachem Begin— leader of the Likud, the main center-right opposition party in Israel, and Hillel Seidel of the Independent Liberal Party (IL), a junior partner in the labor-led government coalition. At this meeting Begin invited Seidel to join the Likud as head of an autonomous faction and hence a high-level leader. Seidel recollected1 that the overture was not only a personal lifeline but also a means of enabling him to retain his representation of a body of loyalists whose interests he shared and hoped now to further. It took place some time before the 1977 general elections, which was to bring about the first turnover of government in the history of the state, at a time when the IL faced the possibility of being squeezed out in the competition between Israel’s right and left. The IL’s negotiations for an alliance with other minor parties2 had failed, and its leadership was at a loss how to proceed. In a list-voting proportional-representation system, an assured position in the Likud’s candidate slate would guarantee Seidel the continuation of a long and now-endangered political career. Nevertheless, he felt obliged to make quite clear what was involved for both sides. Being the chief advocate of his party in the national trade-union federation (Histadrut), he had tended to focus on socioeconomic issues rather than on the need to hold on to and settle the Territories occupied in the 1967 war, an issue which had top priority in Begin’s agenda. Moreover, the IL had always been moderate, tending even to dovishness in matters of security and the relations with the Palestinians. “As you know,” Seidel told Begin, “I could agree with a firm foreign policy, but I also believe that peace and the occupation of territories are mutually exclusive.” To which the response was that this was precisely the reason why the offer was made. “But we are not at one on social and economic policies either,” Seidel insisted. “Better still,” said Begin; upon which the deal was made, and a new faction called Ahdut (Unity) came into being within the Likud. 1

2

Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

The nub of the story is twofold. First is the extraordinary power possessed by the top party leadership at the time. The consideration of political parties as hierarchical organizations is hardly new, and Israeli parties tended to be even more oligarchical than their Western European counterparts. Even so, Begin’s ability to offer a deal affecting his party without prior notification of his intentions testifies to exceptional authority. Nor, one should note, did Seidel question his ability to deliver. Indeed, as a leader of a later generation was to comment, “legendary leaders such as Menachem Begin” were treated “like gods or very close to it” within their parties, and “like fathers” by the general voter.3 The second point concerns the extraordinary use to which Begin seems to have put this extraordinary power. Walt Whitman’s famous declaration comes to mind: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.” But whereas the poet was defending himself against the charge of inconsistency, Begin apparently aimed quite deliberately at achieving inconsistency and was even prepared to pay handsomely for it. One could argue that in contemporary conditions the actual differences between his party and the IL were narrower than appeared on the surface. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s peace and the fate of the Occupied Territories had been a subject of domestic debate, but no expectations of actual peace were in the offing with any Arab state, let alone with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Also, on the social and economic fronts, the Likud’s positions had already become blurred in consequence of similar deals that had been made several years earlier with secessionists from the Labor party who had banded to form the La’am (For the People) faction. It is clear, nevertheless, that Seidel did attach importance to programmatic differences, that Begin did so too, and that it was precisely these differences that drew Begin to Seidel. While Seidel’s motivations for accepting the deal are obvious, those of Begin in offering it seem enigmatic. From the start one can eliminate several possibilities. Admittedly, the move might attract the small band of Seidel’s followers in the forthcoming elections. However, voters of the IL were more likely to shift their allegiance, if at all, to the left, seeing that the party had a longstanding coalitional relationship with the dominant center-left labor party (up to 1969 called Mapai, and thereafter the Labor Alignment), that its tenets were closer to it, and that most of its leaders now tended in that direction. The move, then, must have been made with a wider electorate in view. For obvious reasons, it could not have appealed to the hard-core stalwarts of the right, nor for that matter to the hard-core stalwarts of the parties of the left. If so, it is plausible that Begin was thinking mainly of the centrist-leaning voters, the “floating voters” and disaffected voters, especially those of small nonextremist parties frustrated by the ineffectiveness of their vote. It is equally plausible that the move was intended to signal ideological flexibility and readiness to accommodate varying views. What Begin sought was a structural change that in effect would create a

Introduction

3

double image. One was of openness and pragmatism, directed at the general public, which was encouraged to believe that varying views could find a home within the Likud framework. The other, directed to the Likud in general and within it to Herut, Begin’s own doctrinaire faction, held the promise of the increased strength attendant on additional, less ideologically inclined voters. This would further the realization of the Likud’s goals and render hopes of achieving power more realistic. But the full implications of the anecdote can be assessed only once it is viewed within the context of what preceded it and what ensued from it. The formation of Ahdut was in itself no more than the latest in a series of amalgamations of parties, movements, and splinter groups that began in 1965. Under the guise of the old system, the resulting combinations gradually brought about a new variation of the party system that finally took over in the election of 1977. Nor was this the last of the metamorphoses. In contrast to the decades of stability of the Israeli party system in its earliest form, by the time its second variant came into its own it was already being undermined by the development of a third. Like a snake slowly sloughing its skin, this was finally freed from its predecessor only in the Knesset elections of 1988, and itself was short-lived. Its transformation was hastened by an electoral reform, which was legislated in 1992 and put into effect in the following Knesset elections of 1996, resulting in the release of the fourth and last variant of the Israeli party system before the millennium. Since 1965, then, the Israeli party system has undergone a constant process of change that may be divided into four shifts marked by the salient elections of 1977, 1988, and 1996. What was referred to as the earliest form of the Israeli party system was bequeathed to the state by some three decades of party activity under the British Mandate. A major aspect of this heritage was the strong ideological tinge of the parties. Originating as political expressions of the semiautonomous ideological and social sectors of the Jewish population of Palestine, these differed not only in their weltanschauungen but in the idea of the future state they dreamed of. The persistence of these passionately held ideologies after Independence (1948) owed much to the proportional representation system, in which 1 percent (since 1992 1.5 percent) of the total vote sufficed to provide a seat in the 120-member Knesset. It opened the way to a great diversity of parties, and hence maintained the distinctions among them and the ideological homogeneity of each, especially when cardinal problems that would determine the nature of the new state were at stake. The proliferation of parties, however, created a situation where none ever enjoyed the ability to govern alone, and after elections ideological strains had to be relaxed under the imperative of forming government coalitions. Another heritage of the past was the domination of Mapai, a centrist labor party that derived its strength not only from its plurality of votes and its pivotal position in a party system marked by the absence of cohesive opposition,4 but

4

Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

from its control of the Histadrut and the Jewish Agency. The former, in addition to being a federation of labor unions, was itself the largest employer of labor in the country. The latter was the body responsible for organizing immigration into the country and the settlement of the newcomers. This had added significance in light of the fact that these had the right to vote immediately on their arrival. Election results therefore merely determined which parties Mapai would choose as coalition partners: usually one from its right, one from its left, and a religious party. The only ones that were ruled out were the parties of the extreme right and left, Herut and the communists. The latter was a fringe Arab-Israeli group, outside the pale of Zionist politics, which never dreamed of becoming an alternative to government and, in Sartori’s terms,5 was not a “relevant Party.” The former was the second largest party and since the birth of the party system considered itself to be the only alternative to Mapai. The second phase in the development of the Israeli party system can be traced back to the creation of two new parties as a step toward the Knesset campaign of 1965. One was an opposition alliance between Herut and the Liberals, a centrist party that had on occasion joined the Mapai-led government coalition. The other was between Mapai and one of its coalition partners to its left. Each of the two new formations, which I call cluster parties, presented to the electorate a broad front based on the lowest common denominator of its components. At the same time, each of these components retained to a greater or lesser extent its ideological independence and organizational structure. The effect on the party system was profound, leading to what will be referred to as the cluster party system. The blurring of the ideological differences between the factions within each party inevitably led to the blurring of the cleavages between the main rivals. Coupled as it was with the structural simplification and polarization of the party system, this intensified the electoral competition and concentrated attention on the jockeying for power between government and opposition. What eventuated was an amorphous center into which the two large parties were drawn in the attempt to attract potential floating voters and the electorate of smaller parties. Gradually, gravitational pulls drew these into the orbits of the larger rivals. A multiparty system the stability of which had been maintained by a dominant party was thus replaced by a competitive party system, in which each of the main contenders consisted of a mini-party system in its own right. The third variation of the Israeli party system emerged out of the severe seismic shocks, which one after the other rocked the government clusters after the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when critical decisions had to be made at a time of dwindling resources. The effects on the two main adversaries were similar but not synchronous. After 1981 they were hemorrhaged by new ideological parties on their flanks that competed with them for the votes of their more programmatically committed members although remaining their “natural” allies and coalition partners. Changes took place also within the larger competitors. Some of the

Introduction

5

issues that divided them before the mid-sixties had been so blurred that distinctions of principle could no longer be made and the positions of individual members crisscrossed the parties. This was especially true in the socioeconomic domains. Yet already in 1981, the cluster centering on the erstwhile Herut party retrieved key elements of the ideology of its main component, decisively moving away from the center to the right. Likewise, following its poor performance in the elections of 1981 and 1984, the labor cluster emulated its rival by moving away from the center and crystallizing more coherent positions, especially on the complex of questions relating to the destiny of the Occupied Territories and its domestic and foreign ramifications. The overall effect was a centrifugal movement into two large party-blocs, each with its largest member on the moderate end of the divide. The continued development of propaganda techniques and reliance on media experts enabled the large parties to persist in their effects to draw the undecided and moderate voters to their respective sides. But between the blocs, in the hitherto crowded center of the party map, an empty space appeared as the contenders drifted apart. To clarify the nature of these fluctuations one may use Sartori’s distinction between polarized party systems and those characterized by moderate pluralism. The terms refer to the distance between the ideological poles of the party system and to the extent of the distribution of opinion between its political components. Polarized systems are marked by a large distance between the poles. Moderately plural ones are distinguished by the closeness of the poles, reflecting small ideological distances between the parties. What took place in Israel may be compared to the alternating closing in and opening out of the bellow-folds of an accordion. Consequent on the formation of the clusters and the increased support given them by the electorate, the period between the mid-1960s and early 1980s witnessed a centripetal process that transformed what Sartori described as a system belonging to the polarized “class of extreme pluralism”6 into a moderately plural one. The following period, on the other hand, witnessed the repolarization of the system. The widening of the ideological gaps between the main rivals and the reduction of their electoral support ended in the formation of a new party system marked by the centrifugal competition between two hostile blocs. The fourth variant of the party system combined mutatis mutandis some of the main features of its two predecessors and brought them to the extreme in a kind of contrived schizophrenia. Amendments to the Basic Laws, which took effect in 1996, inaugurated the direct popular vote for the prime minister to be conducted at the same time as the vote for the Knesset. Whereas in the latter the party list proportional representation system was retained, the choice of prime minister was to be determined by the competition between individual candidates. The winner would be the one who garnered, whether in a first or a second round, a 50 percent plus majority. This accentuated the approximation to a two-party

6

Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

competition, the commercial marketing of politics, and the emphasis on the leadership factor. All these had been in evidence to a greater or lesser degree since the 1970s, but the apogee they now reached amounted to a change from quantity to quality. The competition among the candidates for the premiership turned on images contrived by rival promotional teams led by foreign professionals, whereas the parties supporting them shed the vestiges of their distinctive referents and faded into the background. On the other hand, the shift from the categorical to an ordinal system that permits the voter more than a single choice7 empowered parties that did not field prime ministerial candidates to pursue specific sectional and ideological interests. Party competition at the Knesset level thus retrieved the logic of the proportional representation system that had been distorted by the clusters and the blocs. The upshot was that side-by-side with the reconvergence of the large competitors was a remarkable increase in the strength of smaller parties appealing either to specific ideological tenets or to specific ethnically, religiously, or culturally based communities. What came into being was a hybrid characterized by simultaneous centripetal and centrifugal drives; by the fishing for voters with the baits of market approaches and commercial techniques and by the calls for tribal solidarity. This I shall call the parlia-presidential system. At this point we can return to take note of further implications of the anecdote that served as our starting point. In addition to directing us to the process of change, the Begin-Seidel encounter focuses attention on several issues that will become central to my analysis. One is the connection between party change and party system change. This becomes clearer once we bear in mind that a party system consists of the aggregate of the parties within it. Changes in one party regarded by others as negatively affecting their ability to compete are most likely to precipitate counteradjustments and to produce a ripple effect. Begin’s effort to engineer a change in the voter perception of Herut, which would relocate the party from the extremist right to the center of the party spectrum, in itself made for a significant change in the party system, serving to hasten similar processes of party amalgamation between the labor parties. The party-bloc and the parliapresidential systems can likewise be ultimately traced all the way back to the same party changes of which the anecdote is one instance. The causal sequence reminds one of traditional folk tales, often in verse, such as “The House that Jack Built” or “The Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly.” However, the demise of the cluster-party system and later the institution of the parlia-presidential system show the reversibility of this cause and effect. Changes of circumstances in the one case and legislative intervention in the other had a direct impact on the party system, which in turn caused changes in the parties and their behavior. Consequently, the consideration of the process of party and party-system change in Israel confronts us with the question of when, how, and to what degree do party changes bring about party-system changes and vice versa.

Introduction

7

But the anecdote no less relates to the two personalities who worked out a particular form of relationship. In a sense, a parallel exists between party systems and parties on the one hand and parties and individuals on the other. A party after all is the aggregate of its members, and, as in the units of the party system, the members are not of equal stature or influence. As a result we are up against a version of the question raised about the two-way relationship between parties and party systems. To what extent and in what circumstances were the party changes orchestrated by party leaders, and in what ways were these constrained by circumstances and by their own parties? What may explain the fact that at times leaders took actions virtually on their own initiative, whereas on other occasions they seemed to have had virtually no choice in the matter? Finally, the anecdote raises the bottom-line issue of the connection between party change and electoral results. Each partner in the deal regarded the structural change to which he had committed himself as a form of investment, the interest on which would be an improvement in the fortunes of his party in the competition. How in fact did the structural change impact intraparty competition and to what degree can it justify a generalization about the linkage between these factors? Yet another question in this context concerns the relationship between principles in the name of which parties seek power and the competitive struggle to achieve such power. Seidel, and certainly Begin, were generally held to be firm advocates of their respective principles. Yet both were ready to enter into a relationship that at least for the time being would set limits to their pursuit of them. The justification for what appears to be a contradiction was however that the deal would add to their chances of acquiring power, which would enable them to put their principles into practice. What, then, were the relationships between strategies adopted in the here-and-now of the competition and the future goals of ideological realization? How far did they contradict each other and how far were they supplementary? The question becomes even more acute when we position the anecdote in relation to future developments. Among the factors that differentiated the cluster party, the party-bloc and the parlia-presidential systems from one another were the ebb and flow of ideological emphasis in the strategies of the larger parties. What were the circumstances in which ideological emphasis served competitive strategies, and in what circumstances did the reverse operate?

II. The Literature on Party System Change and the Case of Israel The questions raised in part I are neither new nor peculiar to Israel. They have been widely debated in the literature, both with regard to specific countries and general problems. An analysis of the Israeli case should therefore be preceded by at least a cursory overview of the main approaches that have appeared in studies of party and party-system change, and in particular of the dynamic links between party structures, ideologies, and electoral strategies. Such approaches may help

8

Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

in selecting avenues worthy of exploration as well as in evaluating the significance of the findings. On the other hand, the specificity of the case study itself may enrich our understanding of the general subject and validate or refute hypotheses raised elsewhere. This statement is nothing more than the usual claim made in elementary political science teaching concerning the links between the different levels of analysis that are commonly referred to as comparative. Nevertheless, in the case of Israel, a few preliminary words of elaboration are in place. A common problem in the comparative study of single countries is the need to identify and isolate unique factors that help to produce the patterns of behavior under observation. This sets a limit to the degree of detail the researcher looks for, because only beyond the level of the noncomparable peculiarities lie the comparable. Israel is often held to be sui generis to the degree that precludes all comparison. As far as its politics after the mid-1960s go, however, the argument advanced here is that its very uniqueness serves, as the saying has it, to render it “like any other country, only very much more so.” It is usually considered to be typical of Western Europe rather than of the Middle East, featuring as it does so many of the political characteristics and processes typical of small liberal-democratic multiparty systems. Yet, it is generally recognized that it is exceptional in the rapid tempo of the development of its society, and in its powerful resonance to change caused by its precarious position as a threatened country. At least in the first decades of its existence, and periodically since then, it was also characterized by critical differences among its parties, which centered not only on the evolving character of the polity but also on strategies to ensure its very survival. Such factors taken together contribute to the unusual prominence of politics in the public mind. Where else does all activity pause virtually every hour of the day to listen to the latest news bulletins? Considering that government policy plays for such high stakes, and especially that many policies are perceived to have an impact on the state’s survivability, government assumes unusual prominence in the eye of the citizens. Parties and the activities of their leaders and Knesset representatives are similarly in the limelight, and elections are more often than not conducted at a feverish pitch. The overall result is of a magnifying effect. Processes that occur elsewhere at a slower pace are tinged with high drama, bringing into greater relief factors that may escape clear observation in other environments. In this context another factor assumes importance. Until recently, Israeli parties could run campaigns on the issues that divided them without being subject to pressures from abroad. In the steadily integrating world of the post–World War II era, such freedom has become increasingly unusual, particularly where the policies of a relatively developed state have significant ramifications extending far beyond its borders. In the case of Israel the surprise is the greater, seeing that Jewish organizations in the Diaspora have had obvious stakes in the Jewish state and have helped it financially throughout its existence. Moreover, the country

Introduction

9

was at the heart of a conflict that regularly occupied world attention. Most surprising of all had been the consistent U.S. policy of negotiating with Israeli governments when they are in power but refraining from attempts to influence the campaigns of parties in government (or, for that matter, of their rivals) or the electoral results irrespective of the centrality in the party contests of the issues over which the United States and Israel had earlier dealt. Such a policy constituted in the words of one observer “a diplomatic version of affirmative action toward the Jewish state, which protected it from the kind of U.S. diplomatic pressure that countries in other parts of the world experience regularly.”8 The 1990s witnessed a marked change. In 1992, 1996, and 1999 the United States intervened both directly and indirectly to further the electoral chances of labor. The timing of the 2001 competition for the premier, in the seam between the outgoing Clinton and the incoming Bush administrations, reduced such intervention; but the campaign was heavily influenced by U.S. efforts to forge an IsraeliPalestinian deal that would enhance Barak’s reelection bid, Diaspora leaders placed full-page adds in the press to make their preference known, and the Rev. Jerry Falwell arrived in person to convey the Christian right’s support of the opposition. All these were joined in the final days of the campaign by senior officials of the Palestinian Authority who called on Arab citizens to cast their ballets for Barak to prevent a sweeping victory of the Israeli right.9 And yet the comparative freedom from “contamination” of external constraints up to the very last decade of the millennium adds to the hypersensitivity of Israel, making its party politics a highly suitable seedbed of hypotheses to be tested elsewhere. We may now come back to the consideration of the theories of party and party-system change. The subject can be approached by recalling the truism that all things are in a state of perpetual flux and that the only condition of complete stability is rigor mortis. In R. L. Stevenson’s words, “wherever we are, it is but a stage on the way to somewhere else, and whatever we do, however well we do it, it is only a preparation to do something else that shall be different.” This equally applies to groups of individuals acting together in pursuit of political interests. When students of party change employ the term change they do not refer however to continuous day-to-day changes, irrespective of their possible cumulative importance, but to relatively large-scale changes of contingent nature that disrupt continuity; a difference that may be less precisely defined than intuitively felt.10 The earliest scholarship on party change in this sense was taken from the social structure perspective. The underlying assumption was that the behavior of voters does not generally conform to the conception of a rational, freely choosing electorate postulated in democratic theory. Most partisans identify with their parties as extensions of their class, ethnic, religious, or regional affiliations. Parties indeed tend to behave as group-institutions in that their candidates represent the groups supporting them, and their programs express the groups’ interests. The linkage has also an important emotional dimension. From the point of view

10

Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

of the parties, electoral campaigns are occasions when deep-rooted attachments are appealed to and reinforced by the call to action. From the point of view of the voter, campaigns offer opportunities similar to those proffered to fans of football matches: the reaffirmation of group loyalties strengthened by the solidarity associated with common action. This normally ensures the party system of a degree of stability.11 To be sure, no society is a fixed and unchanging entity, but changes in socioeconomic structures and in the political culture are usually sufficiently gradual to allow slow party adjustment. However, when change is deep and persistent, a growing incongruence between the concerns of increasing numbers of voters and what the parties offer renders inevitable major changes in the fortunes of individual parties and in the configuration of party systems. Party system change, in brief, derives from processes that affect society at large, and over which parties have little control. This deterministic framework with its neo-Marxist reverberations had its obvious attractions. Because parties were viewed as dependent variables, continuity and change could equally be explained on the basis of environmental factors alone, without the need to treat particular party organizations and behaviors. The benefit for cross-country analysis is evident in the research on Western multiparty systems on both sides of the watershed of the early 1970s. During the first period the main problem was to explain the relative stability in the face of sweeping changes in the demographic, economic, and technological aspects of post–World War II societies. The basic diagnosis can be summed up in the verdict of Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan, the two most influential exponents of the approach, that the party systems of the 1960s “reflect with few but significant exceptions the cleavage structure of the 1920’s.”12 In the second period the question was replaced by the need to explain the destabilization of virtually all the Western party systems. Among the scholars who tackled the issue, Ronald Ingleheart figures prominently, not least because he continued to explore his thesis, extending it to other parts of the globe.13 The post–World War II prosperity, he maintained, has caused a shift from the focus on material issues and parties representing them to postmaterial concerns and new competitors. Side by side with the blurring of the old socioeconomic cleavages, questions that began to assume preeminence, especially among the young generation, related to matters such as the environment, equality of the sexes, or gay rights. If the old parties with their materialist agendas did not fall victim to the shift up to the 1970s, it was largely because only then did the old generation of voters show signs of waning by natural attrition. The overall patterns that then began to take shape have persisted because of the continued rise in the standards of living, notwithstanding occasional “blips.” More still, the “great dying” of the communist systems and rising standards of living in developing countries are bringing about similar changes in the class structures and the political preferences of publics in Central Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

Introduction

11

Dissatisfaction with the ascription of such a passive role to parties in determining their own fate was probably the prime reason for an alternative explanation, which attributed change to the dynamic interaction of parties and their environments. Parties were conceptualized as adaptive organizations that set up institutional frameworks and devise strategies that result in the structuring of the electoral choice among them. Such activities stem from the identification of the factors that condition the environment and influence the preferences of various categories of voters, and are geared to maximizing effectiveness. However, in adjusting their structures and programs, parties are not free from constraints. Each has its own bounded rationality reflecting its history, electoral base, and internal politics. These of necessity affect the perception and interpretation of changing realities and the challenges they pose. Parties must also take into account the counterbuffeting of rivals in the election boxing ring. The upshot is not only that processes affecting party change are taken to be more complex and less predictable at the unit level, but also that uncertainty derives equally from the feedback effects of party adjustive behavior on the environment. Party response to “one set of pressures or demands may either deflect pressures and inhibit more extensive changes, or lead to more extensive changes.”14 Of special relevance to my interpretation of how and why the Israeli party system was transformed, particularly in the early phases of the process, are two of the earliest and most influential of the theories of this school, those of Otto Kirchheimer (1966) and Leon Epstein (1967). Both shared the assumptions of what has been termed the “end of ideology” thesis, namely, that conditions in the post–World War II Western societies were rendering the ideologies that had grown from the cleavages and dislocations of the Industrial Revolution progressively irrelevant. Welfare policies, the emphasis on mass consumer goods, and the blurring of social, religious, and regional distinctions resulting from the enormous expansion of the mass-communications media were all infecting the general public with apathy toward traditional party programs. Both writers identified a pattern in party adaptation to such trends, and this allowed them to predict major party transformations. Parties, they argued, would dispense with most of their ideologies in an effort “to exchange effectiveness in depth for a wider audience and more immediate electoral success.”15 Manifestos would skirt group interests and in their place rely on accepted generalities and pragmatic issues such as leadership and economic system management. Any proposals they might present would be sufficiently vague and sweeping to forestall counterattack by adversaries. To inundate society with their message, parties would increasingly depend on the intensive use of mass-communications media and on professional public relations experts guided by frequent indications of public opinion provided by polls and modern communications techniques. Both Kirchheimer and Epstein were in effect adopting a Darwinian approach, according to which parties undergo a process of evolution that enables

12

Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

them to meet the challenges of their environment better. Because Western European mass parties were operating in environments that increasingly resembled those of the United States, they would gradually approximate to the U.S. type of “cadre party.” In Kirchheimer’s terms, they would evolve into “catchall parties.”16 Moreover, because parties form part of the environment of one another, the improved electoral performance of those that succeed in adapting themselves will exert pressure on the rest to follow suit. What Epstein termed “contagion”17 comes into play. To resist mutation is to fall behind in the struggle for political survival so that the unfit pay the penalty meted out by natural selection unless they “reassess” their strategies. Whereas the two theorists restricted their analysis to a particular form of change in a specific type of context, more recent work by Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair18 illustrates how similar basic assumptions may be generalized to serve as a research strategy applicable to other forms of party transformation and to other settings. A discrimination is drawn between “ultimate” and “immediate” sources of party change. The former are those that take place in the environment. The latter are the internal dynamics that determine the way parties perceive and react to environmental changes. Party changes are identified and traced back to their ultimate origins and this enables an evaluation of the immediate factors and of the influence of party structures on the nature and extent of the change. Adaptation may take several forms. Where organizational modifications offer no adaptive advantages, parties may respond to environmental change by shifting their issue positions. Where this too provides no benefit, parties may have recourse to a change in the leadership. They could of course try to avoid adaptation of any kind, but then they court electoral defeat or even total extinction. The third and most recent approach again sprang from dissatisfaction, this time mainly with the prevalent tendency to treat parties as whole units. Neglect of the facts that they consist of individuals, that among them power is unequally distributed, and that particular members’ decisions ultimately determine party activity, obscures the sources of change, leading researchers to focus on background factors rather than on the foreground. As forcefully put by Frank Wilson, the first to formulate both the criticism and the alternative it engenders, “the notion that parties are transformed by unnoted socioeconomic, cultural, or political forces while their members and leaders remain unaware is misleading. Parties change primarily because their leaders and members see the need to change and make efforts to change them.” Zeroing in on flesh-and-blood initiators had profound implications for both the general conception of party change and the research into particular cases. These implications were made explicit in Wilson’s later work19 as well as in that of others such as Angelo Panebianco, who presented a model of party change,20 and Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda, who took up similar propositions, developing them into an “informal ‘discursive’ exposition” of a theory.21 All of them consider party change as the result of calculated

Introduction

13

leadership decisions. This leads by necessity to a view of change as a discontinuous chain of events rather than as a gradual process unfolding as it were without clear beginnings and ends. It also raises an epistemological question. Any number of socioeconomic, political, or cultural changes may contribute to gradual, piecemeal changes, or alternatively prepare the grounds for possible large-scale and abrupt change. The critic, however, must not forget that individual perception involves selection and interpretation. The greater the immediate impact on the perceiver, the greater the significance attached to the percepta. Thus, for Wilson only those environmental changes with direct effects on the competitive situation have decisive influence on party change; Panebianco speaks of unspecified “severe environmental challenges” (whose severity, of course, is measured subjectively), whereas Harmel and Janda integrate their theory of party change with a theory of party goals. The latter form a hierarchy headed by a primary goal (e.g., vote maximizing or the furthering of ideology). When this is endangered by an “externally induced shock,” party decision makers are compelled to “undertake a fundamental reevaluation of the party’s effectiveness on that goal dimension,”22 leading to abrupt, dramatic changes with significant effects on the entire organization. The shift from the system level to the unit and the focus on the behavior of party leaders and activists within it also entail an emphasis on intraparty processes such as other approaches ignore. For Wilson, changes in external behavior are rendered possible by the ability of strong leaders to overcome party inertia and reinforce the elite with younger, reform-minded supporters. For Panebianco party change will occur when an environmental challenge is followed by “the discrediting of the old [dominant party] coalition which was unable to handle the crisis, the formation of new alliances, and the replacement of the leading group.”23 When internal conditions prevent such a sequence, as for example when no generational turnover has given rise to new potential leaders, party change, regardless of the external challenge, will not take place. And Harmel and Janda take an extra step when they postulate that changes in leadership and or dominant coalition themselves may suffice to produce party change, albeit of a more restricted nature than of the kind generated by externally induced shocks. New leaders may have a mandate necessary to implement changes already agreed to, or may bring with them new ideas that party members can be persuaded to follow. Displacement of dominant factions could likewise lead to change when the factions dispute over fundamental questions of ideology, strategy, or organization. Such an approach accentuates, to use Wilson’s phrase, “the idiosyncratic and unpredictable nature of change rather than helps us to discover probabilistic theories of party transformation.”24 For self-evident reasons employing it at the particular case study level is easier. Notwithstanding this, broader efforts to test it empirically can be made. Harmel, Janda, and their collaborators made a prelimi-

14

Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

nary effort in this direction.25 Data for 40 years relating to six British and German parties was collected, annualized, and arranged into dependent and independent variables using judgmental coding techniques. The dependent variables were party change and its magnitude. Independent variables included electoral performance and its evaluation by the party, party leadership change, and change of dominant factions. The two sets of variables were then matched according to their proximity in time with a view to establishing their causal relationships. Party changes that occurred within two years of an independent variable (in the case of elections and leadership change not including the same calendar year as the event itself ) were attributed to it. The hypotheses could now be examined in light of the entirety of the results. It may be said that the theories touched on constitute a progression in the concept they provide of the degree and nature of the contribution that parties make to their own change. The social-structure perspective assumes that parties are confronted by realities that determine their course irrespective of their volition. According to the adaptive-organizational approach, parties do play a part in their alteration, but what remains in question is the degree to which their participation is purposive and whether they have any options in the matter. The prevalent assumption among those who adopt the approach is that parties respond to shifting circumstances by piecemeal modifications that themselves gradually affect their environments. However, such an assumption is not an imperative. The metaphor of “jettisoning the ideological cargo,” central to Kirchheimer’s catchall party thesis, indicates a willed act, whereas Epstein recognizes that parties occasionally face “unusually sharp changes” in the environment and must willy-nilly take decisions.26 Nevertheless, the stark alternative to parties facing the growing irrelevancy of their programs and dwindling of their electoral base is either to change or to risk being reduced to small relics of the past or even to cease altogether. Finally, the purposive-action approach posits that what critics such as Epstein regarded as possible only in exceptional circumstances, namely that parties change because they have decided to do so, is the normal way in which party transformation occurs. As for options, it assumes that parties have leeway not only whether to change, but also to determine the nature, direction, and magnitude of the process. This by no means suggests that parties act independently of their environments. What it does mean is that party decision makers are an intervening variable. Environmental change serves as a stimulus to party change only when it is perceived and interpreted as requiring reaction. Likewise, large-scale party reaction to the stimulus occurs only after the party has been convinced and guided by its decision makers. Because of the pivotal role individuals play, each with his or her own particular understanding and capabilities, change of leadership and/or of dominant factions may suffice to become in themselves a source of change. The analysis of the four variants of the Israeli party system and the transition from one to another undertaken in this book clearly shows that each of the

Introduction

15

above-mentioned theories has something to contribute. It is equally clear that the degree of the contribution is contingent on particular circumstances. According to these, one or other of the theories, and sometimes several together, become especially suggestive. It is therefore best to regard the theories as complementing one another rather than as alternatives. However, none of them can be used as a template for the Israeli case. It is essentially as heuristic devices that they prove most valuable, and it is their use as such that may teach us more about these theories. Moreover, even when used cumulatively and heuristically, the theories do not suffice to provide a satisfactory explanation of what prompted the changes, especially the first fundamental ones in the patterns that had dominated the Israeli party system from the preindependence era. Fuller comprehension can best be attained by carrying the progression of theories concerning the degree of party involvement in their transformation beyond the limits set by the purposive-action approach. The social structure approach suggests focusing on the socioeconomic processes that Israel had undergone preceding the initiation of the change in the mid-1960s. These certainly amount to a sea change. In the mid-1960s the country was still among the “have-not” nations of the world. The main sources of hard currency remained the export of citrus fruit and polished diamonds, as well as foreign aid and the donations of Diaspora Jews. The Israeli citizen usually had to wait for years to acquire a private telephone line, car ownership was a rare luxury, and travel abroad was restricted to the few who were relatively affluent. Nevertheless, most of the new immigrants were by now settled and the expansion of social services, the advent of the modern media, and the growing emphasis on mass consumer goods helped to blur the social cleavages, rendering the country to a growing extent comparable with the societies of Western Europe. Indeed, without such developments seeing how parties so different could have merged to form cluster parties, bringing about the diffusion of their ideologies, is difficult. This, however, is not to say that it was such environmental factors that caused the change, sweeping the parties along in the current. The most drastic demographic, economic, and social shifts had occurred during the first decade of independence and then again after the Six Day War of 1967. Yet during the first period the parties were so wedded to their traditional ideologies and organizational structures that they could not be divorced from them because of environmental pressures, and when it came to the second period the parties were already well into the process of transformation. By the mid-1960s the country had acquired a considerable degree of stability, and it was precisely then that the party transformation began. In brief, that the changes in the Israeli society were preconditions for the transformation is a plausible argument, but they were not its cause. The resemblance at a first glance between the party formations that appeared in Israel and the catchall or Americanized parties as expounded at the time

16

Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

by Kirchheimer and Epstein could suggest the impact of party competition as precipitating factor. Actually, when one examines the growth of the new composite cluster parties of the center-right and center-left at the expense of smaller parties from the late 1960s to the late 1980s there can be little doubt as to the importance of the competitive element. What developed constituted a vicious circle. As the process of structural polarization of the party system into large parties intensified, so did the rivalry between them and the concentration of the electorate on this rivalry. Conversely, as the competition became more acute so did the incentive of the larger parties to absorb smaller ones, and so did the inducement of such small parties not tied to any particular ethnic or religious segment of the population to find a place within the larger parties to escape being squeezed out. This helps to explain why the first party changes of the mid-1960s created ripple effects that spread to the entire party system. However, all that this explains is the continuation rather than the origins of the process of transformation. The purposive-action approach certainly serves to identify causes that contributed to party clustering both on the center-right and on the center-left. Herut’s first partner, the Liberal party, had suffered repeated electoral losses and its failure to make inroads into the large constituency of new immigrants boded ill for the future. In addition, it had not been invited to join the Mapai-led coalition, and the signs were that it was unlikely to be so in the near future. On the other side of the aisle, the transformation Mapai underwent can be explained at least in part by factional strife and change of leadership ending with the secession of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and his charismatic band of relatively young followers. Neither of the two parties were, however, the active initiator of the formation of the new parties. Rather, it was Herut on the one hand, and Ahdut Ha’avoda, to the left of Mapai, on the other. Herut was created by the graduates of two militant underground movements that had been active in the struggle with the British and the Arabs in the prestate era. The fact that they were outlawed as terrorists by the British and delegitimated as apostates by the rest of the Jewish prestate community goes far to explain their cohesion and esprit de corps. When the party was formed its leaders were still in their thirties so that its Knesset representatives had little fear of younger challengers. Begin himself was still commonly referred to as “The Commander” and any who dared question his leadership was blacklisted and evicted. Nor did his party suffer any externally induced shocks. Mapai’s undisputed dominance ever since the very beginning of the 1930s could conceivably imply an uninterrupted string of Herut defeats. But the stability of the Israeli political system, both in terms of electoral results and of the parties forming the government coalition, accounts for the general tendency to estimate success or failure by comparison with the numerical results of the previous elections. For example, a minor party of, say, three or four members of Knesset (MKs) and no hope of effectively challenging Mapai’s hold on political power (e.g., the

Introduction

17

Communists or the Progressive Party) could count the addition of one (e.g., the Progressives in 1955) or two MKs (e.g., the Communists in 1961) as an electoral victory. By such a yardstick, Herut was not a victim of an electoral failure but was steadily improving its showing. The party began the 1950s with 8 MKs and ended them with 17. Nor, one may add, was there a reason to fear any sudden future decline. As for Mapai’s partner, Ahdut Ha’avoda, it did suffer serious electoral losses in 1959, from 10 to 7 Knesset members. But two years later it retrieved one, and it could expect a continued recovery. Moreover, its efforts to bring about the unity of the labor parties preceded 1959 and were mainly prompted by the fear of attempts by Herut to form a cluster of its own and the wish to ensure the perpetuation of labor superiority in face of the vast socioeconomic developments that were taking place. In brief, the gist of the argument presented in part I of this book is that it was not externally induced shocks or leadership changes that motivated the party transformations of the mid-1960s and 1970s but rather the wish to challenge the stability of the party system on the one hand and the counterattempts to preserve it on the other. Already in the mid-1950s Begin had come to the conclusion that Herut’s main problem as an opposition lay in its inability to project an image of a credible alternative to Mapai and its coalition partners. What was necessary was a jolt to the party system that would insinuate into the public mind the feasibility of a change of government. As yet, this proved inauspicious. After the Knesset elections of 1961, and especially after the change of prime ministers in 1963, new opportunities presented themselves, encouraging Begin to take action and enabling him to gain the necessary support both within his party and with its potential allies. First and foremost among these opportunities was the growing disarray within Mapai. To a large extent, it was this threat itself that prompted Mapai and coalition partners to its left to find ways to gloss over their differences to forge a united front. Each of the opposing couples foresaw the crystallization of a new center-right party or a new center-left party, and this galvanized both to conclude their respective deals thus setting the party system on a new trajectory. A basic assumption shared by the social-structure, the adaptive-organization, and the purposive-action approaches is that change springs from conditions that prevail at the time. Here, on the contrary, the case is of transformations motivated largely by the anticipation of what the future might bring. As in chess, the players concentrated on future scenarios while bearing in mind possible adversarial countermoves. The opposition sought to set in motion changes in the party system that could lead to a new political climate such as would improve its electoral fortunes. Mapai and its allies sought mainly to introduce such modifications as would foil such intentions. In both cases what was at stake were the considered decisions of party leaders bent on widening their electoral appeal by shifting public attention from principles to pragmatic issues, while confining their ideologies to the inner circles of the party-cum-factions within the new formations.

18

Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

This autonomy of party policies explains how transformations that brought about party styles and manner of campaigning so reminiscent of what Kirchheimer was prognosticating occurred in precisely the conditions in which he predicted they would not occur, namely, in the case of a small democracy with a large party in power for many years and dependent on the cooperation of smaller parties. Part II illustrates how such autonomy of party policies hinges on the existence of an environment that allows it to take place. In treating the long drawn-out transition from a system in which converging cluster parties formed the center of gravity to one dominated by opposing party-blocs I will argue that the precipitating force was an unforeseen change in the environment. It was a rare relaxation of the febrile tensions of Israeli politics from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s that made party clustering possible. The 1973 Yom Kippur War opened a Pandora’s box of escalating economic tensions, disputes about the territorial identity of the state, and conflicts over its religious and democratic nature. What now occupied the center stage of the party system were two large contenders, both of which had emerged in a different era, and neither of which were suited to deal with the challenges of the day. Against this background the adaptive-organizational and the purposive-action approaches appear suggestive. Party clustering constitutes a compromise between a common desire to attain or retain power and the desire of each component to realize as many of its interests as possible. Here it may be in place to comment briefly on the efforts to account for the number of parties vying for power in democratic systems. Two factors have been offered. One is the rules of the electoral game. What has been often referred to since the 1960s as the “Duverger’s Law” (or, more particularly its second part, “Duverger’s Hypothesis”) is that simple majority single-ballot constituency systems (often called “first-past-the-post”) favor two-party competitions, whereas simple majority with second ballots and proportional representation systems favor multiparty competitions.27 Another explanation, closely related to the social structure theory, hinges on the patterns of social cleavage. Parties align themselves with specific segments of society, and hence shifts in the social structure are reflected in changes in the number of parties. Proponents of each of these explanations do not regard them as necessarily mutually exclusive, and recent discussions suggest various combinations.28 But in Israel significant changes in the numbers of competing parties occurred regardless of the stability of the electoral laws and of social-cleavage structures. The consequence was that each of the factions that had joined together remained attached to the segments of the electorate that it had relied on before. As long as the benefits to these groups outweighed the costs of cooperation this raised few difficulties. But once the costs ratcheted up because of resolute decision that had to be made on divisive issues touching factional bases, or because of quarrels concerning positions of power, factions were tempted to engage in tactics of brinkmanship or even to secede to avoid mass desertion. At such times however the shift

Introduction

19

toward factional fusion may equally be accelerated. Smaller, less doctrinaire and less structurally developed factions may be faced with the alternative of leaving the party altogether or paying an ever higher price in terms of compromises to their more aggressive counterparts. Their identities may thereby be weakened, their ability to mobilize supporters threatened, and their credibility in brinkmanship tactics reduced. This explains why following the 1973 war, when critical decisions on issues that were not in general agreement (e.g., defense issues involving the very survival of the state) had to be made, the cluster party constituting the mainstay of government became subject to factional rivalry and leadership feuds on the one hand and to fusion tendencies on the other. As a result, whichever party was in office underwent a transformation. Equally important stimuli to change were the external shocks of electoral debacles. The value of the purposive-action approach for the understanding of what took place is especially evident in the case of labor in 1988. In the elections of 1981 and 1984, the party adopted similar strategies in similar, highly favorable circumstances. The results were similar too: in both cases it snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. In consequence the party chairman, together with a few of the high-ranking officials, resolved on the eve of the 1988 campaign to effect a fundamental change of direction. To do so they had to overcome considerable resistance, leading to serious intraparty conflict before the elections and a good deal of rancor after them. When we go into the form that the changes took, however, it is the adaptiveorganizational approach, especially in its Kirchheimer-Epstein version, that comes to mind. Shortly after its rise to power the greater ideological differences within the Likud as well as the doctrinaire nature of its largest party-cum-faction, Herut, brought about a series of secessions from the party on the one hand and the acceptance of the Herut line by those members who remained on the other. At the same time Labor, where the ideological differences were less severe and where the most doctrinaire faction was also the smallest one, cohered to become something resembling a European catchall party. What helped was that being an opposition party it was free from the necessity to bind itself to clear positions. Moreover, Mapai had actually disappeared following the resignation of the Old Guard that was tainted by the failures on the eve of the Yom Kippur War. The outcome was that in the elections of 1981 and again in 1984 the showdown became one between an ideological party in government and a catchall party in opposition. The fact that in spite of all its advantages Labor gained disappointing results in both elections suggests that in a competition of this kind it is precisely the catchall parties that are liable to suffer serious losses unless they undergo programmatic change and present concrete stands on the fundamental problems confronting society. This would seem to disprove the Kirchheimer-Epstein thesis. Both predicted that the adoption of catchall tactics would be unidirectional. Once a party

20

Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

became a catchall party, both it and the party system could be expected to stay the course. Such predictions, however, were made during the optimistic 1960s, when the common assumption in the West was of ever-continuing progress towards greater prosperity. This assumption was shaken by the unemployment and stagflation of the 1970s, paralleling what happened in Israel, and in part deriving from the same source, namely, war in the Middle East. What in Israel ushered in a new era proved in Europe to be more of a passing phase; yet the lessons Israel seems to teach may be pertinent elsewhere. Paradoxically, these are that as significant changes occur in the environment, parties must adapt themselves—and those that hesitate to adopt the required changes will suffer at the polling booth; to wit, the very principle Kirchheimer and Epstein claimed, although in contexts different than theirs the results could be the negative of the picture presented in their predictions. The “end of ideology” thesis assumed that in the increasingly amorphous and affluent societies of the West what divides the parties are essentially pragmatics such as leadership and system management, suitably spiced to add zest to the competition. However, where the electorate is caught up with serious problems of contentious nature catchall tactics obfuscate the alternatives and undermine the ability of the voter to exercise his power of choice. Especially when the concentration of the people falls on a few major issues such as that they perceive to affect their lives directly, parties that ignore them are in peril. Hence the full circle gone through by the main Israeli parties. In the mid-1960s the environment permitted them to carry out transformations the goal of which was to shape the preferences of the voters and thereby to maximize electoral gain. Under the changed circumstances of the 1980s, this permission was in effect revoked, and the range of freedom allowed the parties was curtailed. Both periods were characterized by far-reaching party changes, but there was a world of difference between them. In the former period, party leaders acted creatively to produce a market for their merchandise. In the latter period, they found themselves compelled to reconsider their strategies and react to market demand to avoid bankruptcy. If the transformation of the party system of the prestate and early statehood era into the cluster party system resulted from deliberate efforts to bring about environmental change, and if the subsequent transformation of the cluster party system into the party-bloc system resulted from adaptations to environmental change, then the third transformation, treated in part III, was a combination of both. It was rooted in a legislative act aiming at resolving the paralysis caused by the stalemate of the hostile party-blocs: it was, in short, a willed effort to bring about a change in the party system. But the result was a change in the environment that set off unintended contradictory impulses. One was exhibited in the Knesset competition, where the list-based proportional representation format was retained; the other in the separate prime ministerial vote in which a candidateoriented majority system was introduced.

Introduction

21

What happened at the level of the rivalry over the Knesset seats best lends itself to an analysis from the social structure approach. One of the most consistent attributes of the Israeli party system had been the incongruence between the large number of parties that attempted to aggregate the interests of particular socioeconomic and ethnic segments of the Jewish population in virtually all the legislative matches on the one hand, and their lack of electoral effectiveness on the other. Much of the explanation can be found in the centripetal pressures generated by the need to take critical decisions on vital common issues, particularly that of defense. As a result, Jewish ethnic and sectoral parties, with the important exception of the ultraorthodox, have rarely passed the electoral threshold, and those who have made it have won meager results and have been disbanded or absorbed by the larger parties. The redirection by the electoral reform of the main common issues into the channel of the competition for the premiership had consequently the effect of the bursting of the dam, releasing pent-up needs. Ingleheart and others argued that party-system change will arise from the appearance of new needs in the postindustrial society. This, they claimed, explains such new parties as the Greens or women’s liberation movements. But in Israel it was needs anchored in the past that suddenly won a political space they had never enjoyed before. New in this context does not necessarily imply “unprecedented.” In 1996, the first elections held under the electoral reform, and even more in the elections of 1999, new parties in the above-mentioned sense did indeed show up.29 In the latter elections there were a casino party, as women’s rights party, a men’s rights party, and even a party seeking the practice of yoga as a solution for all problems. Not one of them achieved a single seat. What did succeed, and that to the degree that the party system “has undergone dealignment, almost deconstruction,”30 were parties giving expression to the hitherto repressed ethnic, cultural, or narrowly defined social and economic groups. The term communitarian parties31 may help to clarify the needs that came to the fore: the erection of borders from within the mass society through the reintegration of the individual into a subcommunity and the improvement of his welfare by the advancement of its interests. The flip side was that the two larger parties that failed to adapt themselves to the new-old needs lost so heavily that together they entered the millennium with roughly the same number each had mustered in the early 1980s. Not that they remained as they had been before the electoral reform. In point of fact, they underwent significant structural and programmatic change, as well as shifts in style and methods of campaigning. But these were engineered to attain a different objective, reflecting a switch in the primary goal of the parties. Whereas earlier it had been to maximize Knesset vote or to promote party ideology, now it became to gain an absolute majority in what has become in effect a two-party (or three-party in 1999) competition for the premiership. Anthony Downs, a forerunner of what was to become the adaptive-organizational approach, had already

22

Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

pointed out in the 1950s that parties acting on rational grounds would adapt themselves to changes in the number of contenders amounting to a change from a multiparty to a two-party competition through modifications of their style and message. A multiparty competition invites an ideological style, whereas a twoparty competition entails a veering to what Kirchheimer was to call catchall tactics. Notwithstanding the fact that on the face of it such an analysis could contribute little to the understanding of earlier party transformations in Israel, it would seem that Down’s theorizing was on target as concerns the full-scale adoption of the “American style” of political discourse in the personalist contest for the highest office: the commercial drives conducted by self-promoters and teams of professional mass-media consultants who craft messages geared to attract the entire electorate by substituting simplicity for substance and by appealing to the hedonistic drives of the voter. Such a generalized solicitation of individuals would seem to be in contradiction to the particular address to narrow group interests by the communitarian parties. Yet, the relations that developed between them allowed not merely their cohabitation but mutual encouragement because the parties that fielded candidates for the premiership directed their appeal to the very electorate that chose to support communitarian parties in the Knesset competition. To such, the message was not that they must choose one option over the other, but that they should vote for the one interest in the Knesset and for the other in the premiership. In other words, the call was for a split choice epitomizing the struggle for the soul of modern Israel. This, in turn, deprived the larger parties of the ammunition necessary for effective Knesset competition, leaving them with little to offer their own supporters as incentives to prefer them at the parliamentary level. Neither the adaptive-organizational approach nor either of the two others provide however a fully satisfactory explanation of the far-reaching party modifications determined by the candidates for premiership, each with his small cadre of loyalists. Such modifications included the major shift in ideology and strategy enforced in mid-campaign by the Likud’s Netanyahu, which mesmerized not only the public at large but even his own party, contributing greatly to his immediate success in the 1996 campaign but also to his stunning defeat in the following contest of 1999. They also included arrangements that drew small parties into the framework of the Likud on the eve of the 1996 elections and into a new cluster party centering on Labor towards the contest of 1999. In the latter case, despite the timing of the change, coming as it did on the eve of the campaign, clearly this was no mere response to the exigencies of electioneering. What was involved rather was a gambit designed to lead to a fundamental restructuring of the party system as a whole. As Prime Minister Barak defined it some three months after taking office, “a process of renewal such as would lead to the crystallization of a new political body . . . comprised of political movements and entities and of various personalities.”32 The objective in either case was to

Introduction

23

improve party competitiveness. In 1996 it was through the redirection of public attention away from the basic ideological differences over the peace process that had distinguished the party-blocs. In 1999 it was to be achieved by blurring the sociological referents of labor as well as by moderating its positions. Barak actually described the sought-for transformation as “the right way to adapt the party to the new political circumstances.”33 Nevertheless, it is important to note that in both cases it was not an adaptation to a new environment as much as an attempt to shift public attention and thereby to redirect the issues in debate among the parties. Nor was it any external shock that brought about the change. The formation of One Israel, it is true, did take place after the heavy losses incurred by both large parties in the parliamentary race of 1996. But if we bear in mind that these were caused by the inability to satisfy the new-old communitarian needs that were emancipated by the electoral reform, the party change clearly was not intended to resolve the problem as much as to improve Barak’s starting point in the prime ministerial race. Under discussion then are purposive party transformations of the kind that lie outside the continuum presented by the current approaches to party and party-system change. The wheel seemed to have come full circle with the end of the millennium witnessing the type of modifications that initiated the 35 years of accelerated party change that began in the mid-1960s and that was illustrated by the Begin-Seidel anecdote. The shifts of 1996 and 1999 were however short lived, and the entire parlia-presidential format was legislated out of existence fewer than five years after it was put into practice. The reason lies in its unforeseen consequences, not only at the Knesset level but, perhaps more important, also at the prime ministerial one. The direct popular election of the prime minister obviated the key question in previous coalition making, namely, how far was the party that garnered the largest number of votes from ensuring parliamentary majority, and how close to it was its largest rival. Instead, postreform calculations turned on how much would the candidate-elect have to pay potential coalition allies to ensure the requisite majority. In both cases however the point of departure was an inverse relation between the size of the candidate’s party and the price needed to be paid to coalition partners. Although the new electoral setup deprived the smaller parties from their king-making capacity, the precipitous decline of the larger parties raised the price winning candidates had to dole out to put together multimembered coalitions comprised of different and even competing interests. Nor was the cost restricted to the coalition formation stage or to the distribution of portfolios and policy positions alone. The fact that the coalitions were always prone to paralysis on the one hand and to internal combustion on the other compelled the prime ministers to engage in constant bargaining with their members and arbitration among them. Chapter 7 treats the outcome through an analysis of what happened to Netanyahu and to Barak, the two prime ministers whose tenure in office marked the time boundaries of the new system and who suffered, each in

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Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

his turn, humiliating defeats in early elections. The abrogation of the direct election of the prime minister and the return to proportional representation as the only form of national suffrage could be read as a tacit admission that political engineering had come short because of insufficient sensitivity to the environment. Ironically, the repeal of the direct elections for the prime minister seems to suffer from the same problem because it failed to take into account the new configuration of the party system and the changes in voter outlook and behavior brought about by the reform itself. Judging by the lessons of the former attempt to alter the structure of the party system at a single stroke, the results cannot be wholly foreseen, a subject that chapter 8 briefly addresses.

III. Some Methodological Considerations Before going into the specifics of my argument a few comments may be in order. Our subject being the changes occurring in the major Israeli parties, the impact they had on the competition among them, and the effect of this competition on the party system as a whole, the accent will fall on the focal points of electoral campaigns. It is more usual in political science literature to treat electoral campaigns separately, like beads strung on a necklace, but here the attempt will be to show the connection of the campaigns as a single ongoing story. The common thread is the interrelationship of party structures and party ideology, and of electoral strategy and electoral tactics in changing environments. Because the first pair has already been touched on, a word of clarification is called for with regard to the second. Rather than offering a formal definition, it suffices for my purpose simply to describe them while admitting that in practice they may overlap somewhat. Strategy here refers to two issues. One is the identification of the public to be courted and, in a world of limited resources, also the nonwinnable public and those whose vote can be counted on with minimal cost. The other issue is the designing of a “message” directed to the winnable portion of the electorate such as will offer an interpretation of reality that will serve to justify ideas, policies, leaders, and a general set of anticipations for the future. Tactics, on the other hand, refers to the operational means by which the strategic decisions are carried out. This includes when, where, and by whom the message is broadcast, the attendant activities best suited to enhance its persuasiveness, and the way of defending it against the tactics of adversaries. Another question is which main parties are under scrutiny? The choice of subject in any narrative is inevitably highly selective, and the selection of any perspective, as with all definitions, involves a further degree of exclusion. My main protagonists will be the two largest Israel parties in their varying guises; the plot will turn on their shifting identities, their rivalry, and the impact of their competition on the Israeli party system. It has already been mentioned that Israel has known since the preindependence era a relatively large number of smaller

Introduction

25

parties. In coalition making those in the Jewish sector have always played a significant role, and a sign of the neck and neck race for power in the 1980s and 1990s was the growing relevance not only of Jewish religious parties but also of the Arab contenders, although they as yet were mainly partners in a “negative” group trying to block the formation of right-wing coalitions. The “breaching of the dams” by the electoral reform that came into effect in 1996 furthered the number and importance of the Jewish communitarian parties. The postreform governments were considerably dependent on them, and the rift between the ultraorthodox Sephardis and the secular-minded Russian immigrants was an important factor in the landslide Likud defeat of 1999, just as the constant bickering between the ultraorthodox and secular parties in Barak’s coalition hastened its demise. Nevertheless, because the communitarian parties do not compete for the votes of the general electorate but of closed communities, they are not germane to my subject. They are therefore referred to only in the context of their role in the strategic and tactical calculations of Labor and the Likud, or when their performance has a bearing on the larger competitors, as in the cases mentioned earlier. Another ground justifying the relative inattention to the smaller parties is to render this work accessible to the nonspecialist in Israeli affairs. The number of Hebrew names and personages, as well as of events and the details of socioeconomic, defense, and other issues have therefore been minimized. Likewise, no attempt is made to analyze the nature of Israel as an evolving state or the nature of its political elites, nor is any treatment of the roots of the party system or of any specific electoral results included. On all these there exists a plethora of studies, surprising in the instance of so small a country, and to them there is little the present work can add. But an abstraction cannot go beyond a certain limit. The opening section of chapter 2 offers a sketch of the historical milieu, which may help to orient the nonspecialist in the broad outlines of the original party system the deviations from which are the theme of this book. In the chapters that follow only such details are mentioned as are necessary for following the strategic calculations of the chief contestants, and this too only as they were understood by them. The hope is that such a minimalist approach may cast the central thesis in greater relief. For this purpose I end each part of the book with a short summary placing the specific variety of the party-system discussed in the context of the general theory. The work will end by suggesting some parallels to party and party-system change in other countries and times. If the first section of the next chapter serves as a prologue, this final chapter constitutes a short epilogue putting the main strands of the thesis in a comparative geographical and temporal setting.

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Part I

THE CLUSTER PARTY SYSTEM

Chapter 2

THE FORMATION OF THE CLUSTER PARTIES

I. Introduction: The First Israeli Party System More than a century and a half ago the famous historian and man of letters, Thomas Carlyle, warned against our being bemused by the mass of information that, especially in times of rapid change, leads us to focus attention on events separately, as though they were complete, self-contained stories. As he put it, at time when all things seem to “resolve themselves into chaos,” one is liable to forget that they proceed “from Eternity, onwards to Eternity.” His protagonist, Teufelsdrock, Professor of “Things in General” at the University of Weissnichtwo (“Idon’t-know-where,” also the literal meaning of “Utopia”), lives therefore in the “pinnacle” of the tallest building on the peak of the hill overlooking the city below. From there he can observe the “life circulation” in the busy city streets, viewing it as a “living flood of all qualities and ages” rather than as an aggregation of individuals. Thereby he merits his title. As Carlyle wrote elsewhere, the art of the social commentator is first and foremost that of knowing what to forget, thereby rendering clearer the stream of contexts along which we are borne.1 Looking back from the pinnacle of the millennium at the tortuous development of the Israeli party system one cannot but be aware of the wide discrepancy between the short-lived eddies, with all the momentous significance attached to them at the time, and the broad continuous stream within which they are contained. In the 80 or so years of flow starting from about 30 years before the country achieved independence (1948) one can point to one clear change of direction: that of 1977. It was then that the upsetting of the government put an end to the unbroken era of Labor domination, to be replaced by a bipolar system in which the main contest is waged between the two almost equal blocs of the left and the right. Yet from the pinnacle one can also discern that the significance of 1977 lies in its being the point where quantity became quality; the change in the trajectory of development itself really began, barely noticed then or since, some twelve years earlier, in an election that resulted in what was widely regarded as a defeat of the opposition and a confirmation of Labor dominance. 28

The Formation of the Cluster Parties

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The aim of this part is to explain and justify this claim, focusing on and evaluating the events of the months preceding the 1965 election, the type of campaign that led up to it, and the new trends that these started. To appreciate what happened, however, a brief incursion into the conditions that had obtained previously is necessary. For those versed in the history of Israel, I offer well-trodden ground. The intention is not to bring to light new material or to present an interpretation of my own. Rather, I content myself with a bare outline, limited to indicating the political realities the leaders of the Israeli right-wing opposition saw themselves as facing and the kind of considerations they had in mind when they undertook to change them. The vast literature that has accumulated on these realities and on how they came into being confronts this account with a multiple danger. To do justice to a subject that has been thoroughly researched would open it to the charge of being too long and detailed. The repetition of an oft-told story would open it to the charge of being too short and skimpy. Whichever line is followed, the choice remains highly selective and could imply agreement or disagreement with theses offered variously in the literature. To sidetrack the dilemma as far as possible, I restrict my comments to some of the prominent characteristics of the Israeli party system of the time, avoiding issues in debate among scholars. Readers familiar with the Israeli background may therefore skip the rest of this section. Another problem is the familiar one that plagues every attempt to account for a historical moment by what preceded it, namely, where to begin. What proceeds inevitably follows the arbitrary “no rule” of trying to draw lines in water. Nevertheless, a starting point of sorts can be seen in the rise of political Zionism at the end of the nineteenth century as an answer to novel problems raised by the historical processes by which the modern state system of Europe was taking shape. The granting of legal citizenship in many states, coupled with cultural and political boundary-setting processes, forced Jews to determine their own boundaries and to define their identity in relation to their environments. At the same time, the rise of national and racial, as distinct from religious, anti-Semitism, placed the new issues firmly in the context of the accumulating history of persecution. The founding of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in 1897 was an expression of the consensus among those subscribing to the doctrine over the need to promote, coordinate, and facilitate the activities required for the formation of a future society in the historical homeland. There was, however, no identity of views with regard to its nature or the methods by which it should be fleshed out. This was manifested in the formation of several Jewish parties in Europe during the first two decades of the twentieth century, each with its own vision of the future Jewish state and each aiming to direct immigration and create organizational structures that would lead to the realization of its dreams. The divisions spilled over to the Yishuv, the prestate Jewish community in Palestine, both as a result of the activities of the European-based parties and of

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Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

the establishing of new ones in Palestine itself. In either case the results were cumulative with the establishment of one party precipitating others representing opposing sides of the same cleavage. With few exceptions the names of the parties to be mentioned have long been out of use, but the parties themselves under different names continued to play a role and the process by which they came into being is illuminating. The appearance of labor parties (Poalei Zion, which later split into a more moderate and a Marxist party entitled Poalei Zion Left, and the Young Poel in Palestine) was countered by the middle-class General Zionists, and later (1919) by a Communist party in the Yishuv. The formation of a moderate religious Zionist party (the Mizrahi) prompted the founding of an ultraorthodox non-Zionist one (Agudat Israel); the activities of Eastern European Jews encouraged the veteran Sephardi population in Palestine to organize itself in a party of its own. By the beginning of the third decade of the twentieth century, one can discern a party system reflecting four basic cleavages: over the role of religion, among the social classes, among the ethnic groups, and between the Zionist majority and the non-Zionist minority. Each of these in turn had its subgroups, yielding a multipolar system characterized by a large spectrum of parties. The consequences of this evolution were three traits that characterized the prestate parties and were bequeathed to the Israeli party system as a whole. First, the prominence and importance of the parties. In the absence of a central government to carry out and guide the project of building up the Yishuv, it fell to the parties to undertake the variety of activities involved. To a large extent they can be described as transplanting the patterns of action typical of Diaspora communities that organized voluntarily to supply their own essential services. The difference, of course, was that Jewish Diaspora communities sought to preserve their long-established identity and traditions and hence their organization served a centripetal function. In contrast, party activity in Palestine involved the futureoriented exercise of creating a new society with new patterns of living. Far from forming the kernel of a united society these activities issued in a federation of societies, each pursuing its own party’s vision. Although extrapolitical activity is common to parties elsewhere, especially among socialists, the extent of party activity in the Yishuv was unprecedented. The activity of the Zionist parties actually began with the recruitment and training abroad of future settlers, while all parties supplied through subsidiary agencies services such as housing, banking, health, and education in Palestine itself. The flip side of this remarkable importance of the parties was the equally remarkable percentage of party membership. After the birth of the state of Israel many of the functions were taken over in toto (e.g., defense) or in part (e.g., health, education) by the government, so that new immigrants became less dependent on the party services. More still, the parties confronted increasing free-market competition, as for example the development of the nonparty media. Nevertheless, the spheres of party activity remained exceptionally wide, and throughout the 1950s party membership remained

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unmatched in any democratic country, hovering around a quarter of the eligible electorate.2 All this throws light on the second trait: the intensity of the rivalry among the parties. The perception of the Yishuv enterprise as unfolding on virgin ground where no established social, political, and economic patterns existed3 (the perception was actually false—not to mention the non-Jewish population in the country, the pre-Zionist communities had their own patterns), invested party activity with deep significance. Every first-time undertaking determined the constraints and direction of all future activities. Because politics permeated such wide spheres and because the parties differed both in their weltanschauungen and their visions of the future state, disputes ranged over wide areas and were held with passion. The persistence of fervid ideologies after 1948 owed much to the fact that Israel’s independence did not finalize the phase of pattern establishing but accelerated it. The first step taken by the new state was to abolish all restrictions on Jewish immigration into Palestine, an issue that had been at the center of the disputes not only between the Yishuv and Arab inhabitants but also between the Yishuv and British authorities. The Proclamation of Independence affirmed that the country would be “open to the immigration of Jews from all countries of their dispersion,” and in 1950 the Knesset passed the Law of Return, stipulating that Jewish immigrants would receive full citizenship immediately on arrival. By the end of the third year of independence the Jewish population was more than twice what it had been before 1948. This meant that the self-perceived role of the parties as avant gardes continued unabated. The system of proportional representation preserved the ideological intensity of party competition so that electoral campaigns were conducted with great acerbity, focusing on questions of principle and the orientation of the state. By way of contrast, the third trait was the centripetal force set in motion by the central position held by labor and the far-reaching pragmatic cooperation it established with most of the Zionist parties. The agreement on the basic goals of solving the Jewish problem by establishing colonies in Palestine and creating a Jewish state within it was inherent in the very nature of WZO from its inception. But in Europe this cooperation was restricted essentially to the leadership level. It was precisely in the Yishuv, where the differences over the methods of colonizing and the nature of the resulting society shaped everyday life, that collaboration percolated down to affect the regular activities of the settlers. The reason was that, unlike WZO where the majority belonged to the middle-class General Zionists, dominance in Palestine was achieved by a Labor party which, however, never enjoyed a clear majority. The term domination has aroused some debate, especially with regard to Israel.4 Here we may suffice with the description of a dominant party as one that wins “a larger number of seats than its opponents,” holds “a position within the

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Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

party system that enables it to bargain effectively with other, smaller parties in the formation of governments,” succeeds in staying “at the core of a nation’s government over a substantial period of time,” and manages as a result to carry out its public policy agenda.5 The dominant position of labor in this sense had its roots in the very vulnerability of the Jewish workers in Palestine during the early years of the century. Having neither property nor adequate financial means, they were dependent on manual pursuits. But in the limited market for workmen, the cheaper and plentiful Arab competition had the advantage. They therefore had to resort to collective subterfuges such as the contractor gangs, urban and rural cooperative entrepreneurship, and the kibbutz. The problem was that these too required funding, which could only come from Zionists donors abroad. To obtain this, the unity and coordination of the applicants was vital. In light of the middleclass majority in WZO, it was equally vital that their unity should not smack of class militantism. The Histadrut, founded in 1920, served admirably in both respects. As a joint organization of the working-class parties, it served as an umbrella covering their collective economic frameworks and uniting the Labor exchange, and the health, housing, and communal services, which had hitherto been supplied separately. Created by exclusively Jewish parties, it enhanced Jewish economic autonomy in contrast to private owners of the means of production with their dependence on Arab labor. Relying as it did on the cooperation of different enterprises and sectors, it was more efficient and dynamic than private producers competing with one another. Furthermore, as a large-scale collective entrepreneur, supplier of services, and representative of workers it provided an effective framework for the absorption of immigrants to the new land. Unlike the European forms of working-class mobilization, the Histadrut was not the origin of the labor parties but created them, thus serving as “the executive arm of a clientelistic party machine.”6 Rather than acting primarily as an instrument of bargaining with private capitalists, it concentrated its efforts on economic collectivism and settlement efforts. Hence it did not cause social polarization, but spearheaded the new society-in-the-making and served as a means of bringing about the pragmatic cooperation of its components. The outcome had obvious political implications, especially in the context of the weak alternatives offered by fragmented rival parties, which built up their Yishuv organizations later than Labor and lacked comparable economic bases. Particularly telling was the agreement between the Histadrut and the Mizrahi (later also Agudat Israel), according to which the religious workers would accept the Histadrut’s authority even without formally joining it. This formed the basis for what was later referred to as “the historical pact” between Labor and religious Zionism. The political implications became even clearer when the two veteran and most important Labor parties merged in 1930 to form Mapai, and the new party, while ostensibly remaining socialist, moved decisively toward the center of the left-right divide. By sloughing off the narrow class perspectives and

The Formation of the Cluster Parties

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extending the appeal to the entire electorate, it sought to bridge the gap between the earlier class rhetoric and the pragmatic realities that came to characterize the Yishuv. In the oft-quoted phrase of the party leader, David Ben-Gurion, the party aimed to transform itself “from a [representative of a] class to a [representative of a] nation,” thereby garnering the following year some 40 percent of the ballots for the Yishuv Council of Electors and acquiring a pivotal position as a center of a coalition that included parties of all the shades. From the mid-1920s, most of the new immigrants were of the middle class, and economic conditions became more favorable for the development of the private market. In spite of this, Mapai’s successful adaptation enabled it to retain its suprasectional appeal and its position as the backbone of every government coalition up to the birth of the state, and thereafter for almost 30 years. That Ben-Gurion began his career as the secretary general of the Histadrut and that in 1935 he was nominated chairman of the WZO Executive is noteworthy. He thus became the recognized leader of the Yishuv and, with independence, the first prime minister of Israel. The persistence over long stretches of time of a party’s electoral superiority and governmental status, especially in a rapidly changing society such as that of the Yishuv and the state of Israel, is explicable only by taking into consideration “the interactive effect of the ideological-cultural and the political-institutional levels of dominance.”7 Thus Mapai’s central position was both cause and effect of the fact that regardless of party affiliations the core values underlying its mindset became the common denominator of large sections of the public, namely, the holding of collective activity to be the basis for Zionist pioneering, belief in stepby-step accumulation of wealth as the fountainhead of national power and the upholding of voluntarism and egalitarianism. At the same time, the Mapai ideology was sufficiently broad to allow adaptation to the shifting realities brought about by Zionist efforts, thereby perpetuating these values. The clearest case of such ideological adaptation is the espousing of the doctrine of “Mamlachtiut” (statism)8 in the early postindependence era. This meant that the state took over the direction of the pioneering efforts while transferring to its apparatus the role of supplying many of the services hitherto provided by voluntary party agencies. To all appearances, this implied the weakening of the parties, most notably of Mapai itself, and the positioning of the nation above particular interests. The party however continued to dominate the Histadrut and thereby the economic enterprises linked to it, not to mention several important services the latter retained (e.g., it kept its own clinics and hospitals in parallel with those inherited by the state from the British mandate). As the main force in government and in the bureaucracy, Mapai also profited from the regulatory powers it was now put in charge of and from the dependence of private as well as collective enterprises on subsidies. More still, the values that enabled it to fulfill so important a role in the pioneering project were henceforth borne by the state. Most of the immigrants during the early years of statehood lacked any Zionist

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Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

training, and a large proportion had backgrounds that did not encourage socialist inculcation. Identification with the state thus became the conduit for value education and the alignment of such constituencies with Mapai, although with less commitment to its principles. Similar effects derived from the dependence on the bureaucracy led by the party. The latter aspect was further fostered by the growth of urban party machines linking the party as a source of patronage with the population in general, and the new immigrants in particular. Thus, statism actually brought about the further growth rather than the reduction of the party apparatus. It is in this context that the unique position of the main contender for power, later named Herut, can be appreciated. As the only party to challenge Mapai’s dominance in all its dimensions—ideological, organizational, as well as the electoral—it could claim with some justification to be “the single party that has served the nation as an Opposition.”9 In fact, when founded by Vladimir (Zeev) Jabotinsky (1925) it was named the Revisionist Party to signify a total rejection of Labor’s values and modus operandi. As a successor who led the party across the divide between the Yishuv and the state and who remained its leader for the subsequent 30 years, Begin adapted the ideology to the postindependence circumstances, but the basic values remained unchanged. Whereas the philosophy of Labor wrestled with the inherent tensions between national particularism and socialist universalism, revisionism stood for exclusive Jewish ethnonationalism, defining the vision of Jewish independence as the sole object worthy of loyalty, the “single banner” of Zionism. Accordingly, its vision of national independence was defined as the doctrine of Monism; it rejected partial loyalties and denounced socialism as “shaatnez,” unholy mixtures of yarns forbidden for Jews. Where labor stressed the gradual build up of political and economic power in Palestine, the Revisionists placed the emphasis on martial force and offered an apocalyptic vision of the achievement of statehood summarized by the slogan “in blood and fire Judea fell; in blood and fire it will rise again.” In contrast to the ideals of collective action and egalitarianism, it proffered the doctrine of heroic action, national and individual pride (hadar, meaning “glory”), discipline, and hierarchical leadership. But the tenet that came to characterize the Revisionists and later Herut more than any other was the unyielding demand for the territorial integrity of the motherland (“shlemut Ha’moledet,” literally, the “wholeness” of the homeland). According to this doctrine, the spiritual and territorial dimensions of national life are inseparable, each being anchored in the other. The liberation of the historical homeland was therefore the condition for national independence, and just as compromise over this goal was ruled out so was compromise over the other. “In things eternal” wrote Jabotinsky, “the highest expression of Monism is monotheism. In things secular, the highest expression of the Jew’s monism is ‘Palestine [as] a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan.’ Individuals and classes are nothing but instruments of . . . the one and only interest of the great work of state-building.”10

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With such positions the party challenged Mapai in the voting booth, winning in 1931 23 percent in the elections for the Yishuv Council of Electors and in the same year 21 percent in the elections for the Zionist Congress. This made the Revisionists the second largest party in both forums, and the challenge to Mapai was all the greater because with the exception of Mapai itself, it was the only suprasectional party, appealing across the cleavages both within the Yishuv and the Zionist movement abroad. This in turn allowed it to establish in 1933 the National Workers’ Federation as a nonsocialist trade union movement geared to break the Histadrut’s hold on Jewish wage earners in Palestine. The same year witnessed, however, the beginning of a decline in Revisionist fortunes. There were two reasons for this: the rise of Hitler and the assassination of a prominent labor leader, Chaim Arlosorov, in Palestine itself. The former brought about the closing of the ranks both within the Zionist movement and the Yishuv. The bitterness of the Revisionist opposition now seemed out of place, whereas the glorification of violence and the cult of heroic sacrifice lost much of their romantic luster (Ben-Gurion referred to Jabotinsky as “Vladimir-Hitler”).11 The murder of Arlosorov, which was widely attributed to the Revisionists, seemed to offer further grounds for the accusation that thugs who favored violence as a tool against foreigners were equally capable of using it against their own nationals. The Revisionists, for their part, not only denied the allegation, but proclaimed it to be a politically motivated blood libel demonstrating Labor’s antidemocratic tendencies. Thereafter, the acerbity between the two sides intensified to the degree that when the dominance of Mapai became entrenched in 1935, the Revisionists left WZO altogether to establish the rival New Zionist Organization. This had serious consequences because they not only lost the ability to influence Zionist politics but also were denied access to the resources vital for the efforts in Palestine itself. Moreover, this enabled Mapai to delegitimate the party as beyond the pale of both Zionist and Yishuv politics. Because WZO and the Yishuv institutions were voluntary bodies, there was no way of compelling the Revisionists to accept their authority. What Mapai could do, however, was to present them as an irresponsible group whose actions jeopardized the carrying out of the Zionist enterprise. In 1937 the Revisionists established Etzel (National Military Organization) as an underground organization, independent of the Yishuv elected institutions that had the Hagana (self-defense organization) under their command. When Etzel began to launch guerrilla operations against the Arabs and subsequently against the British mandate authorities, Mapai’s accusations became more acute. The relationships between the rival underground movements reached their nadir after the death of Jabotinsky in 1940. Like Ben-Gurion, he had opted to desist from operations against the British so as not to foil the war efforts. Following his death, a group of Etzel members, under the leadership of Avraham Stern, seceded to form Lehi (Fighters for Israel’s Freedom), which resumed the struggle

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Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

against the Mandate authorities. The degree of disapproval this evoked can be estimated by the “saison,” the code name given to the measures applied toward the end of the war by the Hagana against Etzel and Lehi, which included informing the British of the names of their fighters and their hideouts. This ran against the 2,000-year-old principle that no Jew may ever betray a fellow Jew to gentile authorities, and it is instructive that some 50 years later prime minister Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish zealot who applied the ancient Hallacha (oral religious law) sentence against the “Mossair” (one who betrays Jews to gentiles). Nevertheless, the situation that brought the two camps to the brink of civil war came paradoxically only after the declaration of independence and the integration of the militias within the framework of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). The story of the Altalena, the weapon the Israeli Defence Force ship brought by Etzel during a temporary cease-fire in Israel’s war of independence, is well known, and the rights and wrongs are still disputed. Suffice it, therefore, to mention that when Etzel soldiers sought to unload the weapons against government orders, firing broke out, the ship was sunk, and 14 lost their lives. Sovereignty did however bring about an important change in the pattern of relations between the adversaries. Etzel reconstituted itself into a political party named Herut and accepted the authority of the state. Although the ideology itself was not affected, the manner of its pursuit was bound to shift in accordance with the rules of the game of a parliamentary democracy. This inevitably meant a degree of moderation both in behavior and in tone. Mapai for its part could no longer deny the legitimacy of Herut’s quest for power, nor could it withhold from its supporters such privileges that were due to all citizens. Still, the basic equations changed but little. Herut remained the only Zionist party to offer a vision of the total replacing of Mapai as well as the value system it stood for. And to stigmatize Herut Mapai could exploit its control of the state apparatus (Herut members were denied access to the highest bureaucratic and military positions), its prestige as the main agent of independence, and the charisma of Ben-Gurion (who absented himself whenever Begin was due to speak in the Knesset). The very harping on the readiness to cooperate with any of the parties except Herut and the Communists reduced Herut to the level of a small ineffectual party outside the Zionist consensus. Thus the disciples of Jabotinsky faced a major predicament. Not only did their party have to compete with an entrenched dominant party, but as a prior condition it had to acquire legitimacy. The achievement of both goals necessitated a change in the fundamentals of the party system developed since the early days of the organized Yishuv.

II. Party Clustering on the Right, 1955–1965 That the party transformations that led to the leveling of the ground between the center-right opposition and Mapai only took place in the mid-1960s does not

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attest to Herut’s acquiescence with its pariah status. Indeed, what happened cannot be appreciated without reference to its previous attempts to break out of its isolation. Party clustering was a hybrid strategy, arrived at by a learning process in which alternatives that proved insufficient were not discarded but cumulatively added to each other. To gain acceptability, excluded parties have recourse to several possible modes of action.12 At the one extreme, they may adopt a long-term strategy of concentrating their attention on new voters (shifting populations and the young) who have not yet been intensely exposed to socialization by the dominant forces. The party can offer these an alternative unblemished by any complicity with the government or those who have benefited from its policies. In an immigrant society such as Israel this approach had a special appeal because such new elements were numerous and discontent was bound to grow. At the other extreme, farreaching compromises over the excluded party’s “style” and principles could blur its distinctiveness, thereby enabling it to compete for the votes of the mainstream electorate as an undefiled group offering fresh starts. This could be reinforced by joining forces with more “respectable” opposition parties. Both strategies, however, were fraught with problems. There was no guarantee that failures in government system-management would, after years of its association with extremism and irresponsibility, bring the electorate to accept a party such as Herut as a credible alternative. There was also the possibility of a catch-22 predicament: as an antiestablishment party Herut could perhaps gain the support of those who regarded party choice as a method of protest, but this could only strengthen the perception of a vote for it as wasted, and it would therefore deter any mainstream electorate that sought “to make a difference.” A variation on the same theme could apply to immigrants who flocked to the country immediately following independence. Their primary need was to be integrated into society and to gain access to resources requisite to improve their standard of living and socioeconomic status. A vote for Herut could offer emotional and symbolic benefits, but it could not deliver any concrete goods. Such considerations were indeed manifested in the elections of the early 1950s. In 1949 Herut polled 11.5 percent of the electorate and garnered 14 seats in the 120-member Knesset. In 1951 its numbers fell to 6.6 percent and eight MKs. No systematic research on these or the following elections is available, but the figures are indicative. In absolute numbers Herut fell only slightly (by 3,131 votes). What accounted for the steepness of its decline was the reduction of its percentage of the vote due to the swelling of the electorate. In brief: it failed to attract the new immigrants. These abysmal results were corrected in the elections of 1955, where the party won 12.6 percent of the vote and 15 Knesset seats. Bearing in mind the more than 18 percent rise of the quota for Knesset member, this clearly suggests that the party had gained substantial number of votes from new immigrants, who felt they were being handed a raw deal. The trend was especially noticeable in

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the “development towns” founded after independence and populated mainly by newcomers of “Oriental” decent. At the flip side, in such population concentrations Mapai suffered a persistent though gradual decline.13 And yet, the figures did not foretell an immediate panacea but at best a slow rise in the number of malcontents. No less important, the trend was not as prominent in the larger and more affluent cities. This could suggest that the effective accommodation of social and economic demands could lead many new immigrants to buy into the political system. Finally, despite the fact that a large number of Herut voters were now new immigrants of Asian and African origin, most of the party officers and Knesset representatives were former Etzel members and supporters, and this left few avenues of advancement for the new immigrants. As for the alternative of foregoing ideological faithfulness for electoral gain, not only was the sacrifice of cherished beliefs unthinkable, but also it would probably have been unprofitable in the long run because the loss of disappointed Herut stalwarts could spell electoral disaster. Even if the party merged with another, this would end in a loss of power and prestige of leaders who had given up their electoral “dowry.” More still, the possibility of signaling a readiness to enter Mapai-led coalitions had already been raised in the party’s 1951 and 1954 conventions by elements in opposition to the party top leadership.14 Having been defeated by Begin and his supporters, it was unthinkable for the victors to follow the same path. True, this was not an either-or question. In 1948 Herut had already accepted the principles of democracy and the supremacy of the law. In part, this was animated by the fear that Mapai would turn the country into what Fareed Zakaria recently called “illiberal democracy,”15 namely where elections are held but in their effort to reward their supporters and penalize oppositions, rulers do not honor their citizen’s civil rights. In such a case, Herut itself would become the main victim. Nevertheless, for a party that had its origination in the pre–World War II extreme European right16 this was a major ideological shift, and it had met a good deal of internal dissent. It was, however, clearly insufficient to rehabilitate the party or to stop its portrayal by Mapai as a group of fanatics endangering the system. All this rendered a third option all the more inviting. In Shakespeare’s play, Cassius, leader of the conspiracy against Julius Caesar, had to wrestle with a major problem. The once-great general was associated with the glory of the empire by a public that followed him “like a god.” Cassius and his fellow conspirators were alarmed by the danger this posed to the republic but were generally considered to be outside the mainstream of society and were widely ignored by it. Cassius himself was considered to be, in Caesar’s terms, “a lean and hungry man” who “thinks too much.” How, then, could they ensure the degree of popular support necessary to maintain the sacrosanct principles of the republic once Caesar was removed? The solution was based on a fundamental assumption as to the way most people decide when confronting complex situations. They do not engage in a rational assessment of alternatives. Rather,

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they look for cues in the behavior of members of the community who are widely accepted as being wise and reliable. According to one of the conspirators, the enlisting of a reputable person such as Cicero is vital because “. . . his silver hairs will purchase us a good opinion, and buy men’s voices to commend our deeds: it shall be said his judgment rul’d our hands; our youths and wildness shall no whit appear, but all be buried in his gravity.” Begin and Herut are in no way to be compared to Cassius and his fellow conspirators, save that the ploy that the latter considered is one of the few open to pariah oppositions hampered by the general acceptability of their rivals and by their own image as dangerous zealots. In similar circumstances Begin sought to adopt the same tactic. His problem was that such a scheme was contingent on the availability of a widely respected party that would be prepared to tie its destiny with that of Herut. No less troubling, the assumption that such a party would simply accept Herut’s credo was clearly unrealistic. What could a party such as Herut offer, tangibly or ideologically, to entice such a prospective partner, and how could such an offer be minimized to forestall the sense among Herut supporters that the party had in fact compromised its identity and beliefs? The answer to the first question was simple enough. If the communitarian parties, the traditional allies of Mapai, and the parties of the left were discounted, the only option left was that of the General Zionists. There could be no question of its efficacy in conferring legitimacy on Herut seeing that it was a long-established, moderate, centrist party, aggregating the interests of the educated Ashkenazi whitecollar electorate. Furthermore, it was a member of the Histadrut and periodically also a partner in Mapai-led government coalitions. Little wonder then that following the poor performance of Herut in 1951 the idea of a merger with it became current in party circles. Problems of the price on the other hand explain why the overture was delayed until after the following elections, and probably also the unusual manner in which it was broached. In mid-December 1955, Begin announced in the Herut Party Center that he had just learned that the General Zionists were about to orchestrate a merger with Herut. It should not be they who have the credit of blazing a new path, he argued; they could then claim the merit for the successes accruing from partnership with a “more dynamic and capable party like ours.”17 He therefore suggested that Herut should preempt the move and invite the General Zionists to start such a dialogue. The invitation was indeed issued three days later, on December 19, but only after the surprised General Zionists had learned via the press of their alleged courtship of Herut and of the latter’s impending letter. The reply of Peretz Bernstein, president of the General Zionist Organization, duly expressed his surprise, but the invitation itself was accepted and discussions between the parties started soon after. One may safely assume that the reason Herut did not approach the General Zionists during its electoral slump but only after its recovery was that Begin

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would not conduct merger negotiations from a position of weakness. In addition, the 1951 elections had seen the General Zionists at the peak of their strength. Presumably the alarm of its veteran middle-class European elements at the influx of Oriental immigrants had caused the swelling of the party to 20 MKs, and under such conditions it would have no incentive to enter negotiations of any kind with Herut. But in 1955 the General Zionists lost so heavily that the party was reduced to 13 MKs, less than the Herut numbers. It was as if the Herut of 1951 and the General Zionists of 1955 had traded places, for it was precisely the inability to gain support among the population into which Herut had infiltrated by 1955 that so reduced the percentage of General Zionist support. Whereas Begin sought to discard the image of Herut as the party of malcontents, the General Zionists direly needed an access into the new Oriental immigrant communities. The upshot was that Herut was no longer in an numerically inferior position and also that it had much to offer. This, however, hardly explains the untruth with which Begin chose to launch the overture. My own attempt to question some of his associates almost twenty-five years later yielded little beyond their belief that what lay behind this was a strategy of the leader “who knew what is best.” It is logical to assume that Begin feared that should Herut be perceived as the originator, a corrosive loss of faith would set in among those who cast their vote for it because of what it represented, a feeling that the party was preparing to offer ideological compromises and a shift in its antisystem position. If this is correct, then the participation of the General Zionists in the outgoing government coalition made it all the more important to present them as the interested party. The readiness of the General Zionists not to take Begin to task, on the other hand, derived in all likelihood from their appreciation of their own needs and interpretation of those of Begin’s. The recognition that changes in the composition of the electorate demanded action meant that Herut’s image, if sufficiently modified, could be advantageous. There was also an understanding that Begin had to maintain his position of strength within his party and win widespread support for his moves, particularly if his turning to the General Zionists involved substantial compromises. Interestingly, then, the General Zionists, knowing the truth that Begin withheld from his party, had reached exactly those conclusions that he tried to prevent his own followers from reaching. On top of all this, there were many General Zionists who felt that uniting all those who did not belong to the Labor parties was essential to prevent socialist solutions for the growing unemployment and economic straits.18 Such a reading explains also why, despite the mutual interest, negotiations between the two parties came to naught. In fact, they failed twice. The first round continued until the summer of 1956, centering on the effort to formulate principles acceptable to both parties. The second began early in 1958 and focused on attempts to establish a common organization. In the discussions of 1956, the

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General Zionists discovered that their assumption of Herut’s readiness to arrive at a far-reaching ideological compromise was false, especially when it came to the issue of the state’s borders. It was indeed the inability to arrive at a compromise on this issue that Begin singled out when he explained the failure of the negotiations to the Herut Party Center. In 1958 General Zionist leaders invited Herut to resume negotiations. This time their premise seemed to be that an agreement on an organizational merger would facilitate an ideological accommodation. Their suggestions included a General Zionist as head of a common electoral list, the General Zionist newspaper becoming the party newspaper, and the lodging of the party headquarters in that of the General Zionists. When the Herut Party Center refused even to discuss such proposals, negotiations were abandoned and it seemed that all grounds for possible accommodation had been exhausted. What in the years to come was not exhausted but even strengthened was the self-interest that propelled the two parties to unite. In the 1959 elections, Herut increased its percentage of the vote from 12.6 percent to 13.5 percent. This could be interpreted as a favorable indication of growing popularity. But the party had hoped that the elections would serve as a referendum on the Mapai government’s ignominious retreat from the entire Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, conquered three years earlier in the Sinai campaign. The elections would equally be interpreted as a test of the popular acceptance of Herut’s central belief that the country’s borders ought to be extended by military means. From this perspective Mapai’s rise from 32.2 percent to 38.2 percent of the vote was as serious as the slightness of the Herut gain, if not worse, suggesting that ideologically the party had reached its apogee and could hope for little further growth. Such a conclusion was reinforced in the elections of 1961. Although these were held less than halfway through the four-year Knesset term because of a major rift within Mapai, Herut garnered no more than an additional 0.3 percent of the vote, which meant no increase whatever in the number of its MKs. Begin’s conclusions are evident from the letter he sent to the heads of the Liberal Party (the amalgamation formed prior to the elections between the General Zionist and the smaller Progressive Party), inviting them to take up once more the negotiations for a united party. “Between the Herut movement and the Liberal party there are serious differences, both in historical traditions and in principles,” he wrote. “It serves no purpose to ignore these differences, nor is there any need to do so . . . but overriding them is the imperative of the nation and of the state to form an alternative to the ruling party . . . through the formation of a candidate list common to both parties.”19 Noteworthy was not only the admittance that Herut by itself was incapable of providing an alternative, but an implied strategic shift. Rather than attempting again to arrive at a common program or party structure, the two parties should admit their differences, retain their separate identities, and negotiate only what was minimally required to present a common front against the Mapai foe.

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On the face of it, Begin’s appeal was timely. True, in 1961 the Liberals had gained electorally 2.8 percent, most of what Mapai had lost (3.5 percent). From fourteen MKs (nine General Zionists, eight Progressive), the Liberal Knesset representation now rose to seventeen, exactly the same number as Herut. However, in the two previous elections the General Zionists had suffered disastrous defeats, falling in all from 16.2 percent to a mere 6.2 percent of the general vote, and owing to the manner in which the slates on the Liberal Knesset candidate list were apportioned they failed to increase their representation beyond the eight seats they had commanded prior to 1961. Moreover, the Liberal gains could hardly be estimated as permanent, seeing that they reflected the penalty meted to Mapai by the voters for its internal feuds rather than any augmentation of the Liberal appeal. And yet the Liberals were hopeful of joining the new Mapai-led government coalition, not to mention the fact that as a prior condition to unifying with the Progressives the General Zionists had undertaken not to revive the negotiations with Herut.20 Consequently, the party rejected the invitation out-of-hand and the implications of the strategic shift hinted at in Begin’s letter were ignored. Herut’s efforts were renewed when at the seventh party convention in January 1963 Begin publicly called for the formation of a Herut-Liberal bloc. Although the offer was again declined, Liberal unanimity frayed at the edges and a group of former General Zionist leaders began to hold secret contacts with Herut. What was to develop into an increasingly divisive intraparty debate is attributable to two factors. By early 1963 it became clear that not only was the party excluded from the current government but also that its chances of joining future Mapai-led coalitions were slim. Paradoxically, the root of the matter lay in the very success of the Liberals. Mapai preferred to bring into its coalition smaller parties whose share in government positions was less costly, for whom fewer compromises needed to be offered, and who were too weak to topple the government by bolting. The lesson was drawn by Liberals who favored joining Herut to constitute a more viable alternative but also by those who rejected such a move. As one of the latter argued, a small party “may push itself into any government coalition,” whereas a larger party has no such chance; hence to join Herut would be to condemn the party forever to barren existence in the opposition.21 The second factor was the move initiated by Begin during the same convention to form a Herut faction within the Histadrut. Far from reflecting a submission to Mapai’s domination of the trade union movement, this would challenge it from within. But more immediately it challenged the Liberals. As one of their Histadrut leaders put it, “in the Histadrut elections this would deprive the Liberals of the power [accruing from] being the only non-socialist faction.”22 Such a threat was presumably in Begin’s mind when he offered the Liberals the alternative: “if we had a worker’s faction, and were able to draw up a common

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list [with the Liberals] . . . this would have a tremendous impact both outside and within.”23 The Herut-Histadrut faction (the Blue-White faction) held its first convention in mid-March 1964. By then however a new element began to affect calculations in both parties. The Mapai feud had not ended with the premature elections of 1961. In June 1963 Ben-Gurion resigned from what was to be his last premiership, ostensibly for personal reasons. Between him and his successor, Levi Eshkol, growing tensions developed, with each rallying widening circles of party members in his support. Entire party branches began to take sides, and toward the elections of 1965 a new Labor opposition party (Rafi) was founded by “the old man” and popular figures like Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres who joined him in seceding from Mapai. In the February 1965 Mapai party convention, conducted on the eve of the split, Ben-Gurion and his supporters mustered some 40 percent of the membership and it was not unreasonable to expect Rafi to slough off a similar percent from Mapai’s electorate. Against this background the Herut leadership felt an urgent need for action. The conclusion reached at the party caucus meeting of February 1965, for example, was that “a heaven-sent opportunity has presented itself . . . [but] alone we have no hope of providing an alternative.” Therefore, finding some way of bypassing what otherwise could become “an arduous process of negotiations over the joint program”24 was essential. The virtual unanimity of opinion was equally indicative of Herut as a leaderoriented party and as the only Zionist party consistently marginalized by Mapai. In contrast, the diffused power structures and different status of the Liberal Party explain why the prognosis of an impeding Mapai debacle produced precisely the opposite effect. The debates that paralyzed the party spilled over into the press and reveal the logic of the new Herut-Liberal bloc that was finally to emerge. It is therefore worth summing up the main issues in contention. First was whether the Liberals should seek to inherit Mapai or to replace it. “Left to itself,” one argument ran, “the natural process was the continued deterioration of Mapai.”25 This was not necessarily due to widespread disenchantment with its ideology but to party red tape and lack of young leaders, features that were to become increasingly prominent following the departure of Ben-Gurion and his followers. The Liberals, it was claimed, were already fairly close ideologically, and were also open and dynamic enough to take up the slack. But “to serve as a receptacle for those disappointed with Mapai they must remain the Liberal party.”26 The counterargument was that voters tend to exercise a selffulfilling prophecy. However strong their disgust, they would still vote for Mapai for lack of what they perceived to be a viable alternative. Neither Herut nor the Liberals were large enough to provide such an alternative on their own. However, a “strong [united] Opposition competing with the fragmented Mapai presents us with an extraordinary good opportunity, greater than that which existed in 1961.”27

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Related to this issue was the question of the likely effect on the party system of a Herut-Liberal front. Those who opposed it feared that it could stimulate Mapai into uniting with other labor parties, bringing about a left-wing alignment. This was no mere figment of the imagination, for as we shall see talks were being conducted at the time between Mapai and its neighbor to the left, Ahdut Ha’avoda. The formation of a Herut-Liberal front would galvanize them and the far left Mapam could also join in. The party system would then undergo a fundamental change with two large parties emerging: the Herut-Liberal entity with some 30 to 40 MKs as a permanent minority, and an alignment of all the labor parties, constituting a permanent majority.28 The counterargument was that such a scenario was based on the false assumption that a Herut-Liberal alliance would be taken by the voters as a right-wing challenge, generating a “lager mentality” of the left. But the major differences in the ethnic mix of the two parties and in the occupational, cultural, and educational profiles of their voters, would render any combination of them “a coming together of wide strata of workers and productive forces in the agricultural sector, in industry, and in all areas of life . . . what good would it be to the Hebrew worker to crystallize socialist unity against such an alternative?” In fact, a cooperation of so wide a scope would make the new party a suprasectional entity that “could draw support and power from the entire nation . . . [constituting] an ingathering of exiles in the public and political domains.”29 Even more important was the question of the ideological incompatibilities and differences in the modus vivendi of the two parties. A Herut-Liberal alliance, skeptics claimed, could not present itself as an alternative, seeing that it disagreed on all the central issues; its sole common denominator would be the rejection of Mapai, a negative stance barely suited for an opposition, let alone an office-seeking party. Hillel Seidel, who was himself to join Begin’s party in due course, put his finger on the problem. The only aim of such an alliance, he maintained, could be to serve as “a place for storing the hunter’s quarry of voters.” Following success the hunters “would convene to find some purpose or other for the employment of the power they had gained.”30 More hostile critics berated the proposed alliance as not merely a case of “political schizophrenia” but as a deliberate attempt to deceive the electorate.31 One should note that similar doubts were voiced within the Herut leadership, too, but they were few, and none dared go against the decision of the leader.32 It is in this context that the bloc concept acquired meaning. “It is entirely naive and erroneous,” alliance supporters among the Liberals contended, “to suppose that competition for power must be based on opposing world views.” The average voter does not ponder on such abstractions but on the comparative suitability of “competing talented leaders for office.”33 Not that principles are irrelevant. The Liberals will not abandon their principles, and no one intends to merge the two parties. “All we want is to form a strong alternative in response to the public demand for change.” In short, change

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of government should come first and only then can the party put its principles into effect. To confuse the two phases is illogical: parties can cooperate in the first, and afterward go their own ways. “We must distinguish between realpolitik and historical aspirations. It has been made clear [to us] . . . that [Herut] sees the situation in the same light. [We] do not see them changing their style, and we cannot accept their special brand of belief . . . what draws us together is only the common goal to obtain power.”34 Implicit in the arguments advanced by the supporters of the alliance was a conception of the electorate as consisting of relatively few ideologically oriented activists and a larger, amorphous body of voters concerned with less abstract aspects of the political competition or who are disappointed with their previous choice and looking for some form of change. Implicit also was a conception of how parties in opposition ought to conduct campaigns to maximize their capacity to win over the masses. But before any further examination of the influence of these concepts on the behavior of the Israeli parties, a brief consideration of the fundamental differences between Herut and the Liberals is warranted. By the early 1960s, life in Israel had crystallized to the degree that most of the original questions over which the Yishuv parties had been divided were no longer applicable. What remained were different worldviews that prismatically affected the selection, interpretation, and significance attached to issues of the day. Herut, which sprang from the radical European right (mainly of the Polish school of Pildsudski) and defined itself as a party of the nation as a whole, regarded the individual as the embodiment in space and time of the eternal essence of the nation. Although every individual and every generation has its particular existential concerns, these are explicable by the confluence of changing circumstances, and the history of the nation, its culture, and the socialization of individuals to these core elements. The aim of governance should be to inculcate the values and interests of the nation, thus resolving the discords between individuals and generations into a more inclusive harmony. By way of contrast, what characterized the worldview of the General Zionists and Progressives with their middle-class electorates and their roots in European liberalism was an emphasis on the individual and on the pragmatics of the here and now. For them, nation was no more than a name given to the sum total of individuals occupying a contiguous area at any given time, with the sum total of the good of the individuals being the good of the aggregate. The aim of governance therefore should be to achieve a situation that allows every citizen to maximize his private benefit without causing injury to others. Such a disparity, so familiar to students of the history of ideas in Europe, led the two parties to concentrate on different dimensions of politics in a manner again familiar to students of European parties. Whereas Herut tended to lay special weight on such national issues as the territorial integrity of Israel or the relations with the “new Germany,” the Liberals tended to give prominence to economic issues or the need to curb the dependence of the

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individual on the bureaucracy. The distinction was acutely, if superficially, drawn by leaders in the two parties. “The messianism and mysticism [of Herut] are foreign to us,” wrote one Liberal. They “view the nation and the state as the ultimate value; [we] locate it in the individual whom the state exists to serve.” On the other hand, voices in Herut dismissed the Liberals as a group of self-interested people whose only principle was the gratification of immediate needs.35 This was not just a matter of emphases but of fundamental dissimilarities in policy positions on practically every issue in debate at the time. For obvious reasons, the involved questions of the state’s territorial borders and security held pride of place. Before the Six Day War of 1967, it seemed that at least in this realm most if not all issues of principle had been resolved. All that remained were the day-to-day questions of safeguarding the territory ensuring the longterm security and legitimacy of the state. It is in this context that the prominence given by Herut to the principle of the integrity of the ‘Motherland’ distinguished it from the other parties. As noted earlier, this was a formative element in Jabotinsky’s Revisionism, but it required updating after independence. The task was left to Begin, and it had already found its fullest formulation in his “Motherland and Liberty [in Hebrew, Herut]” published on the founding of the party. The central thesis was that the state of Israel was distinct from the land of Israel and was by no means to be considered as the motherland. The incompleteness of the latter was a consequence of war, and did not reflect any legal or permanent reality; consent was illegal and not binding on the nation. “This must be drummed every morning and evening into the mind of every Israeli individual” until everyone appreciates that fact that “there is no freedom [Herut] without the motherland” (my emphasis). The argument was not based on historical claims and the spiritual significance of the territory alone. It rested equally on its strategic importance, for “unless we break out of our confines, we shall be thrown into the sea.” From both perspectives retrieving Israeli sovereignty over both banks of the Jordan was imperative, and this was not “Hebrew irredentism . . . but a law of survival which we must obey if our choice is life.”36 It was obviously difficult to put into practice such a philosophy other than by rhetorical enunciations and the denial of Jordan’s right to exist. This led Liberals to regard Herut as “a party of empty declarations,”37 yet it did color its stands on security. One such was the repeated recommendation to exploit various opportunities that could allow the Defense Forces to fulfill their “sacred mission” of conquering and holding on to additional parts of the motherland. Although in 1961 this was dropped from the platform (perhaps in view of Mapai’s strong electoral showing in the previous elections), it continued to serve as the solution offered time and again to the problem of the fedayeen incursions from neighboring territories into Israel.38 Of greater importance was the position on peace negotiations with the Arab states. The Liberals sided with Mapai in the commitment to negotiation and adopted a dovish position of readiness to make

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sacrifices to achieve peace (e.g., the return of an agreed number of Palestinian refugees). For Herut, however, the very call for negotiations was an anathema. As its platform proclaimed, “the repeated appeals for peace have not only proved fruitless but are being interpreted by the enemy as a sign of weakness, and may constitute an opening for international forces to bring pressure on Israel to make concessions.”39 Herut’s conception of itself as the guardian of the historic interests of the Jewish nation found additional expression in the controversies over Germany. As a gut-wrenching question, this raised complex reactions among all the Jewish parties during the 1950s and early 1960s. Because it touched on the matter of compensation and economic assistance and also had military implications (including the procurement of Israeli-manufactured arms by the German army), such relations served as the cornerstone of the Israeli foreign and defense policy. The General Zionist and Progressive parties, regardless of whether they formed part of the government, consistently supported Mapai on this issue. Herut was equally consistent in its antagonism to any contacts with Germany, rejecting any form of reparation as an abomination. Indeed, its out-and-out repudiation was so strong as to challenge the very legitimacy of the Israeli government. In the fifth convention of the Herut Party, where Begin called for the Herut-Liberal bloc, he spelled out this rejection as an essential part of the foundation of “a National-Liberal Government”: “No German ambassador will be allowed in Israel and there will be no Israeli ambassador in Germany.”40 At the time, the question of diplomatic relations was not on the agenda, but chance had it that in the spring of 1965, precisely when deliberations on formation of a Herut-Liberal bloc entered an advanced stage, what had been theoretical became concrete. In mid-March, the Liberals decided in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Germany, against the persistent objection of Herut with its call for a referendum on the subject. No less important was the impact of Herut’s self-designation as the Custodian of Jewish National Identity on its stand regarding the complex of relations between the Judaism and the Jewish State. The Law of Return, having been passed by a secular parliament, inevitably raised the questions of who is a Jew and who has the right to determine the matter. The problem antedated the state and so did the Revisionist position. The constitution of Jabotinsky’s New Zionist Organization demanded that members should formally observe the Sabbath and study the tenets of the Jewish faith.41 With the formation of Herut, the assertion that Judaism and Jewish nationality are two sides of the same coin was accepted as one of the primary principles of the movement. The demand was made to place “the sanctified traditions of the nation, its past and holy customs, at the very foundation of the education given the children of Israel,” and to ensure the observance of the Sabbath and other Jewish holidays by the secular state.42 This made Herut the closest of the secular parties to the religious camp: a consistent ally in the struggle of the religious parties to set orthodox criteria for the

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definition of who is a Jew, to extend the Jewish character of the state, and to ensure the authority of the sages “as has been the custom among our people . . . from time immemorial.”43 Whether this reflected the party’s fundamental nationalist philosophy, its drive to win legitimacy from religious contenders and their voters, or (as seems more likely) a combination of both, such convictions put it and the Liberals on the opposite sides of the divide. The latter approached the question from the perspective of civil rights. Not only did they reject any extension of religious laws, but they also demanded reform or even replacement of intrusive religious laws regulating marriage, diet, burials, and other personal matters (dinai ishut) by civil laws. No less divisive was the demand for equal treatment and rights for the various religious streams. The heated conflict between the Orthodox establishment and the Reform and Conservative movements, held by many Orthodox to be a dilution of Judaism so extreme that it no longer belongs to the same religion at all, was to breakout later; at the time the nonOrthodox strains of Judaism had little effect in Israel itself, yet the Liberal position potentially raised the explosive issue of whether the state had a special connection with any stream or version of Judaism. As one of the party leaders put it, “These were the most progressive demands ever advocated by a nonatheist Jewish party.”44 Finally, Herut’s “ground philosophy” carried implications in the socioeconomic sphere, despite the fact that unlike that of the Liberals this was held to be of relatively minor importance. The conception of the nation as an organic entity led to heightened social sensitivity and to the insistence that the state should work toward the “abolition of economic differences between the various strata of the nation.” Thus, among Begin’s fundamental principles of the Herut movement in 1948 was that “the state must ensure that every citizen will not only have a right to work but a place of work” and the assertion that “it is incumbent upon the state to see to it that no one should ever be hungry, or homeless, or lack the opportunity to improve his essential skills.” It was for such ends that “all enterprises linked to the public services and basic industries should be nationalized and put at the service of the nation.”45 Needless to say, such principles, especially when coupled with the corporatism of the National Workers’ Federation, were in stark contrast to those of the General Zionist and Progressive parties. The differences were magnified by the fact that the latter two were represented in the Histadrut (the Progressives even had affiliated Kibbutzim), which was rejected outright by Herut as geared to sectional rather than national benefits. In the mid-1950s, at the time of Herut’s courting of the General Zionists, such firm positions began to undergo changes intended to render the party more acceptable to the middle class. The importance of free enterprise was stressed, and Begin even insisted that salary increases should no longer be linked to the cost of living index but only to increases in productivity. This changed again once Herut joined the Histadrut, but by that time the party’s image as an unacceptable enemy

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of the middle class had already altered while entry into the trade union federation brought it closer to the Liberals. Irrespective of these policy shifts, the basic philosophy itself did not change, and the fact that so many of its members were new immigrants from Asian and African countries most of whom were within the lowest two-tenths of the socioeconomic scale rendered the party ever more sensitive to welfare problems. This meant a call for far-reaching state intervention in the economy and society, which ran counter to the Liberal philosophy. Nor was the National Workers’ Federation disbanded, and Herut continued to reject the notion of worker’s self-employment, as against the recognition of the mixed economy and the call for equality between the Histadrut and the private sectors that served as the philosophical staple of the Liberal Histadrut faction. Once the negotiations between Herut and the alliance-supporting Liberals intensified, none of these incompatibilities were mentioned. No Liberal record has remained, but the Herut parliamentary caucus and the party center meetings reveal that the focus fell exclusively on what one member called “expediency.” Most important was the allocation of the safe slots on the joint electoral candidate list. Underlying the horse trading was the realization that the Liberal party was liable to split with a sizable minority refusing to accept alliance with Herut. What was in contention was the size of the electorate it could deliver. The initial Liberal position was that it could count on at least 14 Knesset-member worth of voters. Moreover, because Herut insisted that Begin lead the combined Knesset list, the Liberals should be compensated by an extra MK ‘worth.’ Hence they suggested parity on the first 30 slots, after which they were prepared to accept an increased Herut proportion. Herut suspected that the total worth of the Liberals was nine MKs. On the assumption that Gahal (acronym for Herut-Liberal bloc) could rely only on 26 MKs in all (an estimate that proved to be correct), they proposed 17 Herut and 9 Liberals in the leading slots, and thereafter parity. Because each side would retain in any case its essential party structure and ideology, it was not until they had settled these figures by a compromise between parity and exact proportionality and signed the agreement that they came to the nomination of a committee to devise formulae that could serve as a joint electoral platform without compelling either party to forgo its principles.46 The program hammered out by this committee was of necessity evasive and ambivalent, consisting of generalities or matters of national consensus. Where guiding lines for specific policies could not be avoided, they were phrased to not offend the hard-core believers in either party. Thus, on the territorial issue, the compromise stated that Herut would not abandon its traditional positions on the borders, but the bloc as a whole adopted the Liberal position in proclaiming its “unremitted aspiration for peace with the Arab countries.” On the relationship between state and religion, the formulation consisted of three clauses. The first presented the Liberal approach, promising complete freedom of conscience and religious observation. The second presented Herut’s traditional

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insistence on “the inculcation of the eternal values of the Jewish heritage in education and the life of the nation,” with the term heritage replacing Torah. The third vaguely proposed the fostering of “mutual respect of all sectors of the population irrespective of their attitude towards religion.” In the socioeconomic sphere, Herut abandoned its violently anti-Histadrut election ticket, but approximately one-half of the joint platform was devoted to matters such as housing programs, added help for large families, and education grants for the needy. Indeed, a rival party proclaimed cynically in its 1965 electoral campaign that “Israel is a strange land: Gahal has become the extremist left-wing of labor.”47 Paradoxically, increased public welfare was joined in the Gahal program with the principle of free enterprise and the reduction of economic interference by the state. This was the only major ideological stand common to both partners, and in the 1965 campaign this alone distinguished them from Mapai. As the prefatory paragraph to the Gahal agreement stated, the two parties “in spite of all their differences” have decided to coalesce, thereby “forming an alternative both politically and electorally to the party in power.”48

III. Party Clustering on the Left, 1959–1965 The story of the labor parties after the late 1950s clearly points to the contagious nature of the centripetal moves discussed. Deliberations of alliance between Herut and the General Zionists (and later the Liberals) served as a dynamo for similar processes among the Labor parties. But these in turn raised the fear among Liberals of being permanently barred from Mapai-led coalitions, and, as noted earlier, this fear emboldened them to seek an alternative to joining Herut. In the first Israeli elections, the Labor camp included Mapai and Mapam to its left: a Zionist, Marxist-Leninist party, struggling for “dismantling the wall between us and the global revolutionary forces,” and thereby also creating conditions for Jewish-Arab integration at home and peace with progressive Arab regimes abroad. In these elections Mapam garnered 19 Knesset seats (compared to Herut’s 14) and hence could present itself as the sole realistic alternative to Mapai. However, just a few years later, the right wing of Mapam bolted. Repudiating equally Mapam’s Marxism, vision of a unified Israeli-Arab society, and notions of peace with progressive neighbors, it formed a third labor party called Ahdut Ha’avoda and proceeded to win ten MKs in the 1955 elections compared to the truncated Mapam’s nine. Following the elections, Ahdut Ha’avoda joined the coalition, substituting the goal of buttressing working-class hegemony for that of replacing Mapai in office. This involved an aspiration to become a permanent coalition partner of Mapai, to arrest the latter’s tendency to bring into its coalition the bourgeoisie and religious parties. It also implied the hope of halting the drift of the Israeli society and economy in the direction of middle-class values and practices. Such an approach explains the alarm raised by the signs that a

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common Herut-General Zionist front was being considered. The Ahdut Ha’avoda electoral platform of 1959 already defined as the party’s primary mission as “repelling the onslaught of the conservative bourgeoisie [i.e., General Zionists] and the Fascist [i.e., Herut] parties and ridding the state of the danger of the establishment of an extremist and openly anti-working class government through an alliance of the anti-working class parties.” Ahdut Ha’avoda also called for an alliance among the working-class parties, that would preserve their numerical superiority over a potentially united center-right. From Mapai’s point of view, however, there was little charm in Ahdut Ha’avoda’s courtship, for it would assume a central position at the expense of Mapai, serving like an axletree to link the moderate Mapai with the radical Mapam. Moreover, the alliance would threaten Mapai’s strategic role as the pivot of the party system, able to win support from the moderate left and the moderate right as well as religious parties. Additionally, because the Herut-General Zionist alliance came to naught, the danger seemed to be theoretical rather than real. Ultimately, Mapai expressed its readiness to amalgamate, but only on the condition that it was the majority of party members who would determine policy questions and that no formally constituted factions would be allowed to exist. Officially this was explained by the wish to preserve philosophical pluralism and open debate and to forestall factional brinkmanship. But in practice, this meant the political suicide of the other labor parties and the incorporation of their members as individuals into Mapai, a condition that neither Ahdut Ha’avoda nor Mapam could possibly accept. Early in January 1963, less than two weeks before Begin publicly called on the Liberals to renew negotiations with a view to forming a National-Liberal bloc, a major political tract entitled “Courage to Change before Disaster Strikes,” was published in the Labor-affiliated press. Constituting a passionate call for the formation of an alignment among the Labor parties, it was authored by Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, a prominent Ahdut Ha’avoda leader and ideologue, who had resigned sometime earlier from his government post and suspended his party activity. This conferred on his words the added importance of a message delivered by one above the fray. Coming just before Begin’s comparable call, it derived from the same set of conditions seen from the opposite point of view, pointing to a similar logic operating on both sides of the divide. Just as Begin’s convention address may be considered as the opening gambit for the intensive phase of alliance negotiations between Herut and the Liberals, Ben-Aharon’s plea for change can be taken as signaling the initial step of the intensive phase of alliance negotiations between Mapai and Ahdut Ha’avoda. The main cause of Ben-Aharon’s alarm was what he saw as an ever-yawning gap between the fixed weltanschauungen of the Labor parties and the changing realities of Israeli life. The ideological irrelevance of the Labor parties resulted in the growing tendency of an electorate that did not perceive any real difference between the parties to vote for middle-class and right-wing rivals. The erosion of

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labor’s numerical superiority started in turn a vicious circle, for it necessitated the inclusion of non-Labor parties in government coalitions, thereby further blurring the distinctions. The outcome was the growing legitimization of Herut, which was already considered as a possible coalition partner at the municipal level. Such legitimization could enable Herut to coalesce with the Liberals, creating a situation where “any chance wind is liable to topple labor hegemony and replace it by a right-wing coalition . . . which the religious parties [will be all too happy to] join.” To head off any such eventuality, what was needed was the courage to forego petty ideological nuances and form a joint front in defense of what was common to all the Labor parties. In any case, what was presented to ideologically indifferent masses were “mere selections [taken from party programs], chosen and given emphasis to suit the taste of his majesty ‘the common man’ . . . parties flatter the common man and surrender to his whims and passions so as to save themselves.” Nor did a pluralistic alliance entail the sacrifice of separate identities. The three Labor parties as well as the “socialist religious workers” would agree to institute common bodies that would initially be based on their relative numerical strength. Yet, within the Socialist Labor Alliance, as BenAharon proposed to call the new party, each partner would continue to adhere to its own views, and “no majority vote would determine any issue in ideological dispute, except at the freely given request of the members.” This, one could argue, was the keystone of the overarching structure, for otherwise it was unimaginable that the Marxists of Mapam and the religious workers, for example, could join in any single party. In the same spirit, an Alliance newspaper would be published to propagate the common program, while each of the components would retain its own media channels and the same pattern would apply to youth movements, kibbutzim, and similar formations. Nevertheless, membership in the new factions would not be obligatory, and all decisions relating to new issues that would appear after the amalgamation would be made by majority vote. All would undertake to remain within the Alliance for the lifetime of at least two Knessets (i.e., eight years) and during this period, Ben-Aharon hoped that the cement holding together the erstwhile separate parties would harden to form a broad heterogeneous entity analogous to the British Labor Party. The immediate response of the candidates for the proposed Alliance was decidedly ambivalent. The religious kibbutz movements did not respond at all. Mapam’s initial reaction was one of skepticism: “How could the Alliance,” its newspaper asked, “conduct a common government policy without having any joint program on foreign affairs, on security issues, or [even] the very nature of the regime? And the same applies to the economic and social spheres.”49 Mapai’s reaction was an appreciation of the call for unity “even though it is obvious that Mapai cannot accept such a program as it stands.”50 Even Ahdut Ha’avoda, while paying lip service to the “passionate appeal,” could criticize the program

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as lacking in clarity. The party, its leader explained, had always affirmed the idea of Labor unity. But “a labor alliance could be built only on the infrastructure of [shared] ideas and a social and economic program directed to bringing about a change of direction in Israel.”51 Following Begin’s Herut convention address this lukewarm reception underwent a change. Early in March 1963, a preliminary meeting between representatives of the three Labor parties was convened to examine the feasibility of amalgamation. A month earlier, Mapam had already begun to modify entrenched convictions to allow meeting-ground with the other labor parties. Its leader, Ya’ari, called for the elimination of “ideological collectivism” and the adoption of “democratic centralism in which emphasis would be placed on the democratic [element].”52 In layman’s terms this meant the possibility of an ideologically pluralistic party. Even so, the difference between Mapam and Mapai obviously were still too great to be bridged. The Mapam representatives therefore brought up a suggestion to form a “left-wing front,” which would include a merger between Mapam and Ahdut Ha’avoda in a lasting coalition with Mapai. From Mapam’s perspective, the sole alternative to such a hybrid was a nonbinding agreement on a partnership of the labor parties based on their shared enmity with the right. An alternative was offered by Mapai: to focus first on the structural and organizational aspects of the proposed alignment and to take up the details of the program only after agreement had been reached. “Otherwise,” as Moshe Sharet put it, “the negotiations are liable to drift into a maze without an exit.”53 Be that as it may, one matter was agreed on, namely, that some action must be taken in light of the danger from the right. In mid-March the Ahdut Ha’avoda party center decided to consider the practical issues involved in Labor unity “in face of the danger of the right-wing amalgamation.” At about the same time, Mapai’s secretariat decided to take up the same matters in view of what Golda Meir defined as the danger of losing working-class hegemony “through the unholy union of parties which have nothing in common except the negative goal [of seizing power for its own sake].”54 By then the internal embroilment within Mapai began to leave its mark on the issue. The souring of relations between Ben-Gurion with his “young circle” and the rest of the party added to the concerns of Ahdut Ha’avoda and seemed to heighten the sense that the alignment was a sine qua non. What clinched the matter toward the end of 1963 was the resignation of Levi Eshkol, Ben-Gurion’s successor, because of the rift within Mapai. This provided an opportunity for Ahdut Ha’avoda to insist on the inclusion of Mapam in the new government he was to form. Mapam’s initial reaction was encouraging. At the end of December 1963, its leaders undertook to enter negotiations for membership in the coalition as a first step “on the road to serious partnership opening the way to a full merger.” However, discussions between the three parties proved disappointing. Mapam’s stubborn demands over issues of principle brought the negotiations to

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complete stalemate in February 1964, leading Eshkol to form a coalition without it, although expressing his hope that it would reconsider its position and join later on. By then Ahdut Ha’avoda too had reached the conclusion that a merger of the Labor parties was out of the question, and that “a temporary solution for vital electoral needs” should precede the formation of “an alliance which could then constitute a power-house for change.”55 This in effect meant a temporary alliance between Mapai and Ahdut Ha’avoda in which each would retain its ideological identity and its essential structure. Now that Mapam had opted out of the government, Mapai’s secretary, Aharon Bareket, presumably accepted the idea and invited Ahdut Ha’avoda to restart talks on the alignment of the two parties. Should Ahdut Ha’avoda accept, Bareket stated, he “would welcome this initiative and give it his blessing.”56 This passing of the buck can only be explained by what was happening within Mapai itself. As the rift within it deepened, the question of the age generation of the belligerents began to play a growing role. Ben-Gurion’s support was spearheaded by relatively young members of exceptional promise whom he mobilized and elevated to positions of power. In a bureaucratic party where promotion was slow and determined by the apparatus, these became exceptionally prominent, and were widely regarded as the next generation of top party leaders. This combination of “the old man” and the young successors gained a further importance as it became clear that the dissensions within the party were acquiring an ideological dimension as well. Thus in the party convention of midOctober 1963, Moshe Dayan, then Minister of Agriculture, came up with a series of social and economic suggestions that indicated a noticeable shift to the right. Included were the stopping of state budgetary support of the worker’s sector and the selling of state lands to private entrepreneurs who were to replace collective pioneering as the main force in settling and developing Israel. Such tendencies were accelerated thereafter. As one prominent leader who found himself torn between personal loyalty to Ben-Gurion and ideological loyalty to Mapai was to complain, the Rafi group “kept pressing to the right and [talking] about our need for ‘liberation from Marxist nostalgia’” as if what was at stake was not “support of Ben-Gurion and his struggle [but the] . . . fostering of nonsocialist ideologies.”57 The proposed alliance with Ahdut Ha’avoda became therefore of added importance to those disagreeing with Ben-Gurion, both as a means of neutralizing such ideological tendencies and, even more important, of fostering alternatives based on the relatively young Ahdut Ha’avoda leadership. The same reasoning itself led Ben-Gurion and his followers to try to torpedo the alliance. The main means they adopted was a dogged demand for electoral reform. Ben-Gurion’s support of electoral reform was of long standing. When presenting his government to the second Knesset in 1951 he already undertook to submit a bill to institute a constituency “first-past-the-post” system such as obtains in Great Britain. Because Mapai was disunited on the issue, whereas all the

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small parties whose existence would have been threatened by it totally rejected the idea, the bill could not be passed during the lifetime of the government. In 1954, however, the party center officially decided to adopt the scheme as part of the platform in the forthcoming elections. The General Zionists, Mapai’s main coalition partner at the time, also favored reform, but in the 1955 elections both suffered losses, and Herut, which opposed reform, became the second largest party in the Knesset. The opponents of reform succeeded thereupon in passing an amendment to the existing electoral law requiring an absolute majority Knesset vote for any change. In 1958 a referendum on electoral reform was proposed by one of Ben-Gurion’s young circle. Yosef Serlin, the General Zionist leader, for his part proposed a referendum on the adoption of a different constituency system. Both bills were defeated. In 1964 it was obvious that Ahdut Ha’avoda would persist in its rejection of any tampering with the current electoral system, the more so because what was on the agenda was less than a total merger with Mapai. As a relatively small party, a constituency first-past-the-post system would spell Ahdut Ha’avoda’s inability ever to break out of the Alliance, thus putting it at the mercy of the larger Mapai. In spite of, or perhaps because of, Ahdut Ha’avoda’s stand on the issue, Ben-Gurion put it at the head of his priorities. In his words, “Alignment [as the proposed alliance with Ahudut Ha’avoda was to be called] or no Alignment, if there is any chance of bringing about a change of [our] electoral system, I shall act without any regard to people or arguments.”58 The fact that negotiations accelerated throughout the summer despite Ahdut Ha’avoda’s ultimatum that Mapai must undertake as a member of the Alignment not to press for electoral reform testifies to the waning influence of the once all-powerful Ben-Gurion. In mid-August 1964 Eshkol announced that Ahdut Ha’avoda added to its demands that Mapai also commit itself not to attempt a fait accompli before negotiations were completed. Despite this the Mapai secretariat formally endorsed the continuation of negotiators. By September a tentative agreement has been reached and was scheduled for the approval of the party center. A head-on collision between the Ben-Gurion and Eshkol factions seemed therefore inevitable. There ensued a balance of fears. Although a full year passed before elections were due, the raison d’être of the Alignment agreement turned on the ability to unite in face of the danger to Labor hegemony from the right. But if Ben-Gurion and his group were outvoted, they were liable to refuse to appear on the Alignment electoral list. If, on the other hand, the decision was against Alignment, Levi Eshkol was liable to refuse to appear on Mapai’s electoral list. The attempt of Liberal opponents to the Herut-Liberal bloc to influence the outcome in the intra-Mapai struggle at this peripety, although it came to naught, is significant in the context of the contention that remarkably similar centripetal tendencies existed both in the left and the right that these galvanized one another. Early in 1964, when negotiations between the partners in each camp were in

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their preliminary stage, an attempt was made to push through the Liberal party center a decision in favor of electoral reform. This was not only because Herut opposed it as promoting a permanent Mapai hegemony, but also, as the secretary of the Liberal Workers movement was later to admit, because it was designed to prevent the alignment of the left, the threat of which was pushing the Liberals into the arms of Herut. Now, on the eve of the fateful debate in the Mapai party center, so the argument ran, was the last chance of strengthening Ben-Gurion’s hand to create a Knesset majority in support of electoral reform, thereby allowing him to stop the “race for a labor alignment”59 and by implication the race for a Herut-Liberal alignment as well. It became apparent however that the majority in the party center had already decided to leave open the door for negotiations with Herut. The ambivalence revealed itself in the absence of 63 of the 140 members, which allowed the defeat of the reform by a mere 6 votes. At the other side of the party continuum, the attempt to convene the Liberal party bodies to reach a decision on electoral reform was paralleled by Mapam activities. Aware of the presence of demurrers in Ahdut Ha’avoda, it tried to strengthen their hands by concentrating a media attack on its opportunistic betrayal of the commitment to an Alignment program such as would bring about basic social and economic change. By then, however, the die had been cast in both camps. Some six weeks later the Mapai Party Center confirmed the “EshkolGallili Agreement” for a Mapai-Ahdut Ha’avoda Alignment, which included the former’s concession on electoral reform. This signified the opening of the final struggle within Mapai. What began in the top leadership and descended to the center was now to be fought out at the base of the pyramid, the party convention planned for December. Eshkol sought the ratification of the Alignment agreement whereas Ben-Gurion insisted that the party first decide its position about electoral reform and Dayan added the demand that the party determine its economic program. The intention was obvious: if the convention sided with BenGurion, Ahdut-Ha’avoda would be forced to bolt. Likewise, decisions favoring Dayan’s economic approach would jeopardize Ahdut Ha’avoda’s ability to enter the alliance if it was to retain its character as a kibbutz-based party to the left of Mapai, a predicament Mapam’s prodding from the left aggravated. In addition some questioned the Eshkol-Gallili agreement. In brief, the party prepared for a final denouement. The convention, postponed several times, finally took place in February 1964, and Ben-Gurion’s requisites were defeated. Although the break within Mapai officially occurred only some months later, once Ben-Gurion’s bid to depose Eshkol and replace him as the party’s candidate for premiership was defeated the split became inevitable. The Labor Alignment agreement bore interesting similarities to that of Gahal. Even if the differences between the partners on the left were far smaller than those between the partners on the right, significant differences still remained between them on security and foreign relations and socioeconomically.

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Differences on the third main issue underlying the Israeli party system, that of state and religion, involved no vital principle. As the party in power, Mapai had maintained for years a special relationship with the religious Zionists who had participated in its coalitions. It was therefore more amenable to compromise with them than Ahdut Ha’avoda, which regarded the cooperation of Mapai with nonsocialist parties as part of the problem that the Alignment was designed to solve. Admittedly, the latter called for a constitution that would ensure the separation of state and religion and the “mutual non-interference of each in the province of the other,”60 but this was a difference in degree and not in kind. The same cannot be said of the all-important question of relations with the Arabs. Mapai was never homogeneous; compared to the “hawks,” the most prominent of whom was Ben-Gurion himself, there were the more numerous “doves,” the most prominent of whom was Sharett. The difference was not merely philosophical but one of policy: should Israel retaliate with military force against Arab hostile acts and border infiltrations? Were the Israeli retaliations merely acts of bravado that exacerbated the conflict? To a large degree, Ben-Gurion’s recruitment of Dayan, Peres, and others of the young guard was intended to bolster support for his stand. Now that he and his followers had left the party, the dovish tendencies of Mapai became more pronounced. Ahdut Ha’avoda, by contrast, was distinguished by an approach that, of all the contenders in the party system, came the closest to that of Herut. Although it shared Mapai’s call for peace negotiations and although it never put forward any claims to the territories east of the Jordan, it did argue for the inclusion as part of Israel of what is now known as the West Bank. Furthermore, it shared Jabotinsky’s optimistic assumption that consecutive military defeats would compel the Arab states to recognize Israel’s right to exist. This brought it to support the Ben-Gurion doctrine of military retaliation. In the words of its platform, “peace will not be achieved without Israel’s practice of self-defense . . . if our borders are open to aggressors they will not be closed to the defenders. To our enemies our rule will be: we shall return peace for peace and war for war.”61 The same approach urged that Israel reject weapons deals with Germany and preserve its neutrality. It was in the socioeconomic sphere, however, that the differences between Mapai and Ahdut Ha’avoda had the most direct pragmatic effects. Mapai’s strength lay in its moderation as a middle-of-the-road social democratic party, able to attract a large following among the nonsocialist urban population and to cooperate with the middle-class parties on the basis of a commitment to a mixed economy. Ahdut Ha’avoda for its part demanded what it called “an overall planning regime,” which would coordinate the state, the private sector, and the Histadrut sector and direct them in effecting the economic goals set by the state. Above all it rejected outright “the abandonment of the national economy to the ‘free play’ of blind economic interests and exploitive interests [which lead to] the erosion of the workers’ standard of living, the devaluation of the currency, unemployment, and inflation.”62

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As with Gahal, the Labor Alignment agreement avoided entering into any of these issues. The parties agreed on an allocation of positions and posts according to a numerical key and to the formation of a shared party executive, leaving each to retain its ideology. The common platform dealt largely with national issues not in dispute such, as the desirability of a stable democracy, immigration absorption, scientific development, and the maintenance of social welfare. The omission of any commitment to electoral reform was a concession to Ahdut Ha’avoda, reciprocated by the latter’s concessions on its socioeconomic planks. Ahdut Ha’avoda retained however its independent Histadrut faction and could pursue its principles there, whereas on other issues, notably of defense and foreign policy, it retained the right of independent judgement. The agreement specified that “in cases of disagreement there would be joint consultation in order to arrive at a common denominator to serve as a basis for action.” But all disagreements seemed dwarfed in face of the overriding concern that cemented the two parties. In the language of the Alignment 1965 electoral platform, “Lately the character of the state has been endangered by the formation of an extremist rightwing bloc, Gahal, which is aspiring to take over the reins of government, a danger made more acute by the adoption [by Ben-Gurion’s Rafi] of a stance imperiling the unity of the labor movement, thereby helping our political enemy.”

Chapter Three

THE LOGIC OF THE NEW PARTY SYSTEM

I. Cluster Parties: Organizational and Ideological Dimensions Economic entrepreneurs are most likely to employ one of two basic modes of operation. They may first explore the customers’ needs and then attempt to satisfy them ahead of rivals. Alternatively, they may seek to shape the customers’ taste, thereby creating a need for their merchandise. The fashion industry offers a distinctive example of the latter course. The successful designer must be something of an adventurer and experiment boldly. He cannot allow his imagination to run riot, and part of his expertise lies in assessing what the culture and conditions will allow, but within such restraints he is autonomous. In a similar sense, the moves—and countermoves discussed in chapter 2 were not simply dictated by the blurring of the lines of social demarcation and the growing standardization of norms in the Israeli society. Rather, these conditions permitted the parties to shift the grounds of their competition by reshaping the electorate’s conception of its needs and of the meaningful alternatives open to it. The relatively high degree of party autonomy this suggests appears to contradict one of the cherished postulates of organizational theories in general and of theories of party change in particular. That parties are conservative organizations explains for proponents of the social-structural approach why parties do not remold themselves to suit deep-lying changes in their socioeconomic environments; for critics subscribing to the adaptive-organizational approach, it explains why transformations proceed in ordinary circumstances only at a piecemeal rate; for those holding the purposive-action approach, it explains why parties do not usually change of their own volition but through conscious leadership efforts. The contradiction between what occurred in Israel and the basic postulation is however more illusory than real, especially if we discount the notion of conservatism as no more than opposition to all change. Underlying resistance to change derives from the fear, sometimes tacit, that it will forfeit or endanger routines, positions of power, vested interests, or long-held beliefs. Beyond such an obvious statement at least two difficulties 59

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hinder generalization. First is the diversity of what may come under threat. The range may extend from party identity to the status of individuals, from sectional economic interests to the choice Learned Hand described as that “between the comforts of inertia and the irksomeness of action.” Furthermore, party members need not share precisely the same values, and they may attach different degrees of importance to the values they do broadly share. Parties seek to achieve an equilibrium between differing and sometimes contradictory demands, and one should avoid the “teleological prejudice” of “attributing a priori ‘goals’ to parties which in the observer’s mind represent [their] raison d’être.”1 The second difficulty is that change does not affect to the same degree values, whatever they are and however they are regarded. It may reduce the dangers to some or even enhance them. From the party member’s point of view, the consequences of change constitute a continuum extending between the poles of the purely positive and the purely negative. Changes usually yield results that fall somewhere in the middle, involving trade-offs between the desirable and the undesirable. From the organizational point of view we are dealing with a number of such continua, and the trade-offs are between one another. By conservative tendencies we mean, inter alia, the inclination to emphasize the likelihood of detrimental effects and the relative importance of what is threatened versus the dubiousness of future returns. However, even conservative individuals or organizations will embrace changes where the ratio between the positive and negative is overwhelmingly in favor of the former. This was patently true of Herut and Ahdut Ha’avoda, which courted the Liberals and Mapai, and the very fact that these for the most part fell in with the proposals shows that for them too it was better than going it alone. This could lead to a wrong conclusion. As noted earlier, the shifts involved a blurring of party programs dictated not by the need to adjust to changing environmental conditions but by deliberate political decisions. It would seem that Israeli party leaders and activists regarded elections as no more than contests among political organizations and elites, and that ideology carried therefore little weight. If both the timing and the nature of party transformations were merely matters of expediency, parties would have presented their appeals, whether in the guise of ideology or of pragmatism, according to their estimates of electoral effectiveness.2 But this does not accord with the facts. At least in the 1960s, the main Israeli parties were ideologically oriented mass parties. Furthermore, the conclusion ignores other costs of change on the assumption that the sole goal was that of gaining power, a variant of the “teleological prejudice” mentioned earlier. On this issue critics such as Kirchheimer or Epstein seem at first to offer a better key to the interpretation of what took place. Their prediction of largescale changes necessitated by the need to choose between political ideals and electoral viability was reasonable under the conditions they postulated: dramatic social change that was pulling up the socioeconomic anchors of the vote. When survival is at stake, parties may well find that other interests and considerations

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dwindle in importance. An exegesis along these lines would regard Ben-Aharon and similar-minded leaders as precursors of critics such as Kirchheimer, except that the “commodification” of politics by catchall parties against which the latter warned was adopted by the former as a remedy. Certainly much resembles the “end of ideology” thesis in Ben-Aharon’s argument that in conditions of relative prosperity and relaxation of tensions in society arcane ideologies engross the attention of the few but mean little to the general public, which is more concerned with day-to-day conditions. The same can be said about his admonition that the hairsplitting of what he called ideological ultraorthodoxy caused the electorate to lump all the parties together and show indifference to the lot. His plea for a labor alliance that would appeal on the basis of a watered-down program to a heterogeneous electorate, presenting itself sociologically and programmatically as a party for all, smacks of the European parties that served as the basis for Kirchheimer’s analysis. And yet such a reading does not hold either. It cannot apply to the centerright Gahal, certainly when Herut’s early efforts to join forces with the General Zionists are at issue. Even more critically, what animated Ben-Aharon (and Begin too) was the wish to rescue and realize his ideology. Indeed, precisely such ideological loyalty may serve to explain the difference between the party change in Israel and the rise of the European catchall party. What happened was that parties holding different ideological positions aggregated to form new entities held together by electoral pacts and minimalist programs based on the lowest common denominator of their components. Thereby they provided voters with common addresses to which to mail their votes. At the same time, each formally independent party retained its identity and ideological autonomy as a faction. The resulting heterogeneity and need to establish and maintain a balance between the various components projected to the outside an image of transcending pragmatism that overrides narrow sectarian interests; concurrently, traditional supporters of each faction within the new party continued to hold onto their essential interests and principles in the belief that the power of their faction would be increased by the formation of the party, improving their chances of furthering their specific interests. Such entities may therefore be called “cluster parties.” This becomes clearer when one bears in mind the differences between parties and factions. Factions are structured groups that seek to control decisionmaking positions within parties. As such, factions differ from parties in that they do not compete in elections outside the party (e.g., national elections). The literature points to some additional dimensions along which one can assess distances between parties and factions. One is the degree of institutionalization. Some observers stress the noncorporate structure of factions, most of which are based on such mechanisms as interparty conflicts, client-patron relations, or coalitional arrangements within the parties.3 Other critics point however to highly institutionalized factions in Italy, Japan, and elsewhere,4 which are similar in all respects to

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full-fledged parties, except that they do not hold separate national electoral campaigns. A second dimension is the area of joint interest. Some researchers emphasize the personalist features of factions, namely, their devotion to the furthering of practical advantages of specific people as opposed to some notion of the public good, which supposedly underlies the concept of party.5 Others point to cases where an ideology formed the basis of factional activity, overshadowing their leader-clientele element.6 The formation of factions may also be caused by ideological rifts among leading party personalities.7 This, in turn, is connected to the dimension of permanence. A high degree of institutionalization is usually a hedge against rapid disintegration. Consequently, scholars who have studied factions with noncorporate structures stress their ephemeral nature. Conversely, others point to ideological conviction as contributing to a long “life expectancy.”8 Finally, there is the degree of visibility. Some have argued that the existence of factions largely depends on their maintaining a low profile and the restriction of their activity to periods between electoral campaigns. A counterthesis points to the existence of fully recognized factional structures such as may cause parties to appear as smaller versions of the party system as a whole.9 Cluster parties are similar to umbrellas that shelter factions possessing similar positions at the top of the scale in all the above dimensions. Such factions had been independent parties but now constitute the kind of political groupings closest to full-fledged parties that could still count as factions. They are fully institutionalized, including their own recognized leaders and their own clearly defined processes of officer selection and rules of decision making. Each of them has its own ideology with an all-embracing conception of the national good. Moreover, they maintain a formal relationship with the cluster and their existence is recognized in explicit agreements with their relative share of parliamentary representation and party positions fixed according to agreed procedures. Although these characteristics were shared by Gahal and the Alignment, the differences between them point to a distinction that must be made between subtypes of party clusters on the basis of the relationships between them and their factions. Gahal was what can be called a conglomerate party, that is, a partnership between former mass parties linked only by their lowest common denominator. Each holds on to its own program, but the party as a whole formulates a common platform, which is sufficiently general to allow the differences between the component factions to be glossed over. Each of these factions is characterized by an organizational structure reaching from the top party leadership to the grassroots. At the level of the electorate, it maintains branches and clubs; holds regular meetings; publishes reports, bulletins, and newspapers; and sometimes even keeps clientele organizations such as agricultural groups or trade unions. All the factions participate however in an electoral pact that determines the apportioning of slots in a joint electoral list. Such procedures usually involve establishing a common committee or organizational body, the function of which is

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to harmonize the decisions of the components and coordinate campaign tactics. Both programmatically and structurally, a conglomerate party is, in effect, a superparty aggregate in which the different components seek to exploit their joint power and the increased spread of their electoral appeal to further their own separate interests. The Alignment, on the other hand, illustrates what can be called a proportionally amalgamated party, which is a cluster party whose components have amalgamated and have given up independent contacts with their grassroots. Such factions accept proportional representation rights in all the bodies and elected offices of the cluster party. Likewise, the apportioning of slots on the electoral candidate list is worked out according to a proportional key, usually on the basis of their preamalgamation strength. Direct contact with the electorate becomes a prerogative of the party as a whole. Nevertheless, each faction retains elements of its original organization, thereby allowing contact between its representative in the various party bodies; each faction also retains aspects of its original ideology in addition to what appears in the officially accepted program. The Alignment agreement defined however the formation of such a party as a temporary measure on route to a further transformation, which could be seen as constituting a third type of cluster party. What could be called a unitaryamalgamated party resembles the proportionally amalgamated party, save that its components formally forego the proportional key according to which positions are allocated. These components have therefore institutions that are restricted to the frontline leadership levels so that they resemble cadre parties, whereas the party as a whole comes to resemble a federation of cadre parties. Nevertheless, the strength of the factions is borne in mind both in establishing the order of the slots in the electoral list and in determining the composition of whatever party bodies are established. This arrangement verges so closely on a normal party that it requires little further adjustment to become one. It may indeed constitute the final step before a total merger between mass parties, or the first step in the development of more independent factions within a party. Alternatively, cases exist of such factions resulting from the amalgamation of parties of notables or from the crossing of party lines by small groups. The aim of this threefold classification is not to suggest that all cluster parties neatly fall into one of the categories. Rather, it is to offer a yardstick by which to measure possible variations and hybrids. Chapter 4 shows that neither of the clusters created on the eve of the 1965 elections retained its original form but both became hybrids. Two examples of this process, one from each cluster, may suffice. The Begin-Seidel episode recounted at the beginning of chapter 1 resulted in the fusion of Seidel’s faction, which lacked grassroots organizations with Begin heading the main body of the fully developed conglomerate party. On the other side of the political divide, Mapam’s idea of amalgamating with Ahdut Ha’avoda while joining Mapai in a coalitional arrangement ironically

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ended up with Mapam as a faction retaining its independent organization while joining in a conglomerate party arrangement the other labor parties that had formed a proportionally amalgamated party and were on their way to becoming a unitary amalgamated one. All this hints at a volatility that the new parties introduced in the party system and that was to bring about its restructuring. In time this influenced considerably the choice offered the voters, but a more immediate effect on it was that of the change in the nature of the electoral competition among the cluster parties already noticeable in the campaign of 1965. Table 3.1, comparing the content of the electoral appeals put out by Mapai, Herut, and the General Zionists in the two elections that preceded the formation of the clusters with those of the Alignment and Gahal in 1965, provides a numerical expression of the change. In the earlier campaigns the parties ran ideological contests, and most of the propaganda efforts were devoted to controversial principles. Other contents played a relatively minor role. After the clustering the proportions were reversed. The percentage of Alignment appeals judged10 as dealing with controversial domestic issues fell from 22.3 percent (1959) and 32.8 percent (1961) to 4.3 percent (1965). The same was true of controversial issues in foreign policy and defense. These fell from 7.4 percent in 1959 and 11.7 percent in 1961 to 0 percent in 1965. In their stead, the party played up its past achievements (33 percent), emphasized general noncontroversial issues (17.4 percent), and concentrated attacks on Gahal (15.7 percent) as being a party of empty promises, unable to boast of any significant contributions to the country that could cover the nakedness of Begin “who is the same old Begin.” In the case of Gahal, too, noncontroversial matters such as the virtues of democracy or the desirability of the unity of the people, hitherto negligible issues, jumped to 17.39 percent of its total “net” propaganda. The largest percentage was devoted to an attack on the Alignment as a no-change Establishment party, working to further narrow sectarian interests. Parts of the Alignment platform conforming to the Gahal platform were depicted as Machiavellian vote-catching ruses, and attention was drawn to failures in system management, including the complaint that “even the water commissioner has admitted [that] the water level of the Kineret (Sea of Galilee) has fallen dangerously.” Appeals were also directed to the specific material interests of various sectors of society: students, young couples, the elderly, factory workers, working women, white-collar workers, and so on, the cumulative effect of which was to emphasize that it was the party of the people and not of a favored class. Ideological contents were mainly restricted to the balancing of such promises by the calls to free the market from the yoke of state intervention and bureaucratic tyranny. This, as noted earlier, was the sole plank shared by Herut and the Liberal party, and it was featured in 25.86 percent of the total Gahal net propaganda, yet when coupled with the calls for higher benefits for various sectors and a wider social expenditures, it created the effect of

Table 3.1 Content Analysis of Electoral Appeals Appearing in the Israeli Press in 1959, 1961, and 1965 (Percentages relate to the number of advertisements, including the stated type in which the specified content appears.) Sept.–Nov. 1959 Content of Appeal

Mapai

G. Zionist

14.9

5.1

Past Achievements and Positive Party Traits

9.1

7.7

Criticism of Rivals on Grounds of Past Failures, Poor Leadership, and Corruption

9.1

20.5

Fears (War, Danger to Democracy, Unemployment, etc.)

5.0

Consensus, Unity of the Nation

0.8

Exploiting the Reputation of Leaders

Sept.–Nov. 1965

June–Sept. 1961 Herut —

Mapai

Liberals

Herut

3.8

—

11.3

1.7

5.9

14.6

3.8

12.1

33.0

1.7

37.3

7.3

25.0

9.1

15.7

32.8

—

3.9

0.7

—

3.0

8.7

5.2

—

2.0

5.8

—

—

7.0

1.7

—

—

—

10.4

—

1.6

—

Continuity

4.1

—

General Noncontroversial Issues (Democracy, Peace, Justice, etc.)

1.7

7.7

3.9

5.1

Stand on Controversial Domestic Issues (Free Competition, State and Religion, etc.)

22.3

66.7

41.2

32.8

7.4

10.3

7.8

11.7

7.7

21.8

21.6

2.6

9.8

23.0

15.4

33.3

Others N

121

Gahal

2.9

Confident Assurance of Electoral Victory

Stand on Controversial Foreign Policy and Defense Issues (Borders, Relations with Germany, etc.)

Alignment

39

5.9 —

51

264

—

8.6

3.0

13.1

—

7.7

6.1

17.3

17.2

44.2

27.3

4.3

25.9

104

66

— 3.5 232

6.9 6.9 116

Source: Content analysis of electoral appeals in Ha’aretz and Ma’ariv; September–November 1959, June–September 1961, September–November 1965. Notes: (1) not included are ads consisting simply of the name of the party on the bare statement “vote for”; (2) “others” refers to instances when three checkers failed to include an item under any of the content headings; (3) because some of the ads contained more than one of the content items, the total percentage of content items to ads does not equal 100.—indicates that the content item does not appear in advertisement.

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Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

ambivalent seesawing between increased state intervention and reduced state interference. The campaign of 1965, then, marks a momentous shift in the patterns of the Israeli party system, although its full significance was unappreciated at the time. It is perhaps true of most transitional periods that individuals living through them and historians looking back at them have vastly different perspectives. Not only is their sense of duration different but also the fact that events and situations unknown to the one form the bases of the other’s interpretation. This is the truer for 1965 because Gahal garnered far fewer votes than it had hoped while the coalition headed by the Alignment remained in office. Nothing seemed to have changed, but everything had changed.

II. Ideological Depolarization Against the relatively detailed narration of what led to the formation of the cluster parties, the following section summarizes the overall changes that worked themselves out during the following dozen or so years. The imbalance between the two treatments is deliberate. Having examined individual conifers, now we look at the contours of the pine forest as a whole. The account of the processes that ended with the appearance of Gahal and the Alignment focused on specific strategic calculations. An analysis of the transformation of the Israeli party system requires by contrast an overview of the entire terrain. Some attributes of the shift were already noticeable in 1965: the reduction of ideological tensions, side by side with the structural polarization of the party system. Secondary attributes that followed these were the changes in party organization, in the form of interparty competition, and in the electoral results. The consideration of all these will essentially be thematic, but the historical context cannot be ignored. The dozen years fall into two periods, each with its own dynamic. The first, from 1965 to the Yom Kippur War of 1973, was marked by the crystallization of the cluster party system. The main propelling force was the formation of a national unity government in anticipation of the Six Day War. The second period, from 1974 to the first change of government in the history of modern Israel in 1977, was marked by the growing destabilization of the cluster party system. The main propelling force this time was the tough decisions facing the country following the Yom Kippur War. To appreciate the impact of the Six Day War on the Israeli party system one must bring into consideration the atmosphere prevailing in May 1967. The ominous Egyptian military buildup in the Sinai Peninsula coupled with the menacing self-assurance of the Arab camp evoked memories of the Holocaust. Many saw the government’s attempts to exhaust the possibilities of a political solution an indication of its hesitancy and indecisiveness. This strengthened the general sense that Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Eshkol, with his lack of

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military background and charisma, was not the man for the task. Many felt that a government in which all the Zionist parties would partake was imperative and that Eshkol should give up his position as minister of defense for someone more suited to allay public fears. Critics generally agree that the resulting national unity government, including Gahal and Rafi with Moshe Dayan as defense minister, constitutes a turning point in the road leading to the Labor Alignment’s defeat because it provided Herut with the legitimacy it lacked since the 1930s. Begin himself shed the image of an irresponsible demagogue to become a member of the government. There can be little doubt that in the moment of danger, when the survivability of the state was perceived to be at risk, what surfaced was the essential Zionist consensus fortified by a large measure of agreement arrived at during the 20 years of independence. It was not restricted to regarding the Jewish state as a means for achieving the ingathering of the exiles, but included the recognition of the governing institutions and a basic agreement on the procedures according to which they function. Yet it is unimaginable that this alone could have sufficed without the relaxation of ideological tensions and the convergence in the center that resulted from the formation of Gahal and the Alignment. Gahal’s entry into the government strengthened its perception as a reliable party, separated from the Alignment and its partners not by a gulf but by shades of opinion; but the entry would have been impossible without the initial existence of a widespread prior perception to that effect. Hence the coalition was not restricted to the duration of the crisis but lasted throughout the remaining term of the government and was renewed after the 1969 elections. Gahal thereby could justifiably claim a share in the stunning victory of the war as well as in the economic boom that followed. Perhaps the best indicator of the new reality that ensued was the case of General Ezer Weizman, the popular chief of the air force who presided over one of the greatest achievements in the war. On the very morrow of his retirement he was recruited as a Herut party member and minister in the 1969 government. Gahal thus joined the hitherto exclusive club of parties who could draw people of exceptional ability and popular appeal, usually from the military high command, by the promise of prominent political positions. Additionally, the sharing of office eventuated in a genuine meeting of minds on central policy issues. Paradoxically, precisely on the issue of borders and negotiations with the neighboring Arab states, a long-standing bone of contention between Herut and Mapai, were the margins between the coalition partners narrowed most noticeably. The government approved Israel’s readiness to purchase peace at the cost of withdrawals from Egyptian and Syrian territories and to enter negotiations over the West Bank on the basis of Palestinian autonomy and economic union. However, at the beginning of November 1967, the Arab League issued its notorious “three noes” (no peace, no recognition, no negotiations with Israel), thus putting an end to peace initiatives. Several months

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later the government withdrew its offers. If Gahal (especially the Herut faction) had hitherto fallen in with the relatively dovish positions of the rest of the coalition, now the position of the government as a whole veered toward the hawkish trend more natural to Herut. This was not only because of Arab intransigence, but also because Arab intransigence eased the restraints on Ahdut Ha’avoda with its traditional hawkishness and on Rafi with its activist approach on matters of security. Irrespective of the discrepancies within the parties in coalition there obtained a loose consensus between them. It included a conception of the state’s security in which the territorial dimension acquired an ever greater importance, an understanding that Israel must therefore extend its borders, that the obvious means was settlement activity in the newly acquired areas that would create “facts on the ground” and that for historical and cultural reasons at least part of the territories, primarily Jerusalem, should be annexed. The electoral platforms drawn up toward the 1969 elections reveal that the main difference was that the Alignment referred to “The Territories,” whereas Gahal’s term was “The Liberated Territories.” This was more than mere semantics. For the Alignment, pride of place was given to the issue of military security and settlements in the Territories were to be restricted to strategic, sparsely populated areas, mainly the Jordan Rift Valley. Gahal (or more precisely Herut) by contrast, regarded the entire West Bank as part of the Land of Israel by historical right, in effect downgrading the military issue as of lesser significance. Nevertheless, the party’s plank opened with the call for peace negotiations, and in deference to the Liberals refrained from asserting that Israel would never withdraw from any part of the Territories. The Alignment platform for its part promised that until peace was achieved “our forces will remain on the cease-fire lines,” and that, in any case, “Israel will never return to the armistice lines of the pre-Six-Days-War period.” Igal Alon, the prominent Ahdut Ha’avoda leader, declared that the borders would be determined in accordance with the security needs, with “the historical ties of the people of Israel to the Land of Israel,” and with political circumstances. He himself was involved in the resettlement of Hebron because of its unique religious and historical purport and irrespective of its location and vast Arab population. And groups from within the Alignment came out openly in favor of extending the settlement project as a step toward annexation. Particularly prominent were the Ein Vered group of kibbutz members and the Land of Israel Movement, consisting of several intellectuals, among them Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi, widow of the well-loved president and a widely known labor personality.11 The earliest and still-unpublished systematic electoral study in the country provides an indication of the convergence of the clusters.12 In view of their heterogeneity, it is of little surprise that 55 percent of the respondents found little or no difference between the parties on social issues. Seeing that Gahal, like the Alignment, called for the fixing of a minimum wage, a government pension plan,

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the right of workers to unionize and to strike, and similar planks, and seeing that the main difference between them was limited to Gahal’s demand for compulsory arbitration whenever strikes threatened essential services, 55 percent not surprisingly also found the differences between the parties on economic issues to be unclear or nonexistent. But even on foreign policy and security issues, 49.2 percent of the respondents affirmed that the differences were unclear or nonexistent. This narrowing of the differences most likely explained the renewal after the elections of the national unity coalition. Aware that the policies in regard to the Occupied Territories could bring international pressure on Israel, the victorious Alignment sought to maximize its legitimacy by basing the government on the broadcast possible national consensus. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1970 Gahal returned to the opposition. The reason lay in disagreements that surfaced when the United States, in an effort to pin down the differences between the belligerents in the Arab-Israeli conflict, requested that the government commit itself to withdrawal on all fronts in return for peace. The majority in government, aware that the Arab countries were unlikely to consent to peace negotiations, agreed to answer in the affirmative despite Begin’s adamant opposition. One might naturally assume that after leaving the government on an issue of principle, the gaps between the former partners in the coalition would widen significantly with Gahal veering to the one pole and the Alignment to the other. Ideological discrepancies remained blurred, however, not only between the Alignment as the mainstay of the government and Gahal as the main opposition, but also with a few exceptions among all the parties. Research conducted on the eve of the 1973 campaign13 shows that in answer to direct questions, the greater part of the respondents recognized that differences exist in the socioeconomic sphere and even more so on the issue of the Territories.14 But indirect questions showed that where the differences lay was far less clear. Most respondents identified security and economic policies as the most important problems government should deal with. When asked whether the Israeli parties’ stands on these issues differed, about half saw little difference or none at all (on the first issue 43 percent, on the second 41 percent).15 And if we remember that the questions concerned all the parties, including the small ideological ones on the left, the ambivalence vis-à-vis the clusters becomes more evident. We can also draw the same conclusion from answers to whether a Gahal victory in the elections would result in changes for the better or for the worse in security and socioeconomic issues. On both a plurality of respondents answered that no changes at all would occur (on socioeconomic issues 37 percent; on security 33 percent), and on both an unusually large number of refrained from answering (21 percent on the socioeconomic question; 20 percent on the security question). Those who did think that a change would result were equally split between such who regarded it as beneficial (on socioeconomic issues 21 percent; on security 23 percent) and who considered it negatively (21 percent and 24 percent respectively). The conclusion

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Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

seems to be that Gahal carried over into the opposition a degree of legitimacy and respectability that Herut on its own never enjoyed; a conclusion supported by the answers to a direct question whatever Gahal represented a possible substitute for labor in government. Again a large number did not answer (14 percent) and, among those who did, a plurality (46 percent) answered with either to a great extent or to a certain extent.16 To a degree, this picture is explicable in light of the conditions of the time. Economically, this was a period of relative prosperity, characterized by a continuous rise in the gross national product (GNP) per capita and in consumption, both private and public. No new issues of consequence endangered the continuation of the status quo on religion. Even with regard to the Territories, after 1971 international pressures on Israel to define its position were reduced, terrorist activities fostered a general sense that no solution was on the horizon, and in what is a predominantly urban society no influx of settlers eager to transfer their homes to the West Bank or Gaza Strip threatened to polarize society. One should however bear in mind that the conditions of the time are not objective. They are constructs created and communicated by members of society, and here the positions taken by the parties were a major factor. Had the old Herut and the old labor parties remained unchanged, there would no doubt have been sharp disagreements of principle, and nuances would have been magnified and brought into sharper relief. Yet on economic and social issues Gahal did not base its opposition on ideological grounds, on which in any case its factions disagreed, but limited itself to system management and undisputed principles such as the need to fight corruption. The entire issue of Germany dissipated now that the positions taken by the two clusters crisscrossed, and much the same could be said of religious issues. Whereas Mapai’s partners to the left held standpoints that had much in common with those of the Liberals, Mapai found itself as uneasy with its partners on the question of religion as was Herut with the Liberals. As for the territorial issue, the persistence of the overall hawkish positions of both clusters as well as the disparities within each continued to mitigate the differences between them, and indeed reduced them further when Golda Meir succeeded Levi Eshkol. After the secession of Ben-Gurion and his Young Turks, the hawkish Golda Meir had been in a minority position within the Mapai leadership. Now a clear troika took over control of the direction of the Alignment and of the government as a whole, with Rafi’s Dayan and Ahdut Ha’avoda’s Gallili as copartners reenforcing the hawkish tendencies. Such conclusions apply only up to October 1973, when what was widely referred to as “the earthquake” of the Yom Kippur War shook the political system to its very foundations. Israel had to take critical decisions in virtually every sphere of life, and labor underwent significant changes in its leadership. Yet the war did not reopen the ideological cleavages between the main contenders and the continuity lasted till the end of the decade. To explain it one must first

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consider the structural polarization, the way it reinforced ideological depolarization, and the effects of both factors on the structures of the parties and on the competition between them.

III. Structural Polarization Although a considerable numerical disparity remained between the Alignment and Gahal, the latter’s newfound legitimacy and appearance as the largest opposition to have ever confronted the ruling party focused attention on the competition between the two. The very possibility of asking what would happen in consequence of a Gahal victory points to the change. This affected the small noncommunitarian parties in different ways. Whereas extremist parties are liable to enjoy only a limited number of potential voters, nonextremist parties rely on less zealous electors who are more likely to be more susceptible to pragmatic considerations, such as the fact that by voting for a small party they are foregoing the chance of determining which party will lead the future coalition. The drift of both government and opposition clusters toward the center allowed extremist competitors to hold their own and even woo frustrated ideologically minded voters of the main rivals. But for small moderate parties the creation of ideologically vague clusters and the conduct of the battle between them in the center meant the danger of being squeezed out. At the same time the worth of small partners to the rival clusters mounted as the competition between them intensified. Fearful of political expiry, such small parties were tempted therefore to throw in their lot rather than compete with large parties holding essentially similar positions. In early 1968 Rafi rejoined the Alignment. A joint party center of Mapai, Ahdut Ha’avoda, and Rafi was established on the proportional basis of the numbers of each in the Knesset as a step toward their complete union at some unspecified time. This tilted the new Alignment toward hawkishness and to centrist positions in the socioeconomic sphere. The effect, however, was balanced a little later when Mapam, too, joined in. Because the latter retained its independent institutions intact, a new differently weighted conglomerate party came into being, called the Labor-Mapam Alignment (but generally referred to simply as the Alignment). The Alignment Agreement may serve to illustrate the rationale of the new entity. The main aim was clearly expressed: to “strive to ensure the hegemony of the labor pioneering [parties] in the government of the state.”17 Less clear was the distinctive meaning attached to the concepts of labor and pioneering. The chapter on the realization of the Zionist-Socialist vision, which opened the joint program, called for the continuation of the in gathering of the exiles, the strengthening of the military while striving for peace, the maintenance of parliamentary democracy, the political equality of all citizens, and the “retaining in the possession of the state the essential services operated by it.” Both clusters shared

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Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel

such goals, however, and in fact they were rejected only by the extreme religious parties and the communists. Similar generalities characterized the rest of the program, conferring on it an overall catchall quality. The agreement further stipulated that “the parties composing the Alignment [namely Mapai, Ahdut Ha’avoda, and Rafi on the one hand and Mapam on the other] will retain their ideological and structural independence,” each having “the right to consider within its institutions whatever it sees fit.” Nevertheless, it laid down common institutions in the Knesset, Histadrut, and local authorities, composed of representatives of the partners and chosen by them, in addition to oversight committees that will serve as arenas for common debates and decisions binding the entire party. A comparable development took place in the opposition on the very eve of the 1973 campaign, when Gahal came to an agreement with three small parties. One was the Free Center, consisting of former Herut members who had turned against Begin in demand that the party would shift its positions to the center in view of the disappointing results of the 1965 elections. The other two had been labor splinter groups: the Land of Israel Labor Movement and, more critically, the State List consisting of Rafi members who refused to reenter the Alignment. This meant that as against the Rafi in government there was a Rafi in the opposition, each holding on to the same principles and viewing Ben-Gurion as its founding father. From the structural perspective, something similar to the organizational imbroglio of the Alignment occurred. The three new parties-cumfactions amalgamated on a proportional basis to form La’am (for the people), which in turn held a conglomerate relationship with the Liberal party and Herut within a new entity, now called Likud (joining together). The above-mentioned 1973 study shows that the impact on the perception of the two clusters was immediate. Asked whether the formation of the Likud could be seen as a positive development, no less than 35 percent failed to answer, 52 percent responded in the affirmative, and only 13 percent professed negative views. Answers to the same question asked four months earlier concerning the extent to which the Likud represented a possible substitute in government for labor reveal that the main change was among those who replied negatively. Whereas the percentage of those answering in the affirmative rose only from 46 percent to 47 percent, the latter dropped from 40 percent to 34 percent, with the remaining 5 percent moving to the no answer category. The influence on voting intentions was however much larger, with 19 percent declaring that the creation of the Likud would affect their choice, and 34 percent unwilling or unable to answer. In brief, the formation of the Likud enhanced its legitimacy and encouraged a tendency among those who regarded it as a substitute for labor to cast their vote for it. Yet this is no proof that the ideological meaning of the vote became any clearer. Asked to define the ideological orientation of the Likud, no less than 34 percent could not answer with an additional 7 percent stating that they did not understand what the

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question meant. The rest were split: 25 percent defined the Likud as center, 31 percent as right wing, and 3 percent as left.18 Although the phased formation of the Labor-Mapam Alignment and the expansion of Gahal to become the Likud constituted the major points of reference, the process that begun in 1965 did not slow down in the early 1970s. What happened to the Independent Liberals is illustrative of the plight of small centrist parties squeezed out by the party clusters. The 1973 electoral study already showed that sitting as it were in the calm center of the cyclone they became one of the most popular of the parties. Asked which contender would appeal most to the voters as a second choice, no less than 20 percent favored it (compared with 16 percent for the Alignment and 21 percent for the Likud). An additional 20 percent gave it as the third choice (compared to 15 percent for the Likud and 7 percent for the National Religious Party. On this question the Alignment scored only 6 percent). And yet, asked “if the elections were held today, whom would you vote for?” no more than 4 percent answered “The Liberal Party,”19 and in the actual election held on the last day of 1973 this number dwindled to 3.6 percent. By the next elections in May 1977, the party was reduced to a mere 1.2 percent of the vote. Its complaint that had the electorate not considered it to be “a sympathetic but one [too] small” and had voted in accord with their opinions, the party could have become sympathetic and large, fell on deaf ears. In early 1980 its leader put the choice bluntly: “We are looking for a way of retaining the special qualities of our party. Either we become partners with another small party . . . or join a larger one.”20 The party first joined the Alignment but later switched to unite with a smaller party to its left. In the elections its representative failed to enter the Knesset. An alternative strategy was adopted by another small party. The Civil Rights Movement (CRM) took temporary shelter under the wing of the Alignment with the admitted purpose of gathering sufficient strength to leave it as soon as it felt able to compete again as an independent party. To quote the party’s leader: “We have failed in the elections . . . and face the necessity of increasing our strength. . . . Our best policy is to join [a large party] as a faction . . . and work toward seceding in the next elections as an independent party.”21 Instead of running for shelter, a more aggressive strategy could also be taken. Small parties could band to form a cluster of their own with a view to offering the voter a numerally meaningful alternative to both government and opposition by attracting disgruntled voters from the main contenders and from the parties that had joined them. Even if the new cluster failed to take over the reins of government, its existence as a strong third choice could sway the balance in elections. Moreover, after election the new cluster might have a determining role to play in the formation of a government coalition, enabling it to pressure the main competitors into yielding to its demands. This option was taken on the eve of the 1977 campaign by the Democratic Movement for Change (DMC), which consisted of diverse small parties and

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groups that gathered around the charismatic personality of Yigael Yadin, Israel’s first chief of staff and renowned archeologist. With many of its constituent members holding conflicting principles, much of what they had in common concerned the desire to cleanse politics and adopt structural solutions to enhance government efficiency and responsibility.22 To be credible the platform had to address social and economic issues and the questions of foreign policy and the Occupied Territories, but on these the positions of the DMC differed little from those of the Alignment, and they did not feature at all in its campaign. This focused on two kinds of stands: One kind were generally accepted aspirations for the transparency of political motives, the raising of productivity, the enhancement of labor-management relationships, and the striving for economic self-sufficiency. The other kind were reforms claimed to be a sine qua non for the attainment of all such goals, most important electoral reform and the streamlining of government by eliminating redundant ministries. Not only were these demands technical in nature, but the DMC also declared its neutrality in the competition between the Alignment and the Likud by promising to join either side at the price of carrying out its reforms. It was thereby a product of the new cluster party system and contributed to the blurring of ideological cleavages that characterized it. At the same time its emphasis on party democracy and electoral reform that would tighten the personal ties between elected and electors constituted a reaction against the effects of party clustering on the linkage between the clusters and the electorate at large and, within the clusters, between the national leadership and the grassroots levels.

IV. Changes in Party Competition, Membership, and Finance The formation of political umbrellas under which previously independent parties sheltered was intended by each contender to win over a heterogeneous public, which included less committed voters and potential deserters from other parties. This was necessarily connected with lower expectations of the association between the party and the wider electorate it targeted. In contrast to the regular activity of faction stalwarts, the basic assumption was that the wider public would be only loosely committed to the party and that such a commitment would manifest itself mainly at election times. General wisdom holds that party activity during electoral campaigns has the effect as it were of recharging the members’ batteries. Between elections, emphasis tends to be laid on the more pragmatic issues of the day. It is during campaign periods that principles and long-term objectives are aired and reformulated. In the cluster parties the reverse held with the partisans counted on to restrain their ideological fervor during campaigns while voter excitement is whipped over the competition itself. This meant a shift from using weaponry designed for specific targets to those that had wider effects. Ideological appeals were thus replaced by general appeals to material interests, and effective system management, and by party style. This also meant shifting

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the emphasis from long-term to short-term goals and to more immediate and concrete concerns. Such appeals could be flavored by principles, but these tended to be noncontroversial (e.g., the preservation of democracy, the ingathering of exiles, etc.) or at least to transcend sectional interests. The introduction in 1969 of television as a campaign tool enhanced such changes by allowing parties to put across to the undifferentiated electorate messages in which visual images and emotive rhetoric took precedence over substantive argumentation. Nonverbal cues, especially those associated with décor, visual symbols, and other props, began to assume greater importance. Furthermore, television afforded opportunities for direct and immediate thrust and counterthrust, action and reaction, thus adding impetus to the inclination to replace clear programs by the discrediting of opponents. The medium tended thereby to depict the campaign as resembling a horse race with the excitement growing as it approached the finishing line. This intensification was due to the fact that television was owned by the state, which restricted the political broadcasts to a daily thirtyminute segment during the last three weeks: time allotted to the parties was based on their size in the outgoing Knesset. These effects were by no means unique to Israel. The country had caught up with a major modification in the conduct of electoral campaigns that had been evident in the United States and in Western Europe since the early 1950s. Coming as it did on the heels of the defeat of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, which had so spectacularly demonstrated the brainwashing power of the mass media, this change concerned many critics. A famous example is Otto Kirchheimer’s warning that we may come to regret adopting catchall tactics and reducting campaigns into exercises in voter manipulation.23 But despite the similarity, the temporal sequence in Israel was reversed. Instead of catchall tactics resulting from adopting modern mass-media techniques, they originated from the transformation of the party system, preceding the adoption of the modern mass-media techniques. Later we shall see that changes in the party system of the 1980s even brought about the exploitation of the mass media to generate a return to ideological discourse. Nevertheless, critics immediately noted similarities between Israel and other Western democracies, not only with regard to the message, but also its influence on the electorate. Thus, a direct link was established between high exposure to general television and to the campaign broadcasts, that is, the programs drew not only partisans and the politically minded, but also the wide general audience of television viewers.24 When polled on what they perceived to be the functions of the television campaign, most of them downplayed voter guidance (i.e., taking cues as to whom to vote for) and reinforcement (strengthening an existing tendency to vote in a given direction). Instead, what emerged as the primary function was that of surveillance, defined as the providing of “information concerning the political environment: in particular familiarity . . . with political leaders, thus facilitating a better evaluation of the leadership.”25

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Such an evaluation is a pointer to the structural modifications that began to accrete within the parties as a consequence of the changes in the party system and in the manner of conducting the campaigns. Since Robert Michels,26 political parties have commonly been considered as hierarchical organizations comparable to an expanding system of concentric circles in a ripple effect. The nucleus consists of the relatively small number of leaders at the national level. A wider circle includes local party leaders and activists. The next circle takes in consistent though passive supporters, while the as-yet-uncommitted public comprises the outer, widest circle. The introduction of television allowed the local party leaders and activists to be bypassed, thereby establishing a more direct link between the nucleus and the two outer circles. One could argue that Israel, with its hierarchical parties headed by charismatic leaders such as Ben-Gurion and Begin, did not require the television to promote such contact. However, claiming that a hierarchical structure or charismatic leadership means disregarding local activists and the grassroots , or even that processes of hierarchization must lead to such a result, is a non sequitur. In fact, a high concentration of power in the hands of party elites together with a considerable degree of closeness of relationships among the levels of party organization and the high degree of dependence of the party on the branches in the conduct of campaigns characterized the prestate era and the first 20 years of independence. The switch to catchall tactics and the capacity of television to direct the limelight on a few leaders who could address the entire electorate transferred the brunt of communicating with the wider public to the leadership at the national level with the role of the branches being gradually reduced to little more than that of local service organizers on behalf of the party headquarters. What was at stake, however, was something far more fundamental. Critics tend to view elections in liberal democracies from two perspectives: as bottomup institutions that enable citizens to direct the leadership, and as top-down institutions geared to enhancing the legitimacy and authority of that leadership. It is probably more fruitful not to regard the two approaches as mutually exclusive, but to see elections as a two-way exchange of influence. Similar inclusiveness is applicable to the purposes put forward as motivating campaign communication:27 the transmission of policy messages that confer on the victors a mandate to pursue policy preferences, the solicitation of approval for or disapproval of government performance, the attempt to persuade the voter that the candidates’ attributes render them fit to govern, and the ensuring of legitimacy and voter satisfaction through the ritualistic appeal to generally accepted values. All four purposes animate electoral propaganda, although not necessarily in equal proportions. These will be conditioned by constraints such as circumstances, the members’ values and convictions, the party’s own past record, and the nature of the competition. The effect of the changes in Israel was to release the upper party echelons from many of these constraints. At least as far as the clusters were

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concerned, this meant a shift to the top-down model of elections, which worked in tandem with the concentration on leadership, system management, and the ritualistic dimensions of the party-public communication at the expense of attempts to enlist support for prospective alternative policies. This may help explain why the elections of 1969 marked the turning point at which the number of registered party members began a decline that continued unabated up to the 1990s. Many have pointed out that this was closely associated with the diminished role of the parties as service providers. This, however, was nothing new, because most of the services had already been taken over in connection with independence. What it all boils down to is that in the course of time the voluntary nature of the membership grew in importance, and the reason no loss of membership occurred was increasingly related to nonmaterial factors such as ideology and the sense that the party depended on its grassroots as a vital link with the electorate. It was the weakening of these attachments that levied therefore so heavy a toll. If on the eve of the 1969 elections party membership numbered roughly 18 percent of the adult population; by 1973 it had dropped to 16 percent; by 1981 to 10 percent; and by the early 1990s to 7 percent.28 Both the concentration of power at the center and the attendant fall in party membership related as cause and as effect to yet another trend that began in 1969 and steadily picked up force thereafter: the growing reliance of the parties on state funding that, although it did not release them from reliance on individual large donors, did nevertheless ease dependence on party membership dues and small contributions. Throughout the prestate period and the first 20 years of independence, much of the parties’ budgetary needs were covered by membership dues, averaging 0.5 percent of the yearly salary, or a flat rate for the selfemployed. The intimate relationship of the parties with their adherents accounted not only for the high rate of payment but also for their ability to launch special fund-raising campaigns on the eve of elections. The formation of clusters and the reduction of membership precisely when mass media caused campaigning costs to escalate meant that membership dues alone could not suffice. Whereas previous to 1969 they accounted for some 50 percent of party revenues, by the following election they declined to a mere 10 percent. Public campaign financing legislated in preparation for the 1969 elections was timed to solve the problem. As a trial measure, it was relegislated as a permanent law early in 1973 and expanded to include state funding of the day-to-day operations of the parties.29 The effects, however, were manifest from the start. State subsidies reduced the relative importance of membership dues, especially as the collection of small sums from larger numbers of people involved more effort and organization than the collection of large sums from fewer sources. This in itself had a negative effect on the efforts to mobilize membership, leading to a decline of activities at the grassroots level, but even more important, this increased the importance of the upper echelons who now became responsible for receiving, allocating, auditing, and

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Table 3.2 Breakdown of Party Expenditure for the Elections of 1961 and 1969 In Israeli pounds and percentage of total expenditure (in brackets) Item

1961

1969

Regular Staff Expenditure (Including Traveling Expenses)

7,000,000 (28.0)

6,478,952 (33.6)

Special Office Expenditure (Including Phone and Postage)

2,000,000 (8.0)

1,066,778 (5.6)

Public Election Meetings (Including Phone and Postage)

3,000,000 (12.0)

756,750 (3.92)

Rent, Hiring, or Buildings

2,000,000 (8.0)

870,880 (4.5)

Advertisement (Including Newspapers, Television)

3,000,000 (12.0)

6,534,388 (33.8)

Election Day

3,000,000 (12.0)

3,022,438 (15.6)

Other Expenses

5,000,000 (20.0)

498,014 (2.6)

25,000,000

19,283,870

Total

The sum of IL55,700 paid by the Free Center as guarantees to the Central Elections Committee was not included. Source: E. Guttmann, “Israel,” Journal of Politics 25 (1963): 716; State Controller, Inspection in Terms of the Law for the Elections to the Knesset and to the Local Authorities 1969, Financing Limitations and Auditing (Jerusalem: February 8, 1970).

monitoring the use of public subsidies. Table 3.2, giving a breakdown of the main categories of expenditure in the 1961 and the 1969 campaigns, points at the changes that took place. Whereas there was a reduction in terms of money spent on every item except advertisement, proportionally there were considerable differences. Sundry expenses fell dramatically as did the sums spent on public meetings and rent, chiefly for meeting halls. Staff and election-day expenses showed a moderate proportionate increase, but advertisement expenses nearly tripled. To set this in a broader context, one may note the apparent similarity between what occurred in Israel and what Katz and Mair have described as the emergence of the cartel party. For them, the growth of public-party funding “has come to represent one of the most significant changes to the environment within which parties act.”30 Katz and Mair too stress that the changes are not “exogenous to the parties,” but that it was their own modus operandi that led to the need for public subventions, whereas their representatives, as legislators, passed the public-party funding regulations and determined their nature and scope. The

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need for public-party funding developed with the decline in the membership of catchall parties, which resulted in the dwindling of their resources. In brief, the widening gap between leadership and grassroots and the new style of communication contributed to a distancing of much of the electorate from both the messages and those who tailored them; and the distance grew with the rising costs of campaign activity. The employment of public party funding as the most effective strategy for generating resources established the same vicious circle as in Israel. It increasingly released parties from their obligations to specific publics, thus contributing yet further to the general decline in party involvement. In effect, the parties substituted a common cartel arrangement for their dealings with particular electorates. Such a cartel was geared not only to ensuring the survival of its members but also, because public-party funding is allocated on the basis of electoral performance, to shielding them against newcomer competition. In this regard the state becomes “an institutionalized structure of support, sustaining insiders while excluding outsiders. No longer simple brokers between civil society and the state, the parties now become absorbed by the state.”31 The Israeli case differs from this pattern in one important respect. Historically, Katz and Mair see the emergence of cartel parties as the last phase in a dialectical evolutionary process, prompted by the way catchall parties adapt to a changing environment. Catchall parties themselves evolved from two earlier party types. Former cadre parties, under the pressure of competition from newer mass parties, established organizations resembling their competitors but extending their appeal to all the classes of society. Later, mass parties were in turn themselves affected by the “contagion from the right.”32 But as a new society Israel had never known the first phase of cadre parties. Until the institution of public party funding, the predominant pattern was that of mass parties. Public funding enabled them to adopt catchall tactics by offsetting the price they would have to pay due to declining membership. In short, it acted as the midwife rather than the offspring of catchall parties. So far, discussion has turned on the significance of party clustering for the larger parties and for the party system as a whole. But one must remember that the ultimate intention behind these transformations was to influence electoral choice. Their cumulative effect was the growing unpredictability of electoral outcomes. This did not yet manifest itself in 1965. Although no electoral research has been done on these elections, one may safely assume that the formation of the opposition and government clusters was too recent to alter significantly the perceptions of the electorate. In retrospect, Begin was correct in his defense against the accusation that that the failure of Gahal to win more than 26 Knesset seats was proof that clustering had failed. Clustering, in his view, was not an event but a process, to be regarded as a long-term investment rather than a short-term purchase of votes. Nor did the electoral results of 1969 alter the picture to any great degree. What did occur was an increase in the number of “floating”

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voters, and this was clearly established in the above-mentioned 1969 electoral study. In response to the question, “Which party do you support more than all the others?” 26.6 percent answered on the eve of the campaign that they did not favor any party, and an additional 4.7 percent did not answer at all. The polls conducted in the course of the campaign itself showed that the first figure fell by 2.6 percent (from 26.6 percent to 24 percent), but the no answer category rose by 4.3 percent (from 4.7 percent to 9 percent). Whereas this indicated a relatively large number of voters who could not be relied on by any party, it did not necessarily mean that none of them had made up their minds for whom to cast their vote in the immediate elections. Nevertheless, on the eve of the campaign 18.4 percent were still undecided, with an additional 7.4 percent in the no answer category. In the midcampaign, 16 percent had not yet made up their mind, compared to the 2 percent who left the category, whereas 3.6 percent were added to the no answer category, which rose from 7.4 percent to 11 percent.33 Four years later, in the precampaign polls of May 1973, the number of those who had not made up their mind rose spectacularly to 29 percent and even in midcampaign (September 1973) it was still 19 percent.34 Such unattached voters increasingly took precedence in campaign efforts because they, along with the deserters from various parties, constituted the public capable of swinging the results. For the main competitors this served as an incentive to de-emphasize ideology yet further and to augment the factors of leadership and success in system management. Critics both in Israel and elsewhere described this style of campaigning as “Americanization.” It is therefore significant that research on the U.S. voter showed that when campaigns are dominated by principles, parties have an “anchor-point.” Strong bonds of partisanship provide added predictability and stability of both voter- and party-behavior between elections. When, on the other hand, campaigns are characterized by catchall tactics, and most of all when such competition is close, the elections hinge on short-term unpredictable factors and results are subject to fluctuations based on the state of the economy, scandals, and similar matters.35

V. The Yom Kippur War and its Effects One can now return to the interrupted discussion of continuity and change following the Yom Kippur War. The war that broke out on October 6, 1973, disrupted the campaign for the Knesset, which was renewed only 40 days later, on November 16. There were, therefore, virtually two campaigns in that year. As Table 3.3 shows, in the earlier election principles and stands on controversial issues played an even smaller part than in previous electoral rounds. The Likud did devote about one-fifth of its electoral propaganda to such matters, but much of that one-fifth came in the form of broad generalizations and emotive statements such as, “Down with outdated Socialism.” The main party slogan was, “Give

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Table 3.3 Content Analysis of Electoral Appeals Appearing in the Israeli Press, September–October and November–December 1973 (Percentages relate to the number of ads, including the stated type, in which the specified content appears.) Content of Appeal

Alignment Sept.–Oct. 1973

Exploiting the Reputation of Leaders

25.0

4.0

9.7

4.8

Past Achievements and Positive Party Traits

41.6

14.6

11.8

3.6

Criticism of Rivals on Grounds of Past Failures, Poor Leadership, and Corruption

48.8

36.0

11.8

43.4

4.2

2.3

20.4

10.8

1.1

20.5

Fears (War, Danger to Democracy, Unemployment, etc.) Consensus, Unity of the Nation

4.2

4.0

Likud Nov.–Dec. 1973

Confident Assurance of Electoral Victory

—

13.3

Continuity

—

4.2

6.5

21.3

25.8

12.0

General Noncontroversial Issues (Democracy, Peace, Justice, etc.)

4.2

—

14.5 —

Stand on Controversial Domestic Issues (Free Competition, State and Religion, etc.)

—

9.3

4.3

1.2

Stand on Controversial Foreign Policy and Defense Issues (Borders, Relations with Germany, etc.)

—

12.0

14.0

7.2

Others N

8.3 24

13.3 75

4.3 186

4.8 166

Source: Content analysis of electoral appeals in Ha’aratz and Ma’ariv; September–November 1959, June–September 1961, September–November 1965. Notes: (1) not included are ads consisting simply of the name of the party on the bare statement “vote for”; (2) “others” refers to instances when three checkers failed to include an item under any of the content headings; (3) because some of the ads contained more than one of the content items, the total percentage of content items to ads does not equal 100. — means that the content item does not appear in advertisement.

Change a Chance,” and the bulk of the propaganda consisted of accusations of corruption in high places and of allegations of municipal and government bureaucratic inefficiency such as the unpunctuality of the bus services or the rudeness of public service officials.36 The Alignment for its part forewent controversial matters altogether, both with regard to domestic and foreign policy and defense issues. Instead, it emphasized its achievements in office (41.66 percent), criticized the Likud as an all-talk no-action party under demagogic leadership (45.83 percent), and bolstered the image of its own leaders (25 percent). An

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innovation that shows the political climate was the appointment of what the Alignment spokesman called “professional publicity experts who approached the elections from a marketing point of view.”37 The idea of making such appointments was taken up by the Likud in the following elections of 1977, so that the campaigns of both increasingly came to rely on media professionals. The second campaign of 1973, conducted while most of the reservists were still in uniform, naturally focused on security and peace negotiations. One would expect to find that catchall tactics would be set aside and that debate would be conducted on ideological grounds and contrasting alternatives. This turned out not to be the case. The shock of the war and the need to rethink past and future policies did give rise to considerable argument, but only within the larger parties. Mapam and the doves in Mapai sharply criticized their own government’s hard line; within the Likud several factions announced that peace depended on territorial concessions and the Liberals pressed for a formal decision favoring a territorial compromise in Sinai. Consequently, in the second campaign each cluster found presenting clear-cut views difficult. Table 3.3 shows that the weight of the controversial issues was not increased significantly, and in the Likud’s case it was even reduced. Although the Alignment formed a political committee for organizing the campaign, it met only sporadically and its members limited themselves to ratifying press appeals drafted by the professionals. As the party’s spokesman put it, “Whereas the politicians neglected their duties, the experts worked at a furious pace.” Their main effort was to prove that the Likud lacked a peace-making policy and to challenge it to state clearly what concessions it was prepared to make in future peace negotiations. The Likud spokesman for his part explained that the information headquarters consisted of the top leaders of every one of the factions in the cluster and that they therefore found focusing on the failures and weaknesses of the Alignment easier, arguing that it itself lacked a coherent policy and that its dithering had led to the war in the first place.38 Despite widespread disillusionment with the government, especially as concerns its preparedness for the war, election results were less dramatic than might have been expected. The Alignment’s share of the general vote fell by 6.6 percent (from 46.2 to 39.6 percent) and the Likud garnered 30.2 percent of the vote, up from the combined 26 percent of its components in 1969. But compared with the large number of undecided indicated by the polls, most of them disappointed Alignment voters, it becomes clear that the majority did not change their allegiance in the end. What happened may perhaps be best illustrated by the appearance of an intellectually led group that invested intense efforts to persuade the undecided under the slogan, “In spite of everything, the Alignment!” The electoral upheaval was however only delayed. Up to the last minutes of the campaign, the elections of 1977 seemed to duplicate those of 1973. Again the polls showed a considerable group of undecided, mostly comprised of disappointed former Alignment voters, and expectations

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were that most would again “return home.” On the morning of the elections, drivers found their car antennas adorned by a slip of paper bearing a message from the Likud: “The key is in your hand.” Nevertheless, when at the end of the day it transpired that sufficient numbers had switched their choice to produce the first takeover of government since independence, all were taken by surprise, including the Likud itself. General wisdom takes the upset to be the major turning point in the history of Israeli politics, amounting to setting the foundations of a “Second Republic.”39 Critics were undoubtedly correct in pinpointing 1977 as “The End of a Dominant Party System.”40 There is equally widespread agreement where the causes of the change lay. Long-term trends that had manifested themselves earlier now reached their zenith. One was that the majority of the new immigrants (most of whom were no longer new) did not perceive labor any more as the source of largesse. Another was protest, mainly among the second generation of Israelis from AsianAfrican descent, against the demeaning manner in which labor and the elitist Ashkenazi elements it represented had absorbed their parents. Much has also been written about the immediate problems that beset the Alignment. Underscored was the failure of leadership following the resignation of Golda Meir and the retirement of the well-tested and highly respected Old Guard and their replacement, virtually at once, by a younger generation. Entire books have been devoted to details of the corruption charges that rocked the whole country, and the inability of the government to deal effectively with the problems of the day. Also acknowledged is that the appearance of the DMC facilitated the switch by offering an alternative to the Alignment such as did not mean automatically a vote for Begin who was still anathema to many. There is an undeniable truth in all this. And yet, such explanations focus on what to my opinion are dependent factors, missing the independent factor that explains why these resulted in labor’s downfall: that the main distinctions of principle between government and opposition had been obfuscated and that the battle between them was waged chiefly on the questions of system management, leadership, and such issues as corruption. All government parties presiding over what is commonly perceived as serious failures in system management find themselves in a precarious position. But the asymmetry between labor and the Likud exacerbated the former’s predicament. It confronted a large opposition that had never been in office, save during a short period in which it served as a coalition member in a Labor-led government. The Alignment’s attempts at self-defense by pointing an accusing finger at the Likud’s own blemished record lacked credibility, whereas the argument that its superior experience ensured success was obviously belied. It had therefore to fight on its record in the hope that past achievements would compensate for present difficulties. Moreover, the short period in which the opposition served in government happened to be one of the most prosperous and stable in the history of the state, lasting long enough to render unconvincing any dire warning of

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what Likud victory would bring about. In short, once the competition was based on such grounds it was inevitable that sooner or later labor would fall because no government is immune from bad luck or grand failure, and no party can hope to be forever led by humans who have not blundered. When the fundamental differences between the parties became blurred, the slogan, “Give Change a Chance” could be phrased, “Give us a chance to try our luck,” and this resonated with the sentiment that determined the electoral choice. Something similar applies to the “ethnic protest vote.” That there were such sentiments is hardly in doubt, but the argument that “the manner in which the protest [was] given expression in the political arena by the electorate is in great measure influenced by the behavior of the parties and the political elites” is convincing.41 As noted earlier, from the mid-1950s a majority of Herut members were Oriental Jews yet most Oriental voters cast their ballots in favor of the dominant party. The transformation of the Israeli party system and the appearance of an opposition that could not be blamed for the alleged failures in absorption, which shed its extremist image to become a full-fledged member of the “community of parties” and which, to boot, was discriminated against by the same hostile elites, legitimated a shift in which the two factors strengthened each other. This already found expression in the election of 1973, and in 1977 it snowballed to create a situation in which most of the Oriental vote was obtained by the Likud. From this perspective, then, the turning point in Israeli politics had really come twelve years earlier when party clustering initiated a new system. The continued domination of labor right up to 1977 is merely a testimony to the good times that Israel was enjoying after the Six Day War. If this analysis holds, the important question about the immediate causes of the 1977 debacle is not the one commonly raised. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 abruptly changed the conditions that had created the relaxation of tensions and permitted the parties to form clusters. In the economic sphere, defense budgets swallowed up to 40 percent of the GNP, while rising oil prices contributed to an escalating inflation that reached 50 percent annually. With regard to the Occupied Territories, 1974 saw the formal appearance of a new settlement movement, Gush Emunim (the Bloc of the Faithful), which demanded increased Jewish settlement in Western Palestine and by establishing illegal settlements wherever it chose forced the government to react. Drawing its power from a combination of nationalist and religious ideas the Gush added an ideological element to the struggle and raised the spectre of a clash between the religious and secular sectors of society. In foreign affairs, negotiations with the neighboring Arab states ceased to be just a theoretical proposition, and when the 1977 elections were held the convening of an international conference in Geneva to deal with the Middle East conflict was already on the agenda. As the mainstay of government, the Alignment was obliged to formulate policies that would answer all these new demands. Why then did it fail to restructure the choice between it and the Likud

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along clear ideological grounds, but allowed itself to be cornered into fighting the Opposition on its own terms? The answer can be viewed from two vantage points: the external and the internal. Central to the former were the issues and the campaign style adopted by the main adversaries. On domestic policies, the Likud was unable to sharpen the differences between it and the Alignment because its partners did not see eye to eye with one another on socioeconomic matters. Nor could it make an ideological attack on the Alignment positions, even if it wished to, because these were subject to the same inconsistencies. The territorial issue presented a somewhat different picture after the Liberals failed to break away from Gahal when the latter bolted from the government in 1970, and following the 1973 elections when the Oriental vote contributed considerably to the Likud’s rise. This reduced the proportion of the Liberal voters among its traditional supporters, so that Herut found itself able to assert greater influence on the party positions. A full analysis is offered in chapter 4. Here suffice it to note that with the approach of the 1977 campaign the party deliberately toned down its hawkishness so as to create an image of flexibility. Thus it stressed the need for direct peace negotiations without prior conditions, the guideline of which would be the same national consensus formulated by the Alignment itself: no return to the 1967 Armistice lines, no redivision of Jerusalem, and no Palestinian state west of the Jordan River. What the Alignment attempted to do was to repeat its 1973 gambit of accusing the Likud of an adventurism that endangered all prospects of peace. As bluntly put in the party platform: “In contrast to the direction taken by the Likud, one which cannot lead to peace, the people are called upon to allot power and trust to the Alignment whose policy is dictated by striving for peace.” This however was undercut by the Likud’s assertion that its government “will put the striving for peace at the head of all its priorities and will not spare any effort to advance peace. The Likud will be a wholehearted partner in a negotiation for peace treaties . . . with our neighbors. The Likud government will participate in the Geneva conference.” Even on the vexed question of settlements in the Occupied Territories, the differences were not clear cut. Labor professed a willingness for territorial compromise with the neighboring states, yet its platform specifically proclaimed that “the settlement of all regions of the state is of paramount importance from the Zionist, the defense, and the social points of view. Its efforts will be harnessed . . . to continue and consolidate the settlements in the vicinity of Jerusalem, in the Golan, the Jordan valley, the Rafiah region [the South Gaza Strip] and the Sinai.” To the uninitiated, this seemed to differ little from the Likud position, according to which “the settlement project in all the regions of Israel was in the past and remains today the focus of Zionist activity and of the effort to set up essential defensive regions. The Likud government will call upon the young generation in Israel and the Diaspora to encourage settlements and to partake in the mission of settling the empty parts of the land, while meticulously

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preventing any confiscation of lands already settled.”42 The appearance of the DMC with its basic claim that what were really at stake were problems of government structure and bureaucratic red tape as well as deficient democratic procedures within the parties further contributed to the general sense that it was not ideology but the suitability of the alternative leadership teams to govern that was the true issue. But any consideration of the Likud and the DMC campaigns must take into account the internal tribulations of the Alignment. Whereas the Likud refrained from running on an ideological ticket to allay internal strains and to capitalize on the failures of the Alignment government, the Alignment refrained because it was already torn apart by internal strains. The need to create policies that could respond to the economic decline and the social tensions it spawned, the growing world isolation, and the increasing dissension over the destiny of the Territories, repeatedly shattered such ideological compromises as had been made among the factions and instigated interfactional feuds. The unwieldy structure of government dictated by the need to satisfy factional appetites exacerbated the problem by setting ministry against ministry. In the absence of figures of the stature of Ben-Gurion or Golda Meir, factional leaders were not ready to accept the authority of any one of their peers. Even the prime minister himself was considered as being no more than one of a number of equals. An example is the late 1974 Mapam assessment of the pros and cons of membership in the Alignment. Ben-Aharon, who, it must be remembered, was one of the early authors of the conception, openly admitted that the cluster had failed to live up to the electoral expectations; nor did it fulfill his hope that the factions would come up with new common interests with each preserving its own essential principles. Other participants in the discussion agreed; yet the argument was raised that Mapam could point to one major achievement: “nobody can deny that in these difficult days . . . we at least neutralized Rafi,” although it was true that “they neutralized us too, and that over a lengthy period.” To consolidate the gain and minimize the loss, it was concluded, Mapam should be alive to the dangers and resist the pleas not to rock the boat. Now was the time “to renew our political aggressiveness, both in the Alignment and the general public,” for the alternative would be that “the Alignment will be the end of us.”43 It was not only the DMC that regarded the stalemate in government and the inability to decide as the main problem besetting the country. The public at large became engrossed in the question of misadministration, sensing that the source of the problem lay in the manner of decision making, and this perception was magnified by the instances of corruption that were being uncovered. A preelection survey shows that only 33 percent of the respondents included peace negotiations as one of the three major issues determining the vote, whereas 55 percent included leadership and corruption in official circles.44 Notwithstanding the approach of the Geneva conference, such estimates were extraordinary in a country in a state of siege.

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That being so, the main strategy of the Alignment was reduced to one of damage control. What could be interpreted as divisiveness and intraparty bickering were, it implied, the birth pangs of a new order led by leaders of a new generation ready to take on the burdens of problems without precedents to guide them. This was contrasted with the Likud, whose leadership did not change with the times and whose rigid outlook reflected bygone days. The revealing of corruption testified to the readiness, come what may, of the new leadership to extirpate the old modes of behavior of an earlier generation. Such reasoning resulted in a remarkable similarity in the campaigns of the main parties. Each hired commercial publicity firms to handle its campaign,45 and each dubbed its opponents as ideological “Supermarkets.” The three slogans were interchangeable: “There must be a change” (DMC); “We are the address for renewal and change” (Alignment); “There is but one power with the strength to change Government” (Likud). The Alignment accused the Likud of corruption and warned that its success would endanger democracy. The Likud accused the Alignment of corruption and warned that its success would endanger democracy. The DMC accused both impartially of corruption and warned that their success would endanger democracy. Perhaps the best-known summary was of Ezer Weizman, who was in charge of the Likud campaign: “We sold the Likud like Coca-Cola.” In this analysis the accent has fallen on the elections of 1977 not only as marking the end of Labor dominance, but also as signifying the culmination of the processes, which ended in the replacement of the party system inherited from the Yishuv by the new cluster party system. In a sense, the rise of the Likud to power marks a closure of odyssey. From being pariah party commanded by one whose very name Ben-Gurion would not bring himself to utter (in the Knesset he would refer to him only as the person sitting next to a named MK) Herut became the mainstay of the government coalition and its leader the prime minister. Ironically, however, the reversal of positions was the outcome of the logic of the new party-cluster system, which had a debilitating effect on whatever party was in power. Now that the Likud was in office, it inherited its opponent’s weakness. In 1977 this was as yet unclear. Whatever the differences between the Alignment and the Likud, it seemed that a fragmented governing party was superseded by a united, decisive opposition. It was not long before it became apparent that what brought the cluster party system into its own was what was to bring it into its end.

VI. Summary and Conclusions One question raised in the introduction concerned the connection between party and party-system change: when, how, and to what extent do the former cause the latter? The first part of this book discussed the complete restructuring of the Israeli party system as a result of the accumulation of transformations at the

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individual unit level. This seems consistent with theories of party change, which are based on the assumption that the fundamental changes take place within parties. In view of the profound socioeconomic and demographic changes undergone by the Israeli polity since its independence, the social structure and the adaptive organization approaches immediately come to mind. The transformations however were brought about by deliberate political decisions taken by party leaders at a time when the system had already reached stability yet not so late as to be explained by a generational changing of the guard. In fact, the leaders involved were of the founding father generation and had achieved their status well before the changes were initiated. This stability, coupled with the fact that none of the initiating parties had experienced any external shocks, does not accord with the purposive action approach either. This is not to say that these approaches are irrelevant. The changes in the socioeconomic environment were preconditions of what had taken place, whereas the purposive action approach helps to explain the ripple effects that rendered the activities of individual leaders the starting point for the transfiguration of the party system as a whole. Nevertheless, the initial shifts require a different explanation. Much of the literature on party and party-system change tends to regard ideological and pragmatic approaches as constituting extreme poles of a single continuum along which parties move. Yet the same continuum operates in more than one dimension. It applies both to the employment of electoral tactics and to the purposes for which power is sought, and a position in one dimension need not be consistent with the position in the other. Often locations on the continuum reflect not only the nature of a party and the balance of power within it but also its external constraints. What leaders and activists of ideologically oriented parties would prefer is to eat the cake and have it. The intention behind the party alterations that took place toward the elections of 1965 was to reserve the ideology for party stalwarts while adopting an electorally effective style of communication for the public; in other words, to bring about the correspondence of the two distinct aims of maximizing electoral width and of preserving ideological depth. This explains why, at least initially, the shifts were not in the parties themselves but in the relationships among them. Parties coalesced into cluster parties bound by an electoral agreement and minimal programs within which the components retained their identity as factions. The image of heterogeneity, the broad synthetic programs and the combination of forces into sizable groupings were designed to attract nonaligned voters, especially those who would favor large competitors over splinter and minor parties. The effects on the external activity of the clusters were far reaching. The elections of 1965 had already witnessed the wholesale adoption of catchall tactics and subsequent campaigns saw the growing reliance on mass media and modern techniques of mass communications. This in turn involved the progressive transfer of responsibility to central campaign headquarters and an increasing focus on the top leadership. Moreover, the reduction of

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contacts with the general electorate meant that the rising costs of the campaigns necessitated new forms of funding. The solution was the funding of campaigns and later also of the “current” party activities from public coffers. But within the parties, each faction sought to dissuade its stalwarts from deserting and at the same time to improve its ability to realize its interests by benefiting from the extension of the party’s electoral base; it was this pursuit of specific interests that led the components to forgo independence and become factions in the first place. Rather than reflecting changes in the electorate such moves were bent on altering the political climate to bring about shifts in the voting patterns or to prevent such shifts from taking place. Such contrivances therefore throw doubt on the accepted postulate that parties “should be considered more as responses to than causes of their environments.”46 Between the mid-1960s and the late 1970s one can identify three basic situations that induced party leaders to initiate such transformations. One was the predicament of opposition parties not ideologically opposed to one another that had to face a government party that had won successive elections. This was the situation of Herut and the Liberals, once the latter found that they had little hope of joining future Mapai coalitions. Another situation was a countermove by Mapai and members of its coalition, which attempted to foil the opposition and reduce its comparative strength by adopting similar tactics. The third situation involved small centrist parties. The experiment of clustering on order to appeal concurrently to the different sectors of the electorate meant that these were in danger of being squeezed out. Some sought to ensure survival by throwing in their weight with one of the clusters in return for ideological and structural autonomy and an assured share of the cluster’s electoral spoils. Others formed a cluster of their own that sought to present a credible alternative to both government and opposition. This was the case of the DMC, which hoped to attract voters from both the Alignment and the Likud and thereby swing the balance between them in the 1977 elections. However, if students of party and party-system change have been mistaken in reducing the role of political considerations in effecting party transformations, then we must assume that these situations do not exhaust the possible contexts in which cluster parties may be formed. From a system point of view, several outcomes of party clustering became immediately noticeable. One was the structural polarization of the party system following the reduction of factionalism and the appearance of a sizable opposition: what one critic referred to as the switch from a dominant party system into “imperfect two–partism.”47 The other was the change from centrifugal to centripetal competition, following the convergence of the cluster parties in the center of the ideological spectrum. Both had significant effects on electoral outcomes. The political world is like the world of the senses that Wordsworth described as half perceived and half created. Electoral campaigns are times of high drama, when voters are called on to weigh what has been achieved, to define the

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problems demanding solution, to choose among competing alternatives, and to select from among the rival teams those best fit to govern. That is to say that much of the contest is over particular constructs of recent history put forward by the rivals, and the resulting policies and leadership teams they proffer. Focusing attention on the competition between ideologically blurred government and opposition parties and basing what divides them mainly on issues such as leadership and system management meant that little difference remained between the constructs of reality and that the choice between the main competitors has now become obfuscated. The undecided electorate has steadily expanded, and electoral results have become growingly uncertain. The first change of government in the history of Israel is attributable to the unique circumstances of 1977, but the substitution of the cluster party system for the dominant party system rendered such an upset only a question of time.

Part II

THE PARTY-BLOC SYSTEM

Chapter 4

THE TRANSITION TO THE PARTY-BLOC SYSTEM

I. Introduction: The Twilight of the Cluster Party System If it is a truism that history never repeats itself, it is equally true that many of the broad patterns underlying history certainly do. This would seem to hold for the development of the Israeli party system between the rise of the Likud to power and the final phase of the campaign for the general elections of 1981. Following the upset of 1977, the premiership and most of the senior government positions were taken over by leaders for whom such a high rank was a new experience. A similar phenomenon had occurred some three years earlier, but in 1974 the young leaders were of the same party as the old guard they replaced and had to shoulder resentments built up in various segments of society during the long years of labor dominance. In 1977 the new leadership was free from such encumbrances although it had to contend with the distrust of other social segments for whom “Begin was the same old Begin.” Moreover, having been excluded from power, except for the relatively short period of the national unity government, the Likud had no cadre of experts to serve in the high-ranks of the civil service and had to rely on those recruited by its adversary. Nevertheless, both in 1974 and in 1977 there was a widespread feeling that a new leaf had been turned, generating a degree of patience, a wait-and-see attitude, even from opponents. As in 1974, however, the change failed to stabilize the government, nor did it prevent rifts from developing within the party in power. Indeed, in proportion as serious problems, both new and old, began to demand solution, dissension, sharper even than in the Alignment, began to manifest itself. So acute did it become that all the important ministers would resign, some more than once, and individual MKs, groups, and entire factions crossed over to the opposition. As one Likud MK wrote to the prime minister: “the quarrels, recriminations and insults bandied by the ministers and the Likud MKs are quoted in every newspaper. The use of muscle and wire-pulling has permeated every aspect of life within the party.”1 Paradoxically, although most of the intrafactional conflicts were caused by ideological differences, some of which degenerated into personal feuds, the 92

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result was that public attention was increasingly drawn to the pragmatics of leadership and system management. A discrepancy thus steadily widened between the nonideological image of the cluster and the ideological realities of the internal friction from which it sprang. The outcome was that as the 1981 election drew nearer, numerous polls revealed that the electorate was reacting in a manner reminiscent of the pre-1977 campaign. According to a 1980 survey hardly any connection was made between the evaluation of the cluster’s principles and voting intentions. Instead, of all subjects examined, the closest connection (coefficient of 0.81) was the suitability of the leadership to direct national affairs effectively.2 More significantly, a 1981 survey revealed considerable public despair and confusion. Of those questioned, 81.1 percent were for retaining the parliamentary system, yet 66.1 percent expressed negative attitudes toward the political parties and denied that they had any important function. To the question: “The opinion has been expressed that, in order to overcome the major problems facing the state, the entire political system must be changed and a strong government of leaders independent of parties should take over control. Do you or do you not agree?” 40 percent answered in the affirmative.3 As in 1977, new cluster parties were formed just before the 1981 elections. Like the DMC of 1977, Telem was at once a product of the new system and a reaction against it. Like it too, it consisted of several parties and groups that gathered around a charismatic leader. The Telem counterpart of the DMC’s Yigael Yadin was former Alignment leader and former foreign minister in the outgoing Likud-led government, Moshe Dayan. Its leadership was drawn from the Alignment, the former Likud Rafi faction (State List), the now defunct DMC, and several other small splinter groups and prominent individuals. It too nearly foundered at its inception because of ideological differences. At one point some even suggested solving the problem by allowing each component to draw up its own program while agreeing to a common minimal joint formulation with which all partners could live without forfeiting their separate identities.4 The platform finally agreed on glossed over the discrepancies, sufficing with a number of general and pragmatic paragraphs. Whereas the distinctive element in the DMC lay in the organizational principles it promoted, Telem’s was an operative program for West Bank autonomy. In both cases, however, the party hoped to tip the balance between the two main rivals in favor of whichever would accept the remedy each offered for the crises that had risen from the dissension and lack of common policies. Thereby it would establish stability and resolve the differences by imposing “a decisive and consistent stand.”5 Such similarities may explain why the 1981 Knesset electoral campaign started off by following the pattern of 1977. Each of the clusters employed commercial advertising companies that relied heavily on opinion polls and employed similar tactics concentrating on image building and system management. Highly developed techniques directed at the lowest common denominator of political

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sophistication came up with interchangeable slogans. In the words of one media expert: “I see no difference between . . . the campaigns. Their advertisements resemble each other.”6 Each of the main contenders emphasized that this election was a fateful one and hinged on the choice of strong, reliable leadership capable of imposing unity. The Alignment and the Likud came up with an identical slogan: “Unite for a strong Israel.” Both pretsented the choice between retreat and advance and promised to “Continue in the right way” (Likud) or “This time a serious government” (Alignment). The electoral results differed greatly from those of 1977. Nevertheless, even they arguably may be explained as the confirmation and consolidation of the same basic patterns. Because instability was more noticeable in the government party, the Alignment opposition had a clear head start. As appears in Table 4.1, up to early in 1981, polls foretold the overthrow of the Likud and an unprecedented increase in the strength of the Alignment. Thereafter there was a remarkable reversal, leading to a neck-and-neck competition between the two cluster parties, so that a prolonged and virulent campaign ended in a draw in that the two accounted between them for some five-sixths of the Knesset seats. But at least one of the reasons for the unusual recovery of the Likud and the consequent shift in the direction of the campaign was pragmatic and related to system management: the institution as of the early months of 1981 of flagrant election economics, consisting of dramatic tax reductions on imported consumer goods, lowering income tax rates, and increasing subsidies for basic foodstuffs. This bred a sense of euphoria that restored the virtual two-party nature of the competition. Telem was one of the victims. From the expectations of attaining a doubledigit number of MKs all it could muster was 1.6 percent of the vote, which meant only two Knesset seats. One possible explanation is that this reflected the mood among voters in the center between Labor and the Likud, who remembered the dismal fate of the DMC, which had failed to achieve its reforming goal and was wiped off the political map as a result of the clashes among its components. Such voters decided at the last moment not to support another party that attempted to carve a niche for itself between the main powers. However, one Table 4.1 Voting Intentions 1981 (in number of MKs) Party Likud Alignment Telem

Jan.

Feb.

March

April

Election Results

20 58 —

20 45 19

33 45 9

35 46 4

48 47 2

Source: Modi’in Ezrahi Applied Research Center polls, Jerusalem Post, March 3, 1981; March 15, 1981; and June 5, 1981. For similar results see Hanoch Smith’s polls, Ma’ariv, June 5, 1981.

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should note that Telem’s meteoric rise was predicted by the polls long after the dismemberment of the DMC. A more plausible explanation seems to be that Telem’s fate reflected the dynamics of structural polarization. Once the Israeli party system began to resemble a two-party system, the destiny that so often faces third parties in the United States and was to befall the Israeli Center Party in the last elections of the millennium, exacted the same toll on Dayan’s party. Once the novelty effect of a party’s appearance has worn off and a tight election develops among the major contenders, parties that lack established, coherent identities and do not represent defined publics whose interests they vow to pursue after the elections tend to hemorrhage badly. If so, what enabled the DMC in 1977 to garner 15 MKs was that few voters believed that the government would actually fall, and this blunted somewhat the impact of the new rules of party competition. This was not the situation in 1981, and the case of Telem constitutes only the most dramatic example of what befell the lesser contenders. Other small parties tried to ensure against being squeezed out by pledging themselves in advance to enter a coalition with one or other of the dominant clusters, but they failed to prevent the majority of the electorate lining up behind the two large parties. As so often in the past, the balance of the scales lay with the religious parties. Significantly, however, even they ceased to play their traditional role of confining themselves to religious issues and committed themselves to remaining with the Likud. In short, according to such an analysis, 1981 was the first election to demonstrate fully the far-reaching impact of the trends associated with the cluster party system on the shaping of national elections. And yet, the similarities between the elections of 1977 and 1981 and the sense of déjà vu they engender are superficial, and so is the conclusion that the latter election simply reflected the coming of the cluster party system into its own. At a deeper level other forces were operating to burst out into the open on the very eve of the campaign itself. Not only did they issue in a campaign that was different from what could have been envisaged, but the electoral results heralded the decease of the clusters and a return to a more ideological form of competition. This was driven home in the following elections of 1984, which may be considered the last contest conducted by the cluster parties in the 1980s. To appreciate fully what took place we must refer, however, to the root causes of the internal disunity that crippled the Alignment in 1977 and almost did the same to the Likud four years later.

II. Party Cluster Stability and the Elections of 1981 Cluster parties reflect a precarious compromise between fusion and fission, oscillating between the poles. This is explicable when viewed against the background of the two interests prompting their formation: the desire to attain or retain power, and the desire of each component to realize as many of its interests and

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principles as possible. The one encourages unity and the creation of an image of flexibility to net the largest number of voters. The other induces the factions to compete for power within the cluster and to satisfy their stalwarts by emphasizing their principles at the expense of party unity and image of moderation. Cluster party stability will hinge on the range of the oscillation. Excessive tilting toward cooperation and the promotion of an adaptable, pragmatic image suited to appeal to the widest electorate may undermine factional identity and lead to complete fusion. An excessive tilt toward the desire of each faction to exploit the joint strength resulting from the alliance to further its separate interests may lead to dissension and end up in fission. Some comparisons may help to make this clear. One that suggests itself is between cluster parties and interparty coalitions. These too are based on agreements between autonomous parties, each seeking to further its own interest through cooperation. The main difference, especially when coalitions are compared to conglomerate cluster parties, seems to be one of duration. Interparty coalitions are limited in time, bringing together partners that are destined to compete with one another on their respective programs and achievements in the next elections. The knowledge of an inevitable future denouement serves to bind the party together, and campaigns revive the esprit de corps and reemphasize commitment to its central principles. They also remind the public of the separate identities of the parties and allow the voters to confirm their preferences. This may result in a reshuffling of the cards, the successful parties being rewarded at the expense of their weakened rivals. Even if the previous coalition is renewed, the weighting within it may therefore change. In contrast, factions within cluster parties forfeit the potential advantages of running electoral campaigns. They commit themselves to compromises over principles and positions of power in return for a shield against electoral risks, assured intraparty benefits, and a share in whatever gains the party may achieve. Prolonged tranquility may thereby bring about a situation in which both the ability and the inclination to engage in ideological partisanship shrink.7 A more helpful comparison then would be that between relations among cluster party factions and federative arrangements among states. One must remember, however, that the identification with a particular party means identification with one particular group competing with others within a larger political system. The relationship between a voter and a party is therefore usually looser and less binding than that between the citizen and the state. Whereas the bond of the citizens to the state may be taken as a given, to retain its supporters the party has to persuade them of its faithfulness to its principles and its diligence in furthering their interests. The same is true of a cluster party faction that, in addition, must reassure its supporters that by giving up their independence they can achieve these objectives more effectively. Failure to convince them may compel such a party-cum-faction to pull out of the host party under the threat of mass desertion. Such a conditional existence is typical of

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other nonterritorial federations, as for example commercial companies, but another feature is peculiar to cluster parties. Unlike state and commercial federated systems, the special interests of the federated factions are anchored in divergent conceptions of the general good of the same state. Hence, at best there is tension between their special interests, and at worst they are wholly incompatible with one another. The consequence is that even personal interests, such as positions of power or policies catering to specific groups, are liable to be justified in the name of the general good. This built-in schizophrenia is liable to affect relationships not only between the factions but also within each, creating tensions over style and the degree to which the purchase of increased electoral support justifies payment in ideological coinage. Such disagreements may destabilize the faction, especially when what is under consideration involves fundamental directions to be taken, and all the more when the allocation of posts and the destiny of individual leaders is at stake. An example is what happened to Gahal only a few months after the 1965 elections. As we have seen, Begin foresaw the possibility that Gahal would receive no more than 26 MKs. But when this turned out to be the actual number of its gains a deep disappointment set in, most prominently in Herut. Not only were the hopes of gaining added power dashed, but also the Liberals increased the number of their parliamentary representatives as the consequence of the collaboration with Herut, whereas Herut itself actually lost three MKs.8 The sense of frustration lay at the root of an unprecedented move by younger activists, intellectuals, and the leadership of the New Workers Federation (who had for long been at odds with some of Begin’s policies) to organize a coalition against the hitherto undisputed commander. Even though Begin, at his demand, received in November 1965 a vote of confidence from the Herut Central Committee, the party conference scheduled for the summer of the next year would obviously become the scene of a showdown. The main line of attack was that Begin bore responsibility for the poor results of the elections because he refused to allow an in-depth reexamination of the party ideology, which was vital to the revision of the party’s extremist reputation. Nor, for the same reason, did he seize the moment to forge an alliance with Rafi, which would render Gahal a more formidable rival to the Alignment. As foreseen, the conflict did occupy the central stage in the conference, especially when Begin dramatically resigned his position as chairman of the Herut Movement as a gesture of his repudiation of the antagonists. The conflict raged for some eight months and was terminated only when the party court intervened to expel several of the rebels from the party for publishing a article in which Begin was denounced as extremist unfit to head a government, a move that led to the secession of the dissenters and the formation of the Free Center. Internal embroilments of this kind are more likely to extend beyond the bounds of the disputatious faction because the outcome touches the rest of the

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party in several ways. At one level, it affects the collective effort to expand the cluster’s voting base. Applied to the Israeli case, whether Begin was tainted by the image of extremism would obviously exert an influence on the number of MKs the Liberals could expect to muster. At a different level, the degree of factional ideological commitment may be regarded as an index of the will and ability of the troublesome faction to accommodate others to arrive at compromises. It is not surprising therefore that the Liberals felt a need to intervene to strengthen the hand of the Herut dissenters. In a published analysis of the election results, the Liberal leader Yosef Sapir maintained that the lesson to be learned was that to become a realistic alternative Gahal must acquire “a new face” of moderation and pragmatism—a clear hint that the party needed not only to adopt a more down-to-earth message but a change of the person leading the party list, namely Begin. Moreover, he argued, “despite all that distinguishes Ben-Gurion from Begin, there is much in common between their two parties [Gahal and Rafi] . . . and there should be no reason why there should not be some form of cooperation between them.”9 In February 1966, the Liberal Central Committee even passed a formal resolution to this effect, in response to which Begin convened the Herut Central Committee to pass a resolution demanding that the Liberals accept the principle of Greater Israel. The expulsion of the Herut dissenters brought the relations among the factions to their nadir. Simha Ehrlich, who was to be Begin’s deputy in the first Likud-led government, went so far as to accuse Herut that, because of its ideological radicalism and lack of internal democracy, “it had effectively dismantled Gahal. The formal aspect of the dissolution is not decisive at this moment but it will come, because the only goal Gahal set itself—the creation of an alternative—will now never be attained.”10 It is a matter of speculation how all this would have worked out were it not for the outbreak of the crisis that was to lead to the 1967 war and to the formation of the national unity government.11 The previous narrative does not merely draw attention to a possible source of friction within each faction but may serve as a cautionary tale against the tacit assumption that factions, or parties for that matter, are unitary entities. Lack of unity constrains the ability of factions to negotiate rational outcomes to the benefit of all and to present common façades. It may also constitute a prime cause for one of the most common failures in forming and maintaining coalitional arrangements pointed out by William Riker in the early 1960s: information uncertainty.12 The more cohesive each faction within the cluster and the greater the certainty it thereby generates among the others, the more unlikely is friction to develop within the cluster. There is less temptation to meddle in each other’s internal affairs, and greater awareness of red lines beyond which factions may not stray. Contrariwise, the less each faction knows of the other and the more disunity exists within each faction, the more liable it is that the party will tend toward fission. This is why factional structure may in itself become a factor influencing

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cluster stability. Thus, the factional structure of the Liberal faction invited instability and chain reactions throughout the cluster every time its half dozen or so factions engaged in internal elections and conventions. On such occasions individual factional leaders were liable to accuse one another of yielding too easily to the demands of other components of the cluster and of “peddling away the promises and hopes”13 of the Liberals. This resulted in a domino effect where rivals adopted more radical stances in self-defense, thereby evoking countermoves on the part of other cluster factions. When, for instance, a Liberal leader denounced the settlement policy of Herut as being “contrary even to the principles of Judaism,” Herut leaders demanded the settling of accounts with the Liberals once and for all. As one of them put it: “The moment of truth is upon us, and accounts must be settled today rather than tomorrow”; others declared that they would not cooperate with the Liberals any further.14 Because this took place in 1980 when the party was in power, several Likud leaders recognized the danger. To quote one of them: “An opposition party can afford to be composed of partylike factions. A Government party cannot rule the state for long under such conditions.”15 The consequence was that special efforts were made by MKs as well as by the prime minister himself to defuse the conflict, although resentments continued to poison relations. In hindsight, this reaction reflects more typically the realities within Gahal and later the Likud than the earlier example of the bickering within Herut. If the cluster was bedeviled by internal strife, it was usually not because of but in spite of Herut. Its relative ideological cohesion, as well as the charismatic authority exerted by Begin on his followers, ensured a degree of factional stability reinforced by the deterrent effect of what happened to rebels like the founders of the Free Center. But additional factors render the 1965 example atypical. When we survey the rifts that destabilized the clusters, certain prominent patterns emerge. One is that for the most part it was not disunity within factions that led to interfactional tensions. Rather, cluster stability was threatened directly by interfactional rivalry, which at times instigated internal disputes within factions. Another is that most of the disputes that rocked the clusters did not occur when they were in opposition but when they were in government. Banishing the Alignment to the opposition in 1977 had a therapeutic effect on its interfactional relationship, which lasted till the eve of the 1981 campaign when it became confident of its return to office. And during the years marked by the instability of the Alignment, the Likud lived in relative harmony, which was to be shattered soon after its rise to power. When a cluster is in opposition, ideological pronouncements within factions tend not to evoke far-and-wide echoes because in any case they do not result in policies, while the party as a whole is not under pressure to decide on sensitive issues. It need only wait for opportunities to pounce on specific government policies and actions. When no radical changes are in the offing and no

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cardinal decisions are to be made, government clusters too may rest on their laurels. The various ministries can continue to pursue their factional policies and restrict themselves to ruling their particular domains. This produces what might be called the colonizing of departments, or the latifundia principle. Mapam, for instance, had the prerogative of running the Health Ministry in the pre-1977 Alignment-led governments whereas Mapai traditionally controlled the money; when the Likud-led government came into being it was agreed that the Liberals would control the economic ministries, and Herut kept for itself the premiership and the ministry of defense. The dangers inherent in factional competition are likely to increase when posts and positions are to be allocated or when deferring decisions that involve matters of principle not backed by party or national consensus (e.g., when the very survival of the state is endangered) becomes impossible any longer. Factional leaders are then subject to pressure from their members to defend their interests and to represent factional views. Rifts are more likely to develop along the original ideological lines, and the ability to decide is in inverse ratio to the need to decide. Such patterns explain how it turned out that being in the opposition served to unite the two clusters, whereas being in government threatened to shipwreck them. It also explains why at the time when the Alignment was caught up in crisis after crisis the Likud could offer itself as a coherent alternative, whereas once the Likud took office the two clusters seemed to have traded places. This, however, is not to say that government caused the two clusters to suffer to the same extent. The Alignment overcame its dissensions and remained unified up to the secession of Mapam following the 1984 elections. The other factions persisted as a unitary amalgamated party within which distinctions became progressively blurred till the old factional identities faded and became irrelevant. By contrast, the degree of infighting that made the first Likud-led government one of the most unstable in the history of the state had led to quite a different ending. Over and above the impact of particular circumstances, one can discern several reasons for this difference, each of which derived from the others and influencing them in turn. One is the larger number of factions that comprise the Likud and the greater ideological distances between those at its extremes. A previous chapter noted that the Alignment factions developed from a common source in the Yishuv and many of their distinctions related to variations of the same basic ideology. This was far from being the case of the Likud, whose factions represented different segments of the population, reflected different historical traditions, and sprouted from different ideological roots. A distinction should be drawn between interparty ideological differences and social cleavages. The former reflect opposing interpretations of the common good, the latter reflect prevailing empirical conditions. In a multiparty system it does not necessarily follow that each party has an exclusive relationship with a distinct social cleavage. More than one party may compete for the same segment of the population,

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and a party may compete for the votes of more than a single segment. Where the partners play on the same pitch, party clustering is facilitated. But clustering provided a solution for incompatible parties that nevertheless shared a strategy, whereas by definition catchall tactics aim to cut across cleavage lines. The consequence of the difference between the two clusters was, then, that in the Alignment catchall tactics served to bridge relatively narrow rifts, whereas in the Likud they had to bridge wide chasms, thereby endangering the dependability of the bridge. The sphere that became most divisive for the Likud was that of peace and the Territories. From the outset, the party was almost evenly split. The Liberals never subscribed to the conception of shlemut Ha’moledet (the wholeness of the Motherland) nor to the vision of Greater Israel, which was its offspring. To them one may add several of the La’am (For the People) faction, Hillel Seidel’s Achdut (Unity), and a number of moderate Herut members—most notably Ezer Weizman. None of these were wholly content with Begin’s territorial doctrine and the settlement policies that it generated, and the conflict between the two groups was aggravated following Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem (November 1977). The Camp David Accords were the stimuli for a simultaneous move within the Likud to the left and to the right, widening the gaps to the degree that the cluster suffered defections in both directions. To quote Ehud Sprinzak, the historian of the Israeli radical right, Camp David was “a bitter moment of truth. . . . It revealed the great ideological divide between the moderate members of the nationalist camp, who were ready to make painful compromises for real peace, and the radicals who believed that no peace is more sacred than the territories.”16 Nor was it the only matter that divided the cluster. Every time that laws relating to religion were initiated or supported by Herut, the Liberals almost toppled their own government, and debates on economic policy between the factions led each in turn to draw public attention to the failures of the others, sometimes in a highly undiplomatic style. For instance, a group of Liberal ideologists published its denunciation of the Rafi minister of finance who had replaced the Liberal Simcha Ehrlich as establishing “an economic Gestapo,” and voiced its hesitation about remaining in the Likud, “caught between the populist radicalism of Herut and the tyranny of Rafi.”17 Another factor affecting the different destinies of the Alignment and the Likud was their party structures. The literature on parties presents three broad models: parties as representatives of their constituents, as missionaries, and as vehicles for voter maximization. In the first, they ascertain and then aggregate the interests of their partisans to serve as bases for policy-making proposals. In the second, they are concerned with converting the electorate to their principles, irrespective of the effects on their chance of winning elections. In the third model they are mere instruments for achieving power and their positions vary according to their assessment of the impact on the voters. In practice, most parties

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act according to all three models, and their members can be expected to be motivated by the combined objectives of representation, advocacy of principles, and vote maximization. They differ, however, in the proportions of the three, and this difference can be of considerable significance. One may also expect differences in emphasis among individuals and groups within each party. According to May’s “special law of curvilinear disparity,”18 this will apply particularly to the national leadership and the “subleadership,” that is, the branch officers and members as well as regional and other constituency activists. The leaders are especially sensitive to the issue of electability on which their careers depend. The subleaders are for the most part volunteers, and occupy themselves mainly with the less glamorous details of day-to-day organizational activity. They tend therefore to give more weight to representation and to the advocacy of principles. Whether one accepts the thesis in toto,19 there is no question that the formation of party clusters involves a shift away from representation and even more so from the advocacy model in the attempt to widen electoral appeal. The more the factions forgo their separate organizational structures, the greater the likelihood of successful transition and the tilt toward party fusion. When factional organizations no longer operate at the subleadership level, party leaders have little need to be on the qui vive to prove themselves as promoters of factional interests. With time reaching compromises becomes easier, and original factional differences recede as new issues arise. A similar dynamic is most likely to operate at the grassroots level when supporters come to think of the party as a single unit and to develop new overriding interests. A further process that may be expected to develop touches on the very capacity of faction leaders to exploit intraparty pressure for the promotion of factional interests. A younger generation of leaders does not have to compete for public recognition in national electoral campaigns or even for a large following within the party as did the founders of the party or faction. They are more likely to become progressively dependent on the politics of party organization, on small groups of activists, and even on party hacks for whom rewards must be sought. The result is the gradual reduction in status of the faction leaders, the erosion of their power to enlist wide support, and the diminution of their ability to threaten secession. All this helps explain why the Alignment’s Ahdut Ha’avoda, Rafi, and Mapai submerged their identities within the Labor party, while La’am and Achdut, which lacked grassroots organization, were swamped by the Likud. Highly structured factions that retain their structures present a different case. One reason is the uneasy relationship likely to develop between their national leadership and grassroots. In such factions the shift from the representation and the advocacy models tends to be restricted mainly to the national echelons. Branch members, at least initially, are less likely to veer from their accustomed attitudes and modes of activity. As a result, national leaders find themselves under constant pressure to justify the tactics of the cluster and whatever deals

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they may make with leaders of other factions.20 Whatever case they make, avoiding growing rivalry among the leaders of the various factions over the division of power and over policies will be difficult. This may become acute as new issues arise, to which the provisions of the initial compromises hammered out at the time of the formation of the cluster do not apply. Time, in short, may well work in the opposite direction than in the case of factions that unified their structures or that lacked them to begin with. Bearing in mind that the two main pillars of the Likud were Herut and the Liberals, former mass parties that retained their structures, one can understand the persistent clashes that marked their relationships after 1977. On the face of it, this pattern applied equally to the Alignment. The amalgamated party combining Ahdut Ha’avoda, Mapai, and Rafi had a common structure extending from the national heads to the grassroots, and this equally held true for Mapam. However, such a comparison of the two clusters is misleading. This is not only because of the larger programmatic distances within the Likud, but also because of the size factor. Between 1973 and 1977 Mapam had six out of the total of the fifty-one Alignment MKs. The Liberals, between 1977 and 1981, numbered eighteen in a cluster of forty-three MKs, which included also La’am and Achdut. And the difference was all the greater owing to yet another factor that determined the frequency and the level of the friction within the two clusters: the power of factions and of individuals within them to profit from contentious behavior. From the point of view of each cluster component, the party consists of all the factions apart from itself. What is at stake, therefore, is the balance of power between each faction and the rest of the cluster, and the credibility of threats to secede. This is more than a question of numerical calculation. What is involved is the price of compromise. The higher the price a faction will be called on to pay to preserve the partnership, the more credible will be its threat. This will depend not only on the intensity of its ideological commitment, but also on its position in the interparty ideological spectrum. The price will be the higher where parties outside the cluster are close enough to the faction to offer a home for disgruntled members, or even where the possibility exists of the entire faction leaving the cluster altogether to join outside forces. The capacity to mobilize electoral support, on the other hand, not only enhances the value of potential secessionists to such rival parties, but also lends credibility to the alternative threat to go it alone and revert to independent-party status. What may prove critical, therefore, is the degree of the popularity of individual leaders. One of the factors that sent frequent shockwaves in the pre-1977 Alignment was the repeated threat of Dayan on the right of the cluster to secede. His personal popularity and the tacit threat that others in the erstwhile Rafi would joint him, whether in defecting to the Rafi faction within the Likud or to become an independent party, rendered him close to becoming a professional extortionist. Ironically, he actually did leave the party, but alone and not till after the 1977 debacle, to become Begin’s first

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foreign minister. Mapam, on the other hand, despite its full-fledged structure and stable kibbutz base, could not exercise comparable clout, except for most extreme reasons, because it had few alternatives. As a small independent party it could hardly hope to gain the benefits it already had in the Alignment, while parties it could theoretically join to the left of the cluster were limited in 1969 to Ha’olam Haze (two MKs) and Moked (one MK), and to the CRM (two MKs) in 1973. What further reduced the ability of the Alignment factions and individual leaders to profit by brinkmanship tactics was the numerical difference between the party and its rivals. The cluster could afford to dispense with small extremist groups, especially such as Mapam, which had no choice other than support the labor government from without. The situation of the Likud between 1977 and 1981 was far different. Its coalition was narrow to begin with, and after shattering the perception that toppling the government was unthinkable, electoral defeat could by no means be dismissed as an impossibility. But perhaps more important was the constant ratcheting up of the price Herut had to pay if it were to placate its partners. The Camp David Accords, which brought about the centrifugal dynamics within the cluster, resulted also in the formation of an external party to the right of Herut, eventually to be named Tehiya (Renascence). Seemingly this was to Herut as the above-mentioned Moked, or the CRM, were to Mapam. But that would miss the real point because the new party comprised secessionists from Herut who opted out of the cluster and teamed up with other elements with the clear aim of forming what one can term a blackmail party. By this it is meant a party that transmits a tacit message to erstwhile colleagues: “Either join us in refusing to compromise, or remain within the party and there refuse to compromise.” The fact that among the founders of the new party were old comrades of Begin who had been at his side ever since the days of the war against the British, that they declared themselves to be the true representatives of the Jabotinsky doctrine, and that they originally called themselves the Upholders of Herut’s Principles, rendered Herut unable to offer any further compromises. The Camp David Accords themselves were ratified in the Knesset only through the support of the Alignment opposition, whereas after the ratification Herut adopted an increasingly militant stance, especially as concerned the settlements in the West Bank. Having considered what contributed to the greater weakness of the Likud as compared to the Alignment when either was in government, we can now come back to the shift in patterns that distinguished the campaign of 1981 from that of 1977 by noting that the very severity of the fissiparous process that had destabilized the Likud served paradoxically to restabilize it. A point was reached when the defection of the more committed dissenters rendered the party more homogeneous, and this unity was further encouraged by the prediction of a landslide defeat brought about by the political earthquakes that were immobilizing the

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government. An important contributing factor was the growing asymmetry between Herut and its main internal rival, the Liberals. These, as we have noted, had enjoyed from the start a larger presentation on the cluster party’s Knesset list than was warranted by the actual number of former Liberal voters who jointed Gahal (and later the Likud). The inability to win independently anything close to what they enjoyed within the party prevented them from going it alone in 1970 despite their disagreement with Herut on the issue of bolting the national unity government, and the discrepancy grew further in 1973 and again in 1977 because most of the additional votes gained by the party came from citizens of Asian and African descent, thereby amplifying the Herut constituency. Early in 1979 a prominent Liberal legislator could admit freely that “we depend on no one’s goodwill, except Begin’s, as it is he who brings in the votes.”21 In that same year the Liberal leader, Yosef Tamir, sensing that the Liberals were doomed within the Likud, left the party.22 The fact that the Liberals were the most weakened by resignations and internal strife only worsened their situation. On the eve of the elections, the former party leader Rimalt explained caustically: “I have retired on political pension because I no longer have a party. The Liberals no longer constitute a party . . . but an organization under the aegis of Herut.”23 The upshot was that the faction began to be led by second-generation politicians who lacked general public appeal and experience in leading independent elections. Although each conflict left the Likud weaker, Herut by contrast grew relatively stronger, and government could speak with one voice. This was especially marked in the unequivocal support given to the new Herut finance minister who reversed the stringent policies of his Liberal and Rafi predecessors and adopted on the eve of the elections a policy of tax reductions and heavy subsidies. It equally found expression up to and during the campaign in the support for religious bills and increased settlement activity. Finally, the newly found unity of the Likud enabled Begin, after a long period of comparative moderation, to return to his customary oratorical style and to inflame the imagination of many who looked for a strong, heroic leader. The picture was brought into sharper relief by the destruction of Iraqi atomic installations by the Israeli air force on the eve of the elections themselves. This not only exemplified a new style of determined and daring policy, but allowed Begin to appeal for national unity behind the government and to denounce any deviation from the government line regardless from whom it came. In a retrospective analysis, one Herut deputy minister put it bluntly: “before we could go out to the voter we had to win our own struggle. We won the elections chiefly because our factional infighting had stopped.”24 And yet, this assessment does not take into consideration the full irony of the situation, that is, that the predictions of an assured Likud defeat brought about the escape of the bottled-up genie of factional strife within the Alignment. Convinced of overwhelming victory it began to bicker over the party platform, over priorities on the electoral candidate list, and over the allocation of the

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ministries in the future government. This of course was not a new phenomenon, but on the eve of the elections such quarreling was both more violent and more prominently covered by the media. As one party leader put it, “the mere smell of power produces turmoil among our factions.”25 The claim that “the disagreements are over, the quarrels have been resolved”26 came too late, was obviously intended for damage control and to prevent the sense that the party had failed to rehabilitate itself during its sojourn in the opposition, and was altogether unconvincing. Nevertheless, the newfound decisiveness of the government and the greater clarity of the Likud’s positions offered the Alignment hope because once the campaign began it too found it easier to stress on its differences with the Likud by arguing against its principles without the need to offer any clear alternatives that would involve itself in internal ideological debate. The consequence was that both parties adopted campaign strategies that were unlike those of the previous elections. Although to the last both employed catchall tactics, Table 4.2 shows that the Likud, especially in the first phase of the campaign, relied heavily on ideological appeals, particularly those relating to foreign and defense issues. During the same period the Alignment virtually ignored such matters, concentrating chiefly on its criticism of the Likud and the government as a whole. In the final weeks of the campaign, both contenders simplified their propaganda. However, whereas the Alignment picked up on ideological issues (domestic from 0.6 percent to 7.1 percent; foreign and defense from 0.6 percent to 6.9 percent), the Likud reduced its ideological emphasis (domestic from 13.1 percent to 5.8 percent; foreign and defense from 53.6 percent to 8.9 percent). Table 4.3 analyzes the daily television presentations during the last month of the elections, which confirms the impression gained from the newspaper appeals, namely, the continuation of catchall tactics accompanied by an upsurge of ideological argument. If the recrudescence of the debate on principles was something of a throwback to the type of campaigning characteristic of the precluster period, a related dimension constituted a departure from what had gone on before in the history of the state. This was the association of the two major contenders with ethnic identities, a connection that intensified their polarization and bred rancor and even occasional acts of violence. Ethnicity in itself was nothing new in the Israeli political scene. At every election from independence on there had been attempts to establish ethnically based communitarian parties, although after the first two elections none gained Knesset representation before 1981. Likewise, the relatively large proportion of voters of Asian and African (Sephardi) descent among the Herut supporters was not new. We have noted that both clusters enjoyed crosssectional support, but that the Likud had a firmer footing among the Sephardi electorate, especially those at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. Conversely, the Alignment had a better standing among the middle class and voters of Western origin. We have also noted that this differentiating trend accelerated both in

Table 4.2 Content Analysis of Electoral Appeals Appearing in the Israeli Press, April 10–June 30, 1981 (Percentages relate to the number of advertisements, including the stated type, in which the specified content appears) Alignment

Likud

April 10– May 20

May 21– June 20

Total

April 10– May 20

May 21– June 20

Total

Exploiting the reputation of leaders

39.60

16.60

22.60

44.10

44.40

44.40

Past achievements and positive party traits

31.10

9.30

15.00

81.00

43.10

49.10

Criticism of rivals on grounds of past failures, poor leadership, and corruption

59.80

28.30

36.50

8.30

18.50

16.90

4.90

13.80

11.50

8.00

2.40

7.10

26.20

5.40

10.80

1.20

0.90

0.90

Content of Appeal

Fears (war, danger to democracy, unemployment, etc.) Consensus, unity of the nation Confident assurance of electoral victory

3.70

0.90

1.60

1.20

10.50

9.00

Continuity

2.40

1.10

1.40

40.50

14.10

18.20

12.20

12.70

12.60

13.10

8.70

9.40

Stands on controversial domestic issues (free competition, state and religion, etc.)

0.60

7.10

5.40

13.10

5.80

7.00

Stand on controversial foreign policy and defense issues (borders, settlements in Occupied Territories, etc.)

0.60

6.90

5.30

53.60

8.90

16.00

13.40

9.50

10.50

2.70

2.30

General noncontroversial issues (democracy, peace, justice, etc.)

Others N

164

463

627

NA 84

448

532

Source: Content analysis of electoral appeals in Ma’ariv and Yediot Aharonot. Notes: (1) Not included are ads consisting simply of the name of the party on the bare statement “vote for . . .”; (2) to forestall the distortion of the results, the party slogans mentioned in the body of the paper and that appeared in almost every advertisement, were each counted for only one; (3) some of the ads contain more than one content item; (4) “Others” refers to instances when three checkers failed to include an item under any of the content headings. NA-not applicable. Content item does not appear in advertisement.

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Table 4.3 Content Analysis of Electoral Appeals on Israeli Television, June 1–28, 1981 (Percentages relate to the time allotted to each category item) Content of Appeal Image building and exploiting the reputation of leaders

Alignment

Likud

43.40

53.40

Past achievements and positive party traits

12.70

35.90

Criticism of rivals on grounds of past failures, poor leadership, and corruption

47.60

38.50

Fears (war, danger to democracy, unemployment, etc.)

10.30

3.50

Consensus, national unity

0.40

4.80

Continuity

3.70

0.50

General noncontroversial issues (democracy, peace, etc.)

7.80

3.70

Stands on controversial domestic issues

4.20

2.30

Stand on controversial foreign policy and defense policy (borders, settlement in Occupied Territories, etc.)

5.40

8.50

Others

3.50

2.70

8,912 sec.

9,910 sec.

(free competition, state and religion, etc.)

N

Notes: The data appearing in the table were generated according to the following procedures: (a) the television campaign appeals were videotaped; (b) party jingles and time devoted to broadcasting party acronyms were deducted; (c) party presentations were reviewed independently by two panelists and divided into content segments; (d) each segment was timed and categorized by the two panelists according to a list of content appeals prepared by the author; (e) in cases of disagreement, the author served as a judge; (f) where all three failed to include the broadcast time under any of the content items it was listed under “others”; (g) because each broadcasting second may contain more than one of the content items, the total percent of content items to broadcasting time does not equal 100; (h) each broadcast was divided into seconds and each content idea was rounded to the nearest whole minute. Percentages were rounded to the nearest 0.5 percent.

1973 and in 1977. What made 1981 stand out was not merely that these trends continued but that they became anchored in ideology. Thus, public opinion polls clearly showed that Sephardi voters were drawn to the Likud precisely because of their hawkish and religious leanings; in other words, because the Likud has become virtually synonymous with Herut.27 And what lent this greater momentum were the deliberate attempts, mainly those of Begin, to activate ethnic solidarities through a populist-style direct appeal to the masses as a vehicle for mobilizing the electorate. On the publication of the 1981 election results, the political system had clearly become polarized as never before. The gap between the Alignment and the Likud was no more than 10,405 votes out of a total of almost 2 million.

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Furthermore, the Likud, although ostensibly still a cluster, was for all practical purposes a unified mass party, while the Alignment acquired an ideological negative identity as a form of opposition to the principles that henceforth came to be tied to the Likud. That both parties became associated with ethnic and socioeconomic sectors of the electorate only nudged them further apart.

III. Campaign 1984: The Turning Point If during the 1981 electoral campaign the Alignment found it hard to present a credible alternative to the Likud’s new ideological thrust, after the elections its difficulties increased. The undisputed control by Herut of the second Likud-led government enabled it to move more decisively toward implementing a clear ideology. Unresolved problems that had never been far from the surface and on which the nation had been divided since the prestate era were now advanced to the very forefront of political consciousness. Seldom had the debate in all areas between left and right been so acrimonious. Although much of the heat over the government’s “correct economics” was generated by the Likud’s populist rhetoric and by the left’s emotional appeal to the self-denying spirit of the pioneering founding fathers, some very real issues were at stake. In a state whose economy had always been precarious and was now suffering from galloping inflation and the depletion of its foreign currency reserves, competing ideologies usually found expression in their choice of economic priorities. Thus the attack from the left concentrated on the diversion of funds to settlements in the Occupied Territories and to religious institutions and on the relaxation of controls on imported luxury goods; the counteraccusations were leveled at the left’s readiness to use religion and territorial integrity as instruments for inciting the people against government and at the elitist snobbery that underlay the attack on policies that in effect enabled the masses to benefit from consumer goods hitherto restricted to the well-to-do. But the issues of state and religion, settlement and defense, and the relation between the ethnic groups were far from being merely matters of economics. The traditionalism typical of many Herut voters was reinforced by the pact between the Likud and the religious parties. Up to 1981, the Liberals from within and the DMC from without the Likud restrained the movement toward an open-ended response to religious demands. The coalition of 1981, composed of a stronger Herut and a weaker Liberal faction, and the religious parties, any one of which could bring down the government, could move more easily. The result was far greater tension between secular and religious circles in the country in a period that began with a prolonged dispute over the government’s restoring the ban on flights by El-Al, the national airline, on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays and ended with persistent, often violent, clashes over the Sabbath opening of a movie theater under the encouragement of an Alignment mayor. However, what created the deepest rift and sense of crisis was the war in

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Lebanon. It involved at once Israel’s position in the Middle East and the Western world, its relations with the Diaspora, the nature of its regime and the values on which it should be based, and the objectives of Zionism itself. There was widespread feeling that this war not only acted out perennial policies and principles but was itself the product of major shifts in policies and principles. Hence, of all the half-dozen wars since 1948, this was the first not to be backed by national consensus, and there were observers who even detected first signs of a “Vietnam syndrome.” The language of the representatives of both groups in the Knesset often exceeded the bounds of parliamentary propriety, but there was a marked imbalance between them. Although the Likud and its allies argued on most of these matters with very few dissidents the opposition was deeply fragmented. Splinter left-wing parties, Mapam, and odd individuals within the main body of the Labor party appealed to ideology. On the whole, however, the Alignment eschewed questions of basic principle. In the absence of a single worldview of positive affirmation, it adopted a negative stance of rejection of the government’s initiatives. The more ideologically dictated and contentious were these initiatives, the more they seemed to left-wing elements in the Alignment to call for clear reactions. But other elements of the Alignment felt obliged by the tone and nature of the left’s proclamations to dissociate themselves from them so that divisiveness within the cluster consequently became even greater. The government’s persistence in systematically pursuing its goals thus forced the opposition into the predicament typical of a multifactional government cluster facing critical decisions: as the need for determined action increased, the internal friction grew and the power to take action decreased. Not surprisingly, this trend manifested itself most markedly in the earlier stages of the war in Lebanon. The position was summed up by the head of the Labor party’s educational institute as comparable to a car in full throttle but in neutral gear: it creates a lot of noise, the engine heats up, but the car does not go anywhere.28 Significantly, both right and left wings of the Alignment agreed that the party’s lack of ideological cohesion was responsible for the slump in its popularity as evidenced by the public opinion polls up to early 1983. As a prominent MK stated, “because of interfactional quarrels, the voter is still looking for the missing unity and wondering whether we have the capacity to provide an alternative to government.”29 The warning was more forcefully put by left wing intellectuals: “The Begin gang enjoys a decisive advantage—it has a clear ideology, whole and complete. It is able therefore to demonstrate vitality and win credibility.”30 The solution suggested by leaders of both wings was the same: the splitting of the Alignment into two distinct parties, each with its own ideology but with the common objective of bringing down the Likud. The arguments they advanced, however, exposed the weakness of the party. Thus the head of the Tel Aviv branch declared that the Alignment had lost its popularity because it had “lurched to the left.” The only cure was to cast off the leftist image in foreign

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and defense policy, to renew the alliance with the religious parties, and rid the party of its reputation of advocating economic controls: “The party must speak with one voice and not with a thousand voices and murmurings. The voters demand to know exactly whom they are voting for. They are sick and tired of a supermarket of opinions. We must get rid of Mapam. It should become a party, and we another party, each consistent with itself. The Likud has shown the way, and we dare not hesitate.”31 On the other hand, the leader of the Jerusalem-based academic activists supported a split on the grounds that “the Labor Alignment had all too often preferred to attack the right from the right.” Consequently it could no longer perform the functions for which it existed. It must be reborn as a new, coherent, cohesive party of the left that would no longer be a “mere gathering under the negative slogan of ‘anything but the Likud.’”32 He hoped the process would start as a result of the June 1983 Mapam convention. However, the vote there split almost equally; and it was finally decided, by a hair’s breadth, not to break away from the Alignment, and the drift toward dismemberment within the Labor party likewise failed to reach a point of no return. The countermovement to the “groundswell for Alignment break-up”33 was explicable by the hope—nourished by the extreme narrowness of the Likud coalition—of toppling the government and establishing an alternative coalition without incurring the risks of elections. One argument was that the breakaway of Mapam and the other radical elements would soon lead to their disintegration into competing splinter groups, as they would consist of more generals than battalions. This would inevitably result in a considerable wasting of votes to the detriment of the labor camp as a whole. Nor would the elements in the right of the Alignment profit because they would still be outnumbered by the centrists. The party would remain pluralistic and at odds, and group dynamics would ensure that the separate labor parties would end up by clashing instead of cooperating, thereby forfeiting the chance of ousting the Likud.34 Against this rejection of the separation in principle there were those who favored separation but rejected its timing. The head of the Jerusalem branch, for instance, maintained that the heterogeneity of the Alignment made reaching an agreed-upon position concerning party unity a virtual impossibility. Hence the alliance with Mapam should continue and the debate deferred as long as a consensus exists that there is even “the slightest chance of replacing the government in this Knesset’s lifetime.”35 As a matter of fact, while the arguments over the fate of the cluster were bandied back and forth, the Alignment actually increased its numbers by incorporating further elements. Interestingly enough, these consisted of the left-wing CRM, the centrist Independent Liberals, and two defectors from the Likud, one of whom was granted the position of an independent faction within the Alignment. In the latter part of 1983, the debate waned and the scale dipped decisively in favor of maintaining unity. This was not connected to any newfound

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ideological harmony but to a series of misfortunes that befell the government. The massacre by the Israeli-backed Maronite Phalange of Muslims in two refugee camps near Beirut, the government’s initial refusal to appoint a committee of inquiry and its later reluctant yielding to mounting public pressure did much to discredit it. As the war in Lebanon dragged on, its popularity waned. A climax came with the catastrophic fall in the value of the bank shares in September 1983. As Table 4.4 shows, the popularity of the Alignment as measured by public opinion polls not only caught up with the Likud but passed it. The unexpected withdrawal of prime minister Begin from the political scene added fuel to the general disillusion that became progressively stronger as the country plunged into an unparalleled economic crisis. This provided the opposition with opportunities of painfully bruising the government. When things go well, criticism can be leveled mainly on the principles underpinning government policy; when Table 4.4

Date of Poll

Alignment and Likud Showings in Public Opinion Polls, July 1981–July 1984 (in Knesset mandates) Likud minus Alignment

Likud

Alignment

49 51

44 44

5 7

54 64

44 34

10 30

60

39

21

1983 January March July October December

57 58 50 40 41

39 42 47 54 57

18 16 3 –14 –16

1984 February May June July

37 38 36 37

61 53 51 47

–24 –15 –15 –10

1981 July September 1982 March September (before Beirut massacre) September (after Beirut massacre)

Source: Modi’in Ezrahi, polls July 1981–July 1984; Yohanan Peres, “In the Midst of the Electoral Campaign,” Ha’aretz special election supplement, July 20, 1984, p. 6.

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things go ill, fire can be concentrated on failures in policy making and system management. As conditions deteriorated, therefore, the Alignment could effectively attack the government on issues that did not raise discord within its own camp. This in itself helped to restore unity, but what contributed to it even more was the lesson learned from 1981. As the general feeling spread that the fall of government was inevitable, the party chairman, Shimon Peres, formed an alliance with his onetime inner-party rivals with a view to coordinating strategy and preventing internal rifts; and the alliance forcefully increased its efforts early in 1984 when the expected occurred and elections were advanced to June of the same year. The Likud, by contrast, found great difficulty in arraying its forces. Begin’s successor, Yitzhak Shamir, had not as yet sufficient time to establish himself in office and lacked the charisma of his predecessor. Valuable time and energy were expended in power struggles between him and faction leaders within Herut, and between them all and the head of the Liberal faction, who was engaged in his own battle with his fellow ministers. At the same time a conflict developed between Herut and the Liberals when Herut sought to exploit the fact that the Liberals had practically lost their entire constituency by reducing their representation in the joint electoral list for the coming elections. Meanwhile, the economic situation was going from bad to worse. A member of what Shamir described as “the solid and unbalanced, anti-Likud, written and electronic media” summed up the situation in picturesque terms: “The daily newsreel nowadays is beginning to resemble a guided tour through Madam Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors as strike succeeds strike and inflation sets world records.”36 The findings of Alignment-sponsored as well as independent public opinion polls between the decision to hold early elections and the opening of the electoral campaign some two months later showed that the gap between the two main contenders had stabilized at about fifteen mandates in favor of the Alignment. Most37 indicated that about 40 percent of those polled were undecided but that their composition did not correspond to that of the rest: some 90 percent of those who voted Alignment in 1981 intended to continue their support, compared with only 52 percent of those who voted Likud. Studies conducted under the auspices of the Alignment campaign headquarters also came up with a description of the typical floating voter. He or she tended to be young and, more often than not (62 percent) of Sephardi origins, thus representing the electoral base of the Likud, to support the Likud’s defense and settlement policies and suspect the Alignment of being soft in matters of security, but to believe that the economy had been incompetently handled and that the Likud had occasionally blundered in other areas as well. Although by no means enamored of the Alignment leaders, the floating voter felt that they were more experienced and would probably prove more efficient in the handling of the economy. This was considered by such voters to be the most important issue confronting the nation,

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although they were afraid of being hurt personally by Alignment economic reforms.38 It is in this light that the strategic decisions taken by the Alignment for the conduct of the elections should be considered. Electoral victory hinged on winning over a significant portion of the floating voters. Yet this, of course, was an insufficient condition, for success equally entailed the preservation of the cluster’s electoral base, its natural constituency. Theoretically, two options were available. One was to conduct a campaign that presented labor as the purveyor of alternative policies deriving from a distinct structure of values. The composition of the Alignment made drawing up policies based on principles acceptable to all its factions difficult. However, this obstacle could be sidestepped because Herut’s ideology, which was now accepted by the Likud as a whole, was sufficiently unyielding and unequivocal to allow the presentation of common objections and broad objectives that could override the nuanced distinctions among the Alignment components. Adopting such an approach had clear advantages. It would be aimed both at those who had previously voted for the Alignment and at those who were now disappointed with the Likud. It would reinforce the former’s sense of loyalty and restore in their eyes the credibility of a party that was accused of sacrificing principles to pragmatics after the previous elections. At the same time it would appeal to the reasoning powers of the floating voters by directing their attention to the principles that must underlie policies. This would be all the easier because of the magnitude of the crisis that had afflicted the nation during the Likud’s tenure of power. As one supporter of this line asserted, “Elections are ideological contests. The more you emphasize ideology the better your chances,” and any other approach would run the risk of repeating the 1981 results.39 The party chairman and most of the leadership preferred however an alternative conception. According to this, attempts to reinforce the convictions of Alignment supporters were superfluous because the polls had shown that they would not switch their votes in any case. On the other hand, an effort to reach out to the more ideologically oriented elements of the party might well jeopardize the chances of winning over the undecided, for it would imply to those who previously voted for the Likud that they must admit they had been mistaken in their views and that the country was paying for their stupidity. As Chairman Peres put it, “We do not want to split the nation into [ideological] camps. . . . Many of the ex-Likud voters are willing to listen to us. The aim should be to win votes, not converts.”40 The way to achieve this would be not to give undue weight to the falsity of the Likud ideology but to concentrate on its ineptitude in system management. Consequently, one should stress the points of consensus to focus the voter’s attention exclusively on government’s blunders. Similarly, the Alignment’s advantages should be portrayed as being mainly in its efficiency and experience in policy making and governing. Both points, the negative and the positive,

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should be well hammered home and efforts should be made to avoid any diversions. Hence it was decided to resist any attempt by the Likud to provoke the Alignment into straying from its line and to ignore all the other competing parties. To this end, in the hope of reciprocity, a promise was given to the CRM and Shinui, the two ideological parties in the gravitational field of the Alignment, not to attack them or take issue with their views.41 Another important assumption that directed the strategy of the Alignment campaign was that casting a vote is a social no less than a political act. The more heated the campaign and the more it generates the impression of deep rifts dividing the competitors, the greater the tendency of the undecided to vote with their respective ethnic group, as was so amply demonstrated in the 1981 campaign. Party officials, therefore, decided to concentrate the appeal on the ethnic and economic groups that tended to support the Likud in 1981 and to take special steps to cultivate an image of the Alignment as a supraclass and supraethnic party that transcended divisiveness and represented national unity. It was also decided to conduct a low-key campaign and to avoid excessive emotional rhetoric, at which the Likud had proved itself a master. This confirmed the decision not to react to verbal taunts and to downplay provocative behavior on the part of the Likud and its supporters. The campaign of 1981 started with a crescendo of diatribes and personal attacks that reached the level of violent incidents at public meetings. By contrast, the 1984 contest was barely noticeable, up to the opening of the final television push, three weeks before voting day. In part this was because the two main contenders reserved much of their budgets for the last month. In addition, neither side had a charismatic rally-rousing politician of the caliber of Begin. But in no small measure this was due to the Alignment’s strategy of self-restraint. Its leaders indeed toured the country, and the one who drew the greatest crowds was Navon, a Sephardi by birth, who, when president, had pledged himself to the cause of unity and equality of all sectors of society, symbolizing the ideal of national cooperation. In accordance with its plan, the Alignment stressed the common denominators between the main parties, the Likud’s inefficiency in attaining them, and its failure in system management. Attacks on the government consequently were restricted to the slogans, “This cannot go on, the government must be changed”; “The economy is sick. You deserve stability and peace of mind. Only an experienced leadership can bring back prosperity”; and “The Alignment is the only hope.” Moreover, the Alignment refrained from reacting to provocations such as the Likud’s front organization’s newspaper advertisement picturing Arafat with the caption, “He backs labor. So do King Hussein, Ahmed Jibril [leader of an extremist group within the PLO] and Bruno Kreisky.” The Likud’s complaint was voiced by Prime Minister Shamir: “The Alignment is hiding away all those who propagate its ideology . . . where is Yossi Sarid [the most dovish of the Labor MKs]? Where is Victor Shem Tov [Mapam’s leader]? Why don’t we

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hear Abba Eban? Let them come out into the open and let us know what they think and what are their plans.” The sense of frustration was equally evident in Deputy Prime Minister and Campaign Chief David Levy’s words: “Where are the labor people hiding? Have they taken refuge in a Trappist monastery, and taken vows of silence?”42 The answer was provided by the chairman of the Labor party Knesset caucus and information chief: “We won’t allow them to drag us down with them. We’ll play in our own court, according to our own rules, and not let the Likud dictate the terms of the campaign. The Likud must really be in trouble if they have to mobilize Arafat and Jibril in this way.”43 By the time the television campaign started, however, the Likud succeeded in devising a three-pronged strategy to neutralize that of its opponents. The first was defined as “the unmasking of the Alignment’s hypocrisy” with regard to the settlement policy and the fate of the Occupied Territories. The fact that labor propaganda laid more stress on the hawkish elements of its composite program prompted the repeated taunt, “Where is Yossi Sarid?” and the constant reminder that Mapam was still a member of the “socialist Alignment.” The implication was that the Alignment spoke with two voices because its propaganda was at odds with its ideology and its record. The peak of irony was reached when defense minister Moshe Arens asked why Rabin (the Alignment’s candidate for the defense portfolio), after giving his version of his party’s policy, did not join the Likud.44 The second line of attack was to exploit another aspect of the Alignment’s catchall tactics. Because it had refrained from attacking the principles underlying the Likud’s economic, defense, and religious policies, concentrating rather on criticizing its economic management, the Likud had an easier time avoiding being put in the dock. It could, as one of its propaganda team put it, avoid the necessity of explaining mistakes that were beyond explanation. The head of the team, Justice Minister Moshe Nissim, stated it more forcefully after the elections. The Likud did not need to accept the public’s preoccupations with the economy and Lebanon “as a datum, but rather sought to shift and remold them.” It was thus free to devote its main effort to working up the emotional identification with the Likud of the Sephardim and the social strata that constituted Herut’s traditional power base. The third line was what Nissim called the portrayal of the Alignment “in its true colors,” a delicate term for a campaign of personal recrimination, accusations of corruption, of wire pulling, nepotism, and discrimination against those who were not party members. This was intended both to remind voters, especially those of Sephardi descent, that the Alignment alternative could be far worse and to prove that “it is no coincidence that the Alignment refuses to campaign on ideas. Its only principle is the enrichment of an exclusive elite.”45 In effect, then, the Likud used the Alignment’s own weapon of catchall tactics against it. By the start of the last phase of the campaign concentrating on the television, both contenders had crystallized their strategies. The focus of the Alignment’s

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broadcasts was on the same issue it had stressed throughout the previous month. An item shown on the first evening was of heaps of metal junk and rusting machines symbolizing the breakdown of the economy and giving point to the slogan, “The Alignment is the only hope.” It was a suitable opening for the three-week series of chiaroscuro pictures that appeared in 32 percent of the party’s net total broadcasting time, of a crumbling economy under the Likud and of optimistic depictions of renewed prosperity under the Alignment. The Likud, on the other hand, mentioned in some 20 percent of its net total time what it called “the social revolution,” namely the gaining of self-respect and economic rehabilitation of Table 4.5

Analysis of Alignment Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, July 1–21, 1984

Content of Appeal Exploiting the reputation of leaders Past achievements and positive party traits

July 1–10, 1984

July 10–21, 1984

37

37

Total 37

3

7

5

Criticism of rivals on grounds of poor leadership

22

6

13

Criticism of rivals on the grounds of failures in system management

39

34

35

Fears (unemployment, economic collapse, etc.)

2

1

2

Confident assurance of electoral victory

3

4

4

General noncontroversial issues (democracy, peace, etc.)

9

22

17

5

3

4

Stand on controversial foreign policy and defense issues (borders, Lebanon, settlement in occupied territories, etc.)

1

4

3

Others

9

5

6

4,302

6,264

10,566

Stand on controversial domestic issues (economic priorities, state and religion, etc.)

Time (seconds)

Source: Content analysis of Alignment messages on Israeli television, July 1–21, 1984. Notes: The data appearing in the table were generated according to the following procedures: (a) the television campaign appeals were videotaped; (b) party jingles and time devoted to broadcasting party acronyms were deducted; (c) party presentations were reviewed independently by two panelists and divided into content segments; (d) each segment was timed and categorized by the two panelists according to a list of content appeals prepared by the author; (e) in cases of disagreement, the author served as a judge; (f) where all three failed to include the broadcast time under any of the content items it was listed under “others”; (g) because each broadcasting second may contain more than one of the content items, the total percent of content items to broadcasting time does not equal 100; (h) each broadcast was divided into seconds and each content idea was rounded to the nearest whole minute. Percentages were rounded to the nearest 0.5 percent.

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the lower-income groups in Israeli society, chiefly Jews of Afro-Asian descent. In anticipation of such ethnic appeals the Alignment recruited a well-known group of professional comedians, much loved by the same strata, to deliver electoral propaganda through the medium of satirical sketches, a precedent in Israeli electoral tactics. It also continued to present Navon with his message of social unity, and even showed Peres on the first night of the broadcast as a regular viewer of the Friday afternoon Arabic film program, widely popular among Oriental Israelis. At the same time it strove to undermine the credibility of the Likud claims. In all, it referred in some 6 percent of its total net propaganda time (mostly during the last two weeks of the campaign, when this took up some 8 percent of the total) to the arguments that much of the Likud’s social scheme was cosmetic, that it held back funds in favor of settlements in the Territories, and that the Likud had virtually ignored the development towns where the bulk of the population was of Asian and African descent, leaving them prey to unemployment and general neglect. The Likud responded by attacking the old Mapai and the pattern it set for the present day Alignment as the true root of the misery revealed by labor’s propaganda. “The slums,” accused a popular Herut MK of Moroccan origin, “were created during the reign of labor. . . . Could anyone expect that the Oriental Jews could become citizens with equal rights when they were treated as vermin? It was under the socialist flag that the worst social distortions took place, and to this very day we are paying the price.”46 The Likud also rebutted the attack on its economic record by sowing fear of an Alignment recovery program that “will strip you of everything you have.” A further implication was that the Alignment had not discussed in detail any of the principles on which an economic policy must be based, nor (for a very good reason) had it presented clear programs—for it planned to bring about a great recession. The Likud also presented the Alignment as a clique of selfish power-seeking politicians who, if returned to power, would take money from the people to line their own pockets and those of their followers. This went hand-in-hand with the attack on its bad leadership, corruption, and other negative party traits, all of which took up no less than 45 percent of the Likud’s propaganda time prior to the public debate between Peres and Shamir. The latter then outflanked the Alignment by inviting it to join the Likud in a national unity government. Although both parties sought to boost the image of their leaders (a theme that appeared in 37 percent of the Alignment’s net total propaganda time), it is noteworthy that the Mapam leaders and those of the party’s left were passed over. Nor was the kibbutz movement mentioned to avoid raising ideological aspects of social, economic, and defense issues on which the nation was divided. For the same reason the war in Lebanon was touched on in only 8 percent of the Alignment’s time, and most of it was directed against Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, accusing him of misleading the government and the nation into unnecessarily

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extending the thrust into Lebanon by years after his initial promise to withdraw two days after the invasion. In so doing, it tacitly fell in with the Likud’s decision to gloss over the entire issue. The latter could therefore content itself with one brief (1 percent) counteraccusation, associating the Alignment with the activities of the Peace Now extraparliamentary movement and with Mapam and claiming that by attacking the government at the height of the war for purely political gain it weakened the national morale, set the civilian rear against the forces in the field, and indirectly strengthened the PLO. On the whole, however, the two parties conducted a campaign that was unusually restrained, especially considering the general feeling that the country was on the verge of—if not already in—a state of major crisis in all spheres. The strength of public concern was mainly reflected in the outspoken propaganda of the small ideological parties of the left and of the right. It also revealed itself in the reaction of the general public to the television campaign and the negative evaluation by the supporters of the two main contenders of their own side’s performance. As Table 4.6 shows the Alignment in particular showed up badly in the polls, with a sizable plurality of the interviewees giving it a negative rating. Far more important, the reaction was not limited to the electorate’s assessment of the strategies and their execution in the campaign but was expressed at the polling booths. When the contest started, the Alignment saw itself as about to deliver a coup de grâce to the Likud. Not only did it fail to do so, but the party actually lost votes to the parties of the far left, slipping from 36.6 percent of the total vote (forty-seven MKs) to 34.9 percent (forty-four MKs). Several reasons probably exist for this unexpected outcome, some of which (e.g., the psychological effects of public opinion polls that predicted a sweeping victory for the Alignment) are beyond the scope of this analysis. However, no small weight must be attached to the strategy itself. Because it presented no clear alternative to the policies of the Likud, and because it did not base its attack on grounds of principle, it failed to prove convincingly that the Likud policies, as distinct from its execution of them, were fundamentally at fault, or that an alternative was available that could do better. Catchall tactics, furthermore, left the Likud free to avoid inconvenient issues and to choose what it would concentrate on—including its opponents blurred generalities—to undermine the Alignment’s probity and credibility. What developed was a competition in which the Alignment accused the Likud of failure in system management. The Likud for its part pointed out that the leaders directing the Alignment were those who had been at the helm during the Yom Kippur war and the years that followed and turned a searchlight on all the weaknesses and mistakes that—it claimed—had afflicted the people under all the labor governments since the birth of the state. Although the Alignment could effectively discredit the Likud as responsible for immediate problems, it in turn was severely manhandled and had great difficulty in persuading the noncommitted that it was indeed “the only hope.”

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Table 4.6 Public Reaction to the Alignment and Likud Television Campaign Question 1: “In general, are the election broadcasts meeting your expectations?” Did not see or pay attention to the broadcasts 13% The broadcasts are good 18% The broadcasts are mediocre, so-so 24% The broadcasts are bad 39% No opinion 6% Question 2: “In your opinion did the parties present themselves well or poorly?” Selected Party Likud Alignment NRP Shinui Ometz

Did Not See

Presented Themselves Well

Presented Poorly

No Opinion

11% 12% 18% 25% 25%

42% 31% 34% 28% 30%

38% 47% 28% 27% 26%

9% 10% 20% 20% 19%

Source: Hanoch and Rafi Smith survey, Jerusalem Post, July 19, 1984.

Over and above all this, the absence of an Alignment appeal to the reasoning powers of the undecided voter facilitated the efforts of the Likud to arouse the group emotions of the strata that traditionally supported it. For an electorate that tended to identify with it ideologically, it presented an image of a strong group of resolute people who knew what they wanted. This was insufficient to save the Likud from a blow that in other circumstances would have been considered severe. It was, however, rescued from a landslide defeat, and in point of fact, the blow was even less than meets the eye seeing that out of its loss of 5.2 percent of the general vote, 2.2 percent transferred their support to Ezer Weizman’s Yahad. This new party, which was launched on the eve of the campaign, was generally considered to be a vehicle for regaining the position within the top Herut leadership that Begin had denied to Weizman and its only plank was a call for a strong and imaginative leadership. To a large extent the two main parties shared a parallel fate. The Likud lost parliamentary support, but the right-wing camp or a whole actually increased in strength, partly at the expense of the centrist religious parties, especially of the National Religious Party (NRP), which prior to the election had refused to commit itself to the support of either side. Of similar right-wing complexion were two new religious parties: Morasha, which seceded from the NRP on the ground that it was insufficiently nationalistic, and Shas, whose program was defined by its leader as nationalistic and ethnic no less than religious.47 The most extreme

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was Rabbi Kahane’s Kach, whose rabid nationalism was too much even for the Tehiya. All these factors contributed to a marked shift toward the radical right. A mirror image was reflected on the left. The attempts of the Alignment to adapt its tactics to suit the floating former Likud voter, while it failed to attract them, it succeeded in alienating a number of its supporters and potential sympathizers. The dissatisfaction with the party’s campaign among a sizable proportion of those who intended to give it their vote may help explain the defections, especially to the CRM, which increased its Knesset representation from one to three MKs, and to Shinui, which went from two to three, both radically dovish and secular parties. Perhaps most alarming was the fact that this trend was especially marked in labor’s ideological and organizational stronghold, the kibbutz movement. From the systemic point of view two changes manifested themselves. One was the reduction in strength of the two major contenders in favor of the small parties. The other was a shift in the direction of the gravitational pulls operating in the system. The cluster parties had operated centripetally, converging on the center. Now the move became centrifugal with the small radical parties of the right and of the left yanking the larger parties—or, in the case of the Alignment, yanking its electorate—nearer to the polls. The change could be described as the completion of the process that began in 1981. The Likud had steadily contracted its internal ideological continuum to become more ideologically identifiable. This trend was reinforced by an alliance with smaller rightist and religious parties, so that what emerged was a nationalisttraditionalist bloc. The failure of the Alignment to undertake a similar process cost it the election. It thereby became clear that the party was not playing according to the new rules of the game. This was not altogether unexpected because it confirmed the gloomy forebodings of those Alignment leaders who demanded a more ideologically oriented strategy at the outset. In effect, it answered the general question that had so engrossed the Alignment between the elections of 1981 and 1984 by suggesting that a party employing catchall tactics in a divided society is courting defeat. One could venture to speculate that in fact the Alignment was saved from an even more dire outcome by the magnitude of the crisis brought about during the Likud’s tenure in office. If before the campaign started the question was raised whether the Alignment should be dismantled to leave a less heterogeneous party with Mapam as an external radical ally, now a positive answer became imperative. The secession of Mapam following the elections was triggered by the formation of a national unity coalition that it opposed vehemently, but it would probably have occurred in any case sooner rather than later. Yet this was not enough. The Labor party, having its origins in the amalgamation of several parties, still included within its boundaries a wide ideological spectrum and the departure of the more radical components in the Alignment cluster still did not render it suited to the new conditions. Its complete adaptation was to constitute one of the most critical aspects of the following Knesset elections.

Chapter 5

THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1988 AND 1992 AND THE HEYDAY OF THE PARTY-BLOC SYSTEM

I. 1988, 1992, and the New Rules of the Game A paradox can be defined as a truth turned inside out. This would certainly apply to the extraordinary situation that transpired in consequence of the 1984 electoral results. When the dust settled, Israel found itself in a crisis of functional efficacy. Labor won a plurality of Knesset seats, but together with the parties ready to enter a coalition with it all it could master was 54 mandates, 7 short of the absolute minimum of 61. The Likud, together with its outgoing coalition allies1 and Shas, mustered exactly the same number. With neither able to form even the narrowest coalition, the only option was a partnership between them, and because each insisted on including its satellites, the result was a grand coalition consisting of no less than 97 MKs. The only parties left out were those representing the Arab sector and the ideological poles: Mapam on the far left and Tehiya and Kach on the far right. The formation of an equally divided inner cabinet with the right to decide on any issue at the demand of one of its members granted the Likud and the Labor party veto power on central policies and even more complicated was the arrangement by which the cabinet would be reshuffled in midterm and the Likud’s Shamir would replace Labor’s Peres as prime minister.2 But the size of the coalition was not the sole feature of the paradox. Another was its longevity. Few critics expected such a half-breed monster to live long. It became, however, the longest lasting government in the history of the state, and at least during the earlier phases it worked well and enjoyed considerable popularity. One reason was that in the first two years the agenda consisted chiefly of the two imperatives of curbing hyperinflation and extricating the army from Lebanon, issues that called for pragmatic cooperation while crowding out most ideological concerns. The Likud had the added incentive to make everything go smoothly because it was awaiting its turn for the premiership. This situation began to falter after the midterm rotation, once a third feature of the paradox began to unfold: successful system management in the first two years enabled 122

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the government to overcome immediate problems to the degree that attention could be shifted back to the contentious issues that had caused the two-bloc polarization to take over from the party cluster system. The switch in direction was chiefly due to the activities of the Labor top leadership. This presumably reflected the fact that the Labor party was under no pressure to prevent disruptions because all it could gain from the unobstructed working of the government was the challenge of running the next elections against an incumbent Likud premier. But it is not unlikely that there was an additional inducement seeing that it was several of the leaders who had insisted on the centripetal, nonideological strategy in the previous elections who initiated the new centrifugal strategy as the competition of 1988 loomed ahead. What was involved was, however, more than mere gamesmanship. The strategy adopted in 1984 reflected the need of a heterogeneous party for a ticket that could accommodate all its members. The disbanding of the Alignment constricted the distance between the ideological poles of the party, but it still remained highly pluralistic and an independent Mapam could become a blackmail party analogous to Tehiya in the right. Consequently, the worst procedure would have been for the leaders to consult the wide membership, or even more limited party organs such as the party center, on the new direction to be taken. Nor was this a simple matter of either-or. An electoral campaign of a large party run on purely pragmatic or purely ideological lines is inconceivable. All significant contenders adopt mixed recipes, and whether one refers to them as pragmatic or ideological is a matter of the proportions of the ingredients. Either kind of mix involves a trade-off. A party concentrating on valence issues, noncontroversial matters and issues of leadership and system management, seeks to maximize votes by appealing to the less committed. By attempting to link itself with conditions favored by the general electorate, and to associate its rivals with those generally valued negatively, it seeks to gain short-term support without necessitating decisions on questions of principle that are prone to alienate at least some potential supporters. This, however, is liable to estrange the more ideologically committed. Alternatively, the party may emphasize position issues, that is, divisive problems that involve “advocacy of government actions from a set of alternatives over which a distribution of voter preferences is defined.”3 This aims to win long-term support by converting defectors from other parties and the noncommitted to the party ideology, although it may at the same time alienate voters holding different priorities. Over and above the possible charges of inconsistency and loss of credibility, any transition from one style to another may consequently confront the party with the danger of losing supporters. The leaders who were bent on a change of strategy in 1988 were forced, therefore, to accommodate divergent views within the party to minimize the cost, but without yielding to a compromise that would so dilute the basic positions that the party would be compelled to resort to the kind of campaign the Alignment had led in 1984. This difficulty may

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explain the unusual exploitation of clout in the period leading up to the contest. The decisions were taken by a small group of top leaders and presented to the party as a fait accompli. Moreover, the planning and supervision of the campaign were in the control of the top leadership, ensuring efficiency without regard to any friction and resentment that might be created at the lower levels. The closer analysis of the Labor 1988 campaign in the second section of this chapter concludes with the assessment that the strategy had borne fruit. Despite weak ratings in public opinion polls at the beginning of the competition and a series of veritable disasters throughout it, the party and its allies held their own, in itself a success of a kind. However, the fact that it ended the elections with significantly fewer MKs (having lost, among others, the Mapam members to their now-independent party, as well as the erstwhile Likud members grafted by Weizman onto Labor without their consent following the 1984 elections) caused the outbreak of pent-up resentment that had accumulated within the party because of the high-handed manner in which the campaign was run. The leadership was accused of failure, and the recriminations fostered a public sense of a downfall. As in 1984, the numerical stalemate between the blocs precluded the formation of a viable narrow coalition, forcing the creation of another government of national unity. This time, however, a slight advantage that accrued to the Likud-led bloc allowed the Likud to hold onto the premiership without the need for rotation, thus heightening the impression of a Labor failure. This effect was magnified less than two years later, when its attempt to replace the national unity government with a coalition of its own supported by the ultraorthodox failed and the Likud was able to forge a narrow coalition that excluded the Labor party altogether. The 1988 results and the way they were widely interpreted help to explain the choice of strategy in the 1992 elections. The circumstances of the latter campaign seemed to resemble in no small measure those that prevailed in 1984. Again an unusually large proportion of the electorate were voters who lacked clear party loyalties. These consisted of an exceptionally large number of young first-time voters and a huge wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union that expanded the population in the decade following the 1988 elections by no less than 800,000. In addition, and from the strategic point of view perhaps of greater significance, a large number of potential defectors were from the incumbent Likud. By a strange coincidence, every time it held the reins of government the country became plagued by socioeconomic difficulties and international strains. The competition of 1992 fit the pattern, and the polls indicated that a large proportion of all these voters were concerned with problems of unemployment and housing shortages as well as with government’s inability to quell the deepening social and economic malaise. As in 1984, Labor’s plan of action was predicated on the assumption that although dissatisfaction with the Likud worked in its favor it did not imply the automatic acceptance of its ideological

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positions. The conclusion was therefore that the appeal to such voters should be based mainly on valence issues, that divisive position issues should be shunned as far as possible, and that the Likud should not be allowed to deflect attention from leadership and system management. Nor was this the only factor determining such a campaign. Another was the take over of the party candidature for the premiership by the popular Yitzhak Rabin. The passing of an amendment to the electoral law, to be implemented as of the next elections, mandating a direct personal vote for the prime minister on a separate ticket, encouraged the party to lead a personality-driven campaign. In a nutshell, Labor’s decision was to return to the type of strategy it had employed in 1984, ignoring lessons that could have been learned from the 1988 campaign had it not been widely interpreted as a failure. A similar evaluation of the circumstances lay at the root of the Likud strategy. Because the polls showed that the weak spot of the party was the widespread negative assessment of its system management in the socioeconomic realms, the party initially decided to divert attention to the issue of the Occupied Territories and to corner Labor into debate on ideology. After polls had shown that the effort to sidetrack the undecided was countereffective, the party decided to pay Labor back in its own coin and to shift the emphasis from an incumbency style to a challenger style: to devote greater attention to arousing suspicions on the character and performance of the Labor leaders and to hark back to failures in system management of labor-led governments. The consequence was a unidimensional campaign conducted almost throughout on valence issues, where each of the main rivals was essentially the mirror image of the other. The Likud’s reassessment of its tactics early in the campaign would seem to confirm the catchall party thesis and especially the contention that pressures of competition will force rivals to emulate one another: the adoption of catchall tactics by one compels others to follow suit, thereby altering the style of party competition. But what happened next falsifies this assumption. We have noted that the rise of catchall tactics in Europe was attributed to ideological indifference bred of the growing dependence on mass consumer goods, the standardization of norms and patterns of living, and the blurring of the traditional lines of cleavage. In the Israel of 1992, preoccupation with questions of leadership and system management owed not a little to conditions that were largely the reverse: widespread social and economic anxiety, as well as the emergence of the young, the immigrants, and other groups with specialized interests. This may account for the widespread dissatisfaction with the campaign as it developed. It might also explain why polls indicated a growing demand, especially among the undecided, for a two-dimensional campaign in which valence issues of leadership and performance would be firmly based in positions on controversial issues of principle, thereby offering a more complex yet coherent choice. In short, both main parties came up against the fact that 1992 confirmed the trends set in the previous elections instead of reversing them, and that both consequently were out of step with

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the electorate. What lends support to the view of 1992 as a confirming campaign is that both parties found independently that the campaign tactics they were adopting were leading to a debacle. Both, therefore, again independently, resolved to swap horses in midstream.

II. The Campaign of 1988 and Labor’s Forced Conversion One could argue that the opening move in the 1988 campaign was made in April 1987, not long after the Likud’s Yitzhak Shamir took over by the rotation agreement from Labor’s Shimon Peres as prime minister. It was then that Peres, now foreign minister, returned from a secret meeting in London with King Hussein of Jordan, committed to begin peace negotiations under international aegis subject to government approval. Although he had not previously consulted his own party, let alone the Likud, he may have hoped that an initiative that excluded the PLO and had the support of the United States would not be rejected. An alternative interpretation seems, however, more plausible. The London agreement was far from being merely a tactical arrangement. It smacked of the Jordanian option, namely, the plan to negotiate with the Hashemite kingdom a peace agreement based on a territorial compromise that involved ceding parts of the Occupied Territories. This was opposed not only by the Likud with its doctrine of greater Israel, but it harked back to the prestate disputes between labor and the Revisionists over the latter’s rejection of the proposals to partition mandatory Palestine. The London agreement could therefore be useful as a major item in the agenda of the election to come, whether it was to be approved. As Labor Minister of Absorption Ya’akov Tsur proclaimed: “In the last elections public relations experts insisted that we should not speak clearly. . . . We now know how we started that electoral campaign and how we ended it. I am now in favor of raising the battle cry.”4 Whatever was in Peres’s mind, the Likud vetoed the London Agreement and bickering between the two government components steadily increased. In early December Peres came up with a new proposal, soon known as the “Gaza first plan,” to dismantle the Jewish settlements in a demilitarized Gaza Strip that would then be handed over to Jordan. This time there was no doubting the Likud veto. Peres, accused Shamir, “[is] a defeatist. . . . Gaza today, Judea and Samaria tomorrow, and the Golan after that.”5 By the end of the year these issues were eclipsed by the almost simultaneous appearance of several major problems that not only put the final touches to the disunity in government but threatened to divide the nation as a whole. The most far-reaching was the intifada, which began in mid-December 1987. Each party laid the responsibility on the other’s policies. The Labor Party warned that the Likud’s continued blocking of the peace process would lead to a more general conflagration. The Likud blamed Labor’s “defeatism,” which encouraged the Palestinians to believe that Israel was verging on moral collapse. Both

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pointed to the deterioration of Jewish-Arab relations in Israel proper and to the country’s growing international isolation as the outcome. The intifada awakened two contentious subjects that had been in hibernation for years: Israel’s destiny as a state and a society, and the meaning of Zionism itself. Both parties found traumatic analogies in the Holocaust. The right portrayed the intifada as “a war against the existence of the state [born of] fanaticism and brutality,” and compared territorial concessions with Chamberlain’s Munich appeasement. The left saw the violence as a tragic result of military repression and feared the destruction of moral values, which could lead Jews to emulate Nazi-style atrocities. The argument spilled over into questioning the West Bank and Gaza settlements, the relevance of the biblical associations of Judea and Samaria, and the political role of religion in general. In the eyes of the Likud, the Israeli left was marked by “resistance to anything that would strengthen national security and established religion.” In the eyes of the Labor Party, the forces promoting settlements and religious fanaticism not only supported but supplemented each other in the formation of a nonliberal state.6 The recriminations were intensified by the reemergence of the plans for a peace conference. With the outbreak of the intifada, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz began a series of visits to the region to win support for what became known as the Shultz plan. Because it centered on the idea of an international peace conference, it was readily received by the Labor Party but denounced by the Likud as “surrender to terrorism.” As an alternative, the Likud suggested reviving negotiations between Israel and its neighbors on autonomy in the Occupied Territories. Labor’s reply could have been foreseen: the belief that autonomy coexisting with creeping annexation constituted “a denial of peace and suicidal hypocrisy.”7 Economic troubles further fueled dissent. Abnormally high lending rates created difficulties across the board. Worst hit were the Histadrut industries and the communal settlements affiliated with the Labor party. With the first signs of a massive collapse it therefore began to press for government intervention and accused the Likud of laying the foundations for recession by lavish spending on settlements in the Occupied Territories and on the Lebanese invasion. The Likud was quick to counter that the responsibility lay with centralization and government intervention. As Shamir put it, “The welfare state has become bankrupt . . . even socialist governments abroad have come round to supporting privatization. Only our socialists haven’t accepted it yet.”8 Both parties, however, agreed that the inactivity of a split government was worsening the difficulties. Consequently, both began to organize well in advance for the next elections. It would be, said Peres, “the most important since the establishment of the state.”9 At this point the contenders found themselves confronting different challenges. The Likud, with its narrower internal divisions on ideological issues, focused on the attempt to render its message more forcefully. David Levy, then

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minister of housing, defined the problem when he argued that “if we draw conclusions from earlier elections we shouldn’t confuse the public with ambiguous and irrelevant messages” but hammer consistently on the ideological theme.10 Labor, on the other hand, had the more complex task of creating a message that would overcome resistance from groups within the party. The main source of possible challenge was the Central Stream, a semiofficial broadly based faction in the right wing of Labor. Led by the Knesset speaker and two government ministers, it increased its activities in the winter of 1987–1988 in reaction to “the defeatist voices in the party advocating the return of the Occupied Territories.”11 Unlike the Likud it claimed the Territories not on the grounds of nationalism or religion but of security. However, to the uninitiated its positions seemed to echo those of the Likud. Not only did it oppose the international peace conference and the Gaza first plan, but it demanded additional settlements in strategic places on the West Bank. By early 1988 it had the support of fully half of the party center and succeeded in placing its members in various leading positions.12 Two other pivotal groups were the party left and the Histadrut lobby. The secession of Mapam from the Alignment had reduced the numbers of the former within Labor. The Histadrut group was numerically stronger, but its interests were largely social and economic. Nevertheless, neither group could be ignored as potential troublemakers. Whereas Peres’s peace programs centered on the Jordanian option, the left advocated direct negotiations with the Palestinians. In August 1988 the group even introduced a resolution in the political platform committee to substitute one for the other. Moreover, they tended to identify with extraparliamentary movements such as Peace Now, which were ideologically close to the parties in the left of Labor. The Histadrut group, for its part, objected to the party’s priorities and demanded more attention to socioeconomic matters in the campaign. Former Histadrut secretary general Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, for example, warned that “subordination [of the economy] to defense and foreign policy would drive many voters to the Likud.”13 Confronted with the strains caused by the switch to a more ideological orientation, the Labor leadership had several options. The most extreme was to fight it out in the party forums, but this, even if successful, would endanger electoral victory. Alternatively, they could employ brinkmanship tactics by threatening to resign on the eve of the elections, or they could conduct an intensive campaign at the grassroots level aimed at isolating the objectors. Finally, they could co-opt members among the challengers, thereby leaving the others weakened. From the beginning of 1988 Peres and his associates used all these tactics simultaneously. The Labor party secretary general threatened to resign at the very time when the organizational structure of the campaign had to be drawn up. His reasons were the party bickering, the absence of clear-cut policies, and the conflict between party ideology and the tough policies supported by the Central Stream. The

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threat was withdrawn only after it was agreed to form a top-level steering committee charged with “coordinating the formulation of a clear message” and unifying policies in the government, Knesset, and Histadrut.14 Meanwhile, Peres was engaged in an extensive tour of party branches throughout the country, culminating in a mass assembly of activists. After consultation with the secretary general, the party decided to exclude the two Central Stream ministers from the steering committee and the assembly. Of the top-level forums charged with determining electoral strategy, the standing committee of Labor ministers was in principle the highest. However, the steering committee and other bodies in which all the Labor ministers, with the exception of those associated with the Central Stream, took part bypassed it. The campaign headquarters, on the other hand, although headed by men close to Peres, included members of the Central Stream, some in high positions of authority and responsibility. The top leadership was thereby isolated from its second-rank followers. Some months later, the 1,200member center nominated the Knesset candidates and listed them in order of preference. Hitherto this had been the responsibility of a nomination committee of party leaders. The representative nature of the party center guaranteed that the results would be more fairly weighted. Many young candidates were elected, including prominent activists from the right and left, ensuring that hatchets would be buried if only temporarily. The party therefore remained “a supermarket of ideas,” even if the campaign took a clearer ideological direction. However, the complicated balancing act of the various groups threatened the smooth running of the campaign. Most of the bodies set up to plan, organize, and operate the elections were far from homogeneous, the relationships between them were ill-defined, and there was no assurance that overcoming the differences at the leadership level meant corresponding results in the local branches. In short, there was a danger that committees and branches would pull in different directions. The solution marked the party off from the Likud and from its own previous performances. In the elections of 1984 and 1981 (and for the Likud in 1977 as well), both parties had charged media experts with the conduct of propaganda as devised and formulated by the political leadership. This time the Labor party presented the experts only with ideological guidelines and the general strategy, leaving them to work out the precise formulations. This narrowed the room for debate and friction with regard to day-to-day and subordinate decisions; it also imposed centralized control by curtailing the autonomy of the branches or bypassing them altogether. The country was divided into areas, each headed by a minister responsible for the conduct of the campaign in his territory. Another indication that the Labor party was aware of the problems involved in the changeover from a primarily catchall to an increasingly ideological orientation was the early and detailed planning of the campaign. Fully four months before polling day and only a few days after the selection of the candidate slate, activists received a confidential guide drawn up by the election

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bureau, containing an analysis of the electorate and the sectors to which attention had to be given. It also elaborated the overall line to be followed, the points to be emphasized in addressing different sectors, and the deviations that were permissible. One fundamental position was that Israel should withdraw from populated parts of the Occupied Territories. An Israel that included these Territories, it was to be argued, would lose its Jewish majority. Continued occupation also meant ever-increasing security risks and stringent repressive actions with all their moral consequences. Because Zionism sought to establish a democratic Jewish state, it was a negation of everything the country stood for. The Likud was to be attacked as an antipeace party, and Prime Minister Shamir as an extremist who had opposed the Camp David Accords. Stress was also laid on a security plan drawn up by a team of former generals, which presented a detailed scheme for defendable borders after partial withdrawal. In the socioeconomic sphere it was to be asserted that only Peres’s premiership had saved the country from economic collapse caused by the Likud’s military adventures and its squandering of enormous sums on settlements in the Occupied Territories at the expense of industry and the development of towns in Israel proper. Peres and Rabin were to be presented as tried and tested leaders, and the new candidates as dynamic, young, and true representatives of the people. Together they could ensure movement toward peace and economic prosperity. Although these guidelines were broadly followed throughout the campaign, other positions had to be modified or even abandoned altogether owing to a succession of events that threw the entire plan out of kilter. One plank was to be the historic role of the communal and cooperative sectors in building up the country. If the Histadrut was suffering, it was to be argued, that too was due to the economic irresponsibility of the Likud, and Labor alone could restore it to its true mission of leading the economy toward renewed vitality. However, just as the guide was being readied for distribution, the financial collapse of Koor, the Histadrut’s and the country’s largest industrial conglomerate, became known. In the words of its newly appointed managing director, it was “a catastrophe . . . ideology alone will not do. Someone must pay.”15 Thereafter the public was bombarded with news of bankruptcies, retrenchments, and the danger of massive layoffs in the Histadrut. In anticipation of a heavy onslaught by the Likud, Labor dropped the entire plank and even refrained from answering attacks when they came. Just when the economic troubles were at their worst, the intifada began to affect security in Israel proper. The wave of violence and burning of crops and forests gave credence to the Likud’s contention that if this could happen when the Israeli army was in the Territories, then withdrawal would mean the destruction of the state. Labor’s response was to present the events as danger signals if peace talks were further delayed and to argue that only the Jordanian option could break increased Palestinian intransigence. But less than a month after the

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campaign began, the severest blow of all fell. King Hussein dissociated Jordan from the Occupied Territories and severed contacts with the Palestinian population. Having campaigned on the Jordanian option, this left the Labor party with three choices, each worse than the other. It could concede that the position either of the parties to its left or that of the Likud was correct, either of which risked electoral defeat. Or it could argue that Hussein’s decision was not final, and that he would rescind it if only Israel would agree to negotiate peace, a speculation that called for proof. The first step was to arrange a meeting between President Reagan and Shultz of the United States, Abdul al-Magid of Egypt, and Peres to plan the continuation of the peace process. Next came an interview with King Hussein on U.S. television, in which he declared Jordan’s readiness to participate in an international peace conference if “the Palestinians ask us categorically” to do so. The revelation that Peres’s men were involved in arranging the interview lent credence to the Likud’s accusations that Labor was invoking foreign intervention in the elections. The unsolicited declaration of the PLO itself recommending the Israeli public to vote for “progressive parties,” including Labor, made matters worse. “Why,” the Likud’s television campaign repeatedly asked, “why does the PLO urge voters to support Labor?”16 As if all this were not enough, in early October the international arbitration committee established to adjudicate the dispute between Israel and Egypt on the Taba strip near Eilat issued its verdict in favor of the latter. This supplied the Likud with proof that international arbitration or negotiations would work to the detriment of Israel and that “had it not been for Peres, we would have had Taba today.”17 In addition to the readjustments necessitated by such calamities, variations had to be devised to satisfy different sectors of the electorate. First, attention had to be paid to party members and sympathizers. The campaign headquarters chairman, Ezer Weizman, characterized the mood of the rank and file at the beginning of the campaign as “whining that things are in bad shape and we are going to lose.” This was hardly surprising, seeing that the shift to ideology had been imposed on the party without prior discussion. The feeling was well expressed after the elections by one of the newly elected MKs: “Labor was not consulted—ever . . . we didn’t like it before the election and we don’t like it any better today.”18 Moreover, the intifada was clearly polarizing the undecided voters; some turned to the parties on Labor’s left, but most turned to the Likud and the parties to its right. Polls conducted toward the end of April showed that a large plurality believed that the Likud would win the elections (39.8 percent versus 21.2 percent for Labor and 21.1 percent for neither), and a plurality, although smaller, approved of such a result (36.8 percent versus 33.8 percent who preferred a Labor victory and 12.4 percent who preferred neither). Polls conducted about a month later show that of the Labor supporters who had recently changed their opinions

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on selected issues, 56 percent felt that their party’s chances of winning the elections had decreased, 58 percent felt that the likelihood of peace had been reduced, and only 45 percent believed that the Jordanian option was still feasible.19 To whip up enthusiasm, Peres and other high-ranking party leaders embarked on an intensive effort coordinated by the campaign headquarters. It was asserted that a right-wing victory would lead to war, and all that was needed was a slight edge over the Likud because some of the religious parties would then join a Labor-led coalition. As the campaign progressed, they abandoned the 1984 agreement with the CRM to avoid mutual recrimination to counter the fear of Labor slipping leftward. Labor being the only barrier to the Likud, the argument ran, voting for parties to its left would merely ensure a right-wing victory.20 Even more problematic was the Israeli Arab sector. In 1984 it accounted for three to four Alignment Knesset seats, and in view of the fierce competition between the two main parties there was justification for Weizman’s assessment that “the Arab vote will decide who will be the next prime minister in Israel.”21 However, the Labor party found itself in an increasingly difficult position due to Rabin’s tough measures against the intifada. The only Arab Labor Knesset member, Abdel Wahab Darousha, resigned to form a new party. Despite his criticism of Labor policies, he repeatedly stated his readiness to enter a coalition with Labor after elections. This left him open to the accusation that he was a Labor stooge, planted to draw in alienated Arab voters.22 However, in practice he posed a challenge similar to that of the CRM in the Jewish sector. A further complication lay in that the Jewish Labor members most popular in the Arab sector in 1984 were those who left the party when the national unity government was formed. In the 1988 campaign they were again electioneering in the Arab sector, but now in competition with the Labor party on behalf of the CRM or Mapam. Labor’s response was again both organizational and ideological. During Peres’s tenure, Weizman had served as minister in charge of Arab affairs, and now he replaced the head of the party’s minorities campaign headquarters. His popularity with the Arabs and his position in charge of the entire campaign headquarters guaranteed adequate resources to back an extensive campaign in the sector. Former president Yitzhak Navon, minister of education and master of the Arabic language and culture, also played a prominent part. Together with the party’s new Arab Knesset candidates and Peres himself they held public meetings in virtually all the Arab towns and villages, where they emphasized the argument that the Labor party was the only party that did not merely preach peace but could achieve it. Moreover, as an egalitarian party, it had always been committed to the welfare of the Arab citizens and had a long record of actions to prove it. Toward the end of the campaign, Labor also offered a variation of its peace plan: free municipal elections would be held in the Occupied Territories and the elected officers would then serve in a combined Jordanian-Palestinian delegation for an international conference.

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But the clearest illustration of the switch to ideology could be found in the effort to win over the undecided vote. The guide distributed in July already contained detailed analyses of the floating voters (20 percent of the electorate): their ethnic origins; their social, economic, and educational status; and their opinions on central issues. Most expressed deep concern over the security situation: 74 percent favored holding an international peace conference; 60 percent were prepared to accept territorial compromise; 55 percent believed, however, that Labor’s peace plan was not to be taken seriously.23 The conclusions were that major emphasis should be placed on the peace issue and that only rational, personal discussion could achieve results. Between July and September the party contacted close to 1 million individuals and identified some 300,000 of them as undecided—a startling increase in the floating vote. These were canvassed chiefly in their homes by party volunteers, although the ministers also devoted several hours daily to telephone talks with them. Each received a letter from Peres with additional ones from other leaders depending on the nature of the doubts expressed in the interviews. Joint visits of several leaders were paid to some 300 population centers, in addition to 200 daylong tours for personal talks with individuals. Special meetings with top leaders were held for floating voters by invitation only, in addition to more than 3,000 parlor meetings.24 Although the special appeals to different sectors continued to the end, the television campaign in the final weeks focused on the overriding issues common to all. Critics expecting a repeat of the 1984 performance anticipated a change from serious discussion of principles to popular entertainment geared to catch the general taste, interlaced with mudslinging and smart slogans. However, this time there were no professional entertainers, and the propaganda was to the point. Table 5.1, comparing the 1984 and 1988 Labor television broadcasts, highlight the change. Criticism of rivals on the grounds of poor leadership and failures in system management fell from 48 percent of the total net time to 20 percent, whereas the weight of noncontroversial issues was reduced from 17 percent in 1984 to a mere 3 percent. In their stead, 37 percent of the net broadcasting time was devoted to the party’s foreign and defense policies (3 percent in 1984) and 8 percent to controversial domestic issues (4 percent in 1984). As one critic observed, “since the institution of television campaigns in Israel never have there been such earnest and revealing party broadcasts. It is a debate between two ruling parties, giving two distinct approaches to the solution of national problems . . . each of which has decided that the one which best addresses the intelligence [of the voter] will win.”25 Whereas an outsider made this assessment in the course of the campaign, it bears a resemblance to that made in retrospect two years later by a prominent inside actor.26 “It was a queer campaign,” he summed up. “Both large parties, as partners in the government, fought each other, but with kid gloves, especially as compared with previous elections.” The question each posed to itself was what

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Table 5.1 Analysis of Labor Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, July 1–21, 1984 (Alignment), and October 4–29, 1988 (Labor Party) Percentage Content of Appeal Leadership, image building, and exploiting the reputation of leaders Past achievements and positive party traits Criticism of rivals on the ground of failures in system management, poor leadership, or corruption Fears (loss of Jewish majority, war, unemployment, etc.) Confident assurance of electoral victory General noncontroversial issues (democracy, peace, prosperity, etc.) Stand on controversial domestic issues (economic priorities, state and religion, etc.) Stand on controversial foreign policy and defense issues (borders, negotiations with Palestinians, settlements in occupied territories, etc.) Others Total seconds

1984

1988

37 5

36 9

48 2 4

20 7 1

17

3

4

8

3 6

37 9

10,566

8,573

Notes: The data appearing in the table were generated according to the following procedures: (a) the television campaign appeals were videotaped; (b) party jingles and time devoted to broadcasting party acronyms were deducted; (c) party presentations were reviewed independently by two panelists and divided into content segments; (d) each segment was timed and categorized by the two panelists according to a list of content appeals prepared by the author; (e) in cases of disagreement, the author served as a judge; (f) where all three failed to include the broadcast time under any of the content items it was listed under “others”; (g) because each broadcasting second may contain more than one of the content items, the total percent of content items to broadcasting time does not equal 100; (h) each broadcast was divided into seconds and each content idea was rounded to the nearest whole minute. Percentages were rounded to the nearest 0.5 percent.

steps should be taken to persuade the voter that power was being sought not for its own sake but for the party’s principles and that these principles could best serve the nation. “But the voters were so taken by our [ideological] focus that they were revolted by the idea of [another] national unity government, and therefore they increased the power of the small parties of the radical right and the radical left.” The electoral results, this analysis continues, furthered the polarization of the party system while paradoxically thrusting the two main parties into yet another national unity government. The fact that the Likud “won the senior position [the premiership] further fanned the disquiet of Labor, and fear of massive losses to the parties on its left caused it to be disloyal to the basic agreements of

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the government. This, in the end, was the cause of the disintegration of the national unity government and its substitution by a Likud-led narrow coalition.” One can take issue with this final claim, that the electoral results constituted a narrow victory for the right. It is true that although both major parties lost Knesset seats, the Labor party seemingly fell from 47 to 39 mandates, whereas the Likud only from 41 to 40. However, the meaning of these figures require a closer examination. In 1984 the Alignment had won 44 seats, including Mapam and Darousha who later withdrew to form independent parties. Then there is the case of Ezer Weizman, whose appeal to Likud members against the background of the rivalry over Begin’s succession was widely perceived as a bid for reentering the party and securing a base within it. After his hopes of garnering wide support were not met, he transferred his three Knesset seats to Labor. However, his voters were not consulted, and reactions at the time suggest that most of them did not follow him.27 The number of seats is the measure of party strength in the Knesset and hence the essential rule for counting MKs is which party the individual MK identifies with. However, a realistic appraisal of Labor’s 1988 electoral showing should not take into account votes it never had as though it had lost them. One should therefore deduct these three seats from the pre-1988 election figure and add the strength of the parties that seceded after 1984 (i.e., 47–3 ⫽ 44 Knesset seats in 1984 and 39 ⫹ 3 ⫹ 1 ⫽ 43 in 1988). The true loss of the Labor Party was consequently a single mandate. On the other hand, the Likud could expect on the eve of the 1988 elections the addition of two mandates belonging to parties it had absorbed since 1984, the religious Tami party and Ometz, which had earlier seceded from the Likud and now returned (i.e., 41 ⫹ 2 ⫽ 43 MKs). Because it received only 40 MKs, it effectively lost three seats. Some additional figures may help to clarify the picture further. In 1984 the Alignment polled 717,000 votes, whereas in 1988 together with Mapam and Darousha it had nearly 769,000, a net gain of 52,000. Taking into account the increase in population, the Labor party’s percentage of the total fell from 34.6 to 33.7, a loss of 0.9 percent. However, Labor and the parties allied to it not only held their own but also gained slightly (0.1 percent). The Likud polled 716,000 in 1984 and 709,000 in 1988, in all a net loss of 7,000. In percentages, it had gone down from 34.6 to 31.1, a loss of 3.5 percent. In combination with its allies, it fell from 43.7 percent in 1984 to 42.0 percent in 1988. But perhaps the most significant indicator was the army vote. The right traditionally appealed to the young. Bearing in mind the anger and frustration generated by the intifada, the Labor vote was expected to shrink. Instead, the party increased its army vote from 26.4 percent to 31.4 percent; and if taken together with its allies, its vote increase from 33.9 percent to 40.1 percent. The Likud also gained in the army but only from 34 percent to 35.1 percent, and together with its allies from 46.7 percent to 51.0 percent. The false impression among critics was not only due to the shifting in and out of the main parties by various individuals, groups, and small

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parties; but also in no small measure, it was created by the bitter attack on Peres launched by members of his party, especially the Central Stream, on the announcement of the results. Evaluation of the results must also place them in the context of the events that militated against the Labor Party. Some of these (the intifada, Hussein’s volte-face, etc.) have already been mentioned. But bad luck pursued the party up to the very last moment. Perhaps the incidents that most immediately influenced results occurred just two days before the polls and on election morning. On October 30, a mother and her three children were burned to death in a terrorist attack on a bus traveling through the West Bank, and on November 1, a grenade blew up a car in Jerusalem itself. Polls conducted immediately before the bus attack showed a Labor edge over the Likud, but immediately after they showed a drop of between two to three mandates and a resulting Likud edge.28 This may be explained by the changing composition of the undecided voters, who actually increased from 20 percent in June to close to 30 percent in late August. Before the campaign, the socioeconomic, educational, and ethnic characteristics, and opinions of the average undecided voter were close to those of the average Labor voter. On the eve of the vote they tended to be closer to the average right-wing voter.29 Taken together with the strengthening of the Labor party in the polls, this suggests that it won over a large number of those close to it and sowed doubts among many of those who previously had defined themselves as Likud or religious voters. Studies of the impact of the wave of terror on these undecided voters focused that it brought “home” many former-Likud and religious voters who had decided shortly before to vote Labor, or were contemplating such a move.30 In the light of all this, the summary of the Labor secretary general seems convincing: “The elections could not have come at a worse time. . . . The factors [militating against the party] could have demolished [it], and the fact . . . [that] we have preserved our strength . . . is no small accomplishment.”31 One is tempted to ask whether Labor would have done better had it not changed its orientation from catchall to ideology. The research on the floating voters offers clue. In answer to the question, “What can the parties do to persuade you to change sides?” 43 percent of the decided voters replied “nothing,” and 30 percent said that they would consider other parties only if they adopted their own party’s principles. Most of the undecided, in contrast, replied that they would “like to hear the parties emphasize their stands; Labor should say it will yield territories and Likud that it won’t.”32 This tallies with voters’ statements of what determines their choice. Table 5.2 shows that an overwhelming proportion of committed and floating voters alike regarded ideological issues as the most important. Other issues were regarded as crucial by no more than a fraction. Similar results were found in the precampaign Labor-sponsored polls and the Likud’s reactions point in the same direction. Confronted with evidence that Labor’s propaganda was more incisive, the campaign headquarters decided both

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before and again during the television campaign that their own propaganda must be accelerated by putting aside generalities and coming out with detailed and unambiguous expressions of doctrine. Mere generalizations, they argued, alienated the undecided. “Our principles are convincing, and it has been proven that the more we employ gimmicks instead of focusing directly on [principles], the further we shall be from reaching our goals.”33 Even more telling is the Likud’s postmortem analysis the head of the prime minister’s bureau gave in reply to the author’s open-ended questionnaire. As the strongest point of the Labor campaign and the greatest concern to his party he selected the “success of Labor [in explaining its stands] on the subjects of peace settlements and the intifada.” The weak point in his own party’s campaign lay in “factional struggles which forced us to dilute our message.”34 This does not mean that Labor’s presentations had no weaknesses. Table 5.1 shows that the party devoted much of its television propaganda to enhancing the image of its leaders. Polls showed that as many as 75 percent of the voters of all parties rated Peres as a more suitable candidate than Shamir for the premiership. However, Table 5.2 shows that voters did not list leadership as determining their choice, and polls gauging voting intentions and the final results confirmed this. Immediately after the Labor candidates were selected, the polls indicated an upward surge of popularity for the party, but less than one month later the figures returned to where they had been. As a prominent MK summed up immediately after the elections, the electorate wanted to see in Labor “an ideological party, not a bevy of stars.”35 Table 5.2 Agenda of Issues by Voter Intention: “In your opinion, what is the most important issue on which the election campaigns should concentrate?” Percentage Most Important Issue

Likud

Labor

CRM

Undecided

Territories

12

14

22

8

Peace

15

30

17

16

Security

41

26

17

33

Socioeconomic

17

17

18

24

4

3

11

4

Other (leadership, religion, system management, etc.) Several N

11

12

15

16

256

259

46

322

Note: CRM—Citizens’ Rights Movement. Source: Israeli Institute of Applied Social Research poll, August 20–25, 1988, Jerusalem Post, September 16, 1988.

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If the hammering on the nonideological issues of leadership proved ineffectual, there may be room for believing that minimizing Labor’s secularism actually harmed the party. The extraordinary rise of the ultraorthodox parties, especially of Shas, may be explained by the bitter competition between them and by the interference of leading rabbis at home and abroad.36 But the gains in nonreligious or merely traditionally minded population centers can hardly be explained on the basis of events within the ultraorthodox community. Especially when we bear in mind the composition of the undecided voters on the eve of the 1988 elections and the fact that the gains of the ultraorthodox parties outside their closed communities came mainly from Likud strongholds,37 it seems more likely that many of those hesitating between right and left voted to a party of ethnic-cultural protest out of frustration with both. As one critic put it, they turned neither right nor left but upward, a phenomenon that, as we shall see, was to become ever more evident in future contests although for different reasons. In brief, the Labor party drew many away from the Likud, not, however, into its own but into the Orthodox camp. What probably helped was the free advertisement and political legitimacy the Labor party leaders bestowed on the great rabbis. Labor MK Rabbi Menachem Hacohen was outspoken: “I blame Peres and Rabin [for these results]. If Peres goes to [former Chief Rabbi] Ovadia Yosef and thereby makes him legitimate, what do you expect from the simple, traditionally minded voter?”38 In a midcampaign evaluation,39 Weizman singled out two additional problems. Although Labor attacked the Likud’s social and economic principles, it did not follow up with positive positions of its own. Consequently, it offered no satisfying solutions to the foundering of the Histadrut enterprises, although “the public regarded the economic and not only the political situation as of the greatest importance.” Perhaps even worse was Peres’s holding on to office after the government failed to endorse the London Agreement. Party activists saw this as the greatest problem in their discussions with voters, and Darousha pointed to this as one of the chief reasons for leaving the party. Peres, he argued, preferred a cease-fire with the Likud over one with the Palestinians. Labor MK Eliyahu Speizer put it somewhat crudely: “if Peres . . . held a key to peace but would not leave Government, he committed an unpardonable sin.”40 A similar conclusion is implied in the Likud postelection analysis mentioned earlier, which pointed to the portrayal of Peres as an inconsistent adventurer as having been one of the most effective arguments in its campaign. If the Alignment showed weaknesses, then, it was because it left gaps in its ideology and because of suspicions regarding the sincerity of its ideological claims, not because it had abandoned catchall tactics. This conclusion was borne out, and in turn serves to explain, what befell both Labor and the Likud in the extraordinary culmination of their next electoral competition in 1992.

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III. 1992—The Coercion of the Labor and Likud Campaigns Electoral campaigns usually witness the intensification of public interest as the fateful day approaches, reaching a climax in the final weeks. The contest of 1992 constitutes an interesting deviation. Until the last few days, the closer the campaign approached its zenith, the more public interest seemed to dwindle to its nadir. Whereas on the first day of the television blitzkrieg some 60 percent of the electorate watched the programs, by the end of the first week that number was roughly halved.41 When asked to evaluate the performance of the various parties, viewers gave, on the average, the barely passing grade of six on the scale of one to ten, with the large parties falling well below the median.42 Although the leaders of Labor and the Likud denied that the public was apathetic,43 both parties felt compelled to cancel the massive rallies that had traditionally served as the grand finale of the campaign and had attracted hundreds of thousands in previous elections. On the face of it, the reason for the lackluster reaction was obvious. The head of the Labor information headquarters summed up the party’s campaign as successful because it refused to stray from its purpose of presenting the government as corrupt and incompetent and of presenting Rabin as possessing the qualities required of a prime minister. “The Likud,” he claimed, “repeatedly tried to drag us into such issues as peace, the Territories, or the Histadrut, but we refused to yield to such provocations.”44 However, commentators from across the board were at one in viewing this “success” as precisely the source of the problem. A prominent figure on the left defined the campaign as an exercise in autism, whereas the communication expert of a party on the right complained that “all sides are slinging mud, none address the issues, and the whole affair is a terrible bore.” A distinguished political scientist asserted that “we have been fed junk by ‘gimmickmeisters,’” and a leading advertising specialist concurred that “the large parties are concerned only with addressing envelopes without any messages inside. There is no difference between them.”45 The content analysis of the Labor party and the Likud electoral appeals presented in Table 5.3 may serve to test such impressionistic observations, especially when compared with the 1988 figures. Controversial foreign policy and security issues that appeared in 37 percent and 29 percent of the net 1988 broadcast time of Labor and the Likud respectively, now were taken up in only 5 percent of Labor’s messages and 3 percent of the Likud’s. In the case of Labor, the difference in ratios between position and valence issues in the two campaigns was somewhat lessened by the increased time devoted to controversial domestic issues. The almost doubling of the latter from 8 percent to 15 percent raised the total percentage of position issues to 20 percent (versus 45 percent in 1988). With the Likud however no such compensatory trend took place, and, in fact,

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Table 5.3 Content Analysis of Labor and Likud Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, June 1–22, 1992, and October 4–29, 1988 Percentage Content of Appeal Exploiting the reputation of leaders Past achievements and positive party traits Criticism of rivals on grounds of poor leadership or failures in system management Fears (war, unemployment, etc.) Unity General noncontroversial issues (democracy, peace, etc.) Continuity Confident assurance of electoral victory Stands on controversial domestic issues (state religion, priorities in allocation of resources, etc.) Stand on controversial foreign policy, defense policy, and defense issues (settlement in occupied territories relations with United States, etc.) Others N (seconds)

Labor

Likud

49 (36) 5 (9)

45 (30) 34 (8)

37 (20) 1 (7) – (–) 13 (3) – (–) 6 (5)

41 (21) 15 (12) 2 (–) 4 (5) 6 (–) 1 (–)

18 (8)

– (7)

5 (37) 9 (9)

3 (29) 3 (14)

4,403 (8,573)

4,676 (9,220)

Notes: The data appearing in the table were generated according to the following procedures: (a) the television campaign appeals were videotaped; (b) party jingles and time devoted to broadcasting party acronyms were deducted; (c) party presentations were reviewed independently by two panelists and divided into content segments; (d) each segment was timed and categorized by the two panelists according to a list of content appeals prepared by the author; (e) in cases of disagreement, the author served as a judge; (f) where all three failed to include the broadcast time under any of the content items it was listed under “others”; (g) because each broadcasting second may contain more than one of the content items, the total percent of content items to broadcasting time does not equal 100; (h) each broadcast was divided into seconds and each content idea was rounded to the nearest whole minute. Percentages were rounded to the nearest 0.5 percent.

stands on controversial domestic issues that in 1988 had appeared in 7 percent of the net time virtually disappeared altogether in 1992. Consequently, position issues appeared only in 3 percent of its 1992 television campaign compared with 36 percent in 1988. The figures relating to the other content categories confirm that most of the interparty sparring was indeed over valence issues. What is noticeable is not only the increased time each party devoted to such issues in the 1992 campaign but also the degree of parallelism between them. As expected, the Likud hammered for more than one-third of its time on its achievements in office (34 percent versus 8 percent in 1988) while seeking in an additional 15 percent (versus 12 percent in 1988) to warn against the consequences of a Labor victory. Labor dealt with general, noncontroversial issues in some 13 percent of its net time, up from

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a mere 3 percent in 1988. Nevertheless, both parties spent most of their time on the same issues and in almost the same proportions: leadership (Labor 49 percent and Likud 45 percent, up from 36 percent and 30 percent, respectively) and criticism of rivals (37 percent and 41 percent, up from 20 percent and 21 percent, respectively). The similarity between the two parties was even greater than the numbers alone suggest. Both listed rival activists and party branches that they had won over to their side, and both claimed that such listing on the part of the other side was a sign of panic. Labor accused the minister of health of personal corruption and pointed to his failure in office. The Likud accused former Labor ministers of corruption and pointed to the failure of the Histadrut health network. Both pointed an accusing finger at the internal backbiting and rivalries within the opposite camp. Labor portrayed prime minister Shamir as out of touch with the people and incapable of governing. The Likud pointed to Rabin’s collapse shortly before the 1967 war and his poor record as prime minister as evidence of his incapacity for governing. Finally, shortly before election day Shamir even accused Labor of appropriating the Likud’s slogans.46 Such comparisons, between the campaigns and between the parties give rise to two questions. One is more general: What lay behind the dramatic difference between the styles of the electoral competition in 1988 and 1992? The other is particular to 1992: How can one explain the increase in the weight given to controversial domestic issues in the otherwise valence-style campaign of the Labor party, and why did the Likund not paralleled this? The treatment of the second question hinges on that of the first, yet both gain added meaning when one keeps in mind that the main difference between the major parties had been over the Occupied Territories. Indeed, the right-left continuum had become virtually conterminous with the hawk-dove continuum.47 It was precisely over dissensions how to proceed with the government’s peace initiative of May 1989 and how to react to the U.S. involvement in it that the Labor party left the national unity government to become the mainstay of the opposition. But even during the period of Labor-Likud cohabitation, the centripetal tendencies had been countered by the increasing power of the more extreme wings of each. Whether this centrifugal tendency reflected a need in both parties to accentuate the differences that distinguished them from each other,48 it accelerated after the partnership dissolved. The shift further to the right of prime minister Shamir’s coalition following its inclusion of the parties of the far right meant the strengthening of the right wing of the Likud that had now become the center of the government spectrum. After the temporary lull caused by the Gulf War, this manifested itself in an unprecedented spurt of building activity over the green line. This provided the Labor party with ammunition to attack government and justify its walkout, and it allowed the left wing within it to express more stridently positions that had earlier been somewhat muted. Nor did Israel’s participation in the U.S.-brokered peace negotiations in Madrid reduce the tensions

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between the Likud and Labor with their respective allies. That the Likud-led government agreed to take part in negotiations within the framework, however circumscribed, of what amounted to an international conference, reflected a new post-Gulf War reality in which a refusal to accept the U.S. invitation would have invited serious consequences. But the Likud partners of the far right jibbed at any negotiations, let alone the suggested interim solution of Palestinian autonomy. And in this they found support among not a few members of the Likud itself, most vociferously expressed by housing minister Ariel Sharon. Despite the effort to placate internal opposition by intensifying settlement building, the government lost its Knesset majority when the far right Tehiya and Moledet parties finally left the coalition in January 1992 in protest against what they perceived as excessive concessions to the Palestinians. These strains acted in turn to aggravate the debate between the Labor hawks and doves, and it came to a climax in the party convention in late November 1991. The need to adopt a new party platform prior to the Knesset elections would in any case have stirred up controversy. But the assessment that the date would have to be advanced and that the elections would determine Israel’s stand in the peace talks added fuel to the fire. Following on stormy confrontations, failures to resolve differences in behind-the-scene negotiations, and threats by several MKs to bolt the party and form a more radical coalition with the small parties to the left of Labor, both sides had to make do with less than they sought. The doves withdrew their amendments to the proposals of the platform committee, and the hawks were resoundingly defeated. However, if the former failed in their efforts to obtain clear commitments to their positions, the latter had to accept a clear shift to the left in the provisions, including a call for territorial compromise in the Golan Heights, as a way to achieve peace, and a recognition of “the legitimate and national rights of the Palestinians.” Another flash point within and between the two parties was produced over choice and ranking on the slates of Knesset candidates. At issue were the individual positions in the party hierarchies, but the contest had obvious programmatic ramifications. Labor had instituted primary elections, so that candidates had to present their individual positions and campaign for the votes of the party membership. The Likud adhered to the practice of selection by ballot in the party center, resulting in acrimonious competition among camps within the party. In Labor, embattled hawks warned against those who “are tainting Labor as increasingly leftist, making [it] indistinguishable from the CRM and Mapam [which joined in 1988 another small party, Shinui, to form Meretz] . . . linking it in the voter’s mind with the lunatic fringe.”49 In the Likud, foreign minister David Levy, leader of the relatively moderate camp, confided on the eve of the crucial vote in party center that he contemplated resigning from his post if the outcome would be the triumph of the more hawkish camps led by Shamir and Sharon. This, he warned, would blur distinctions with the parties of the extreme

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right and lead to “a negation of the peace process, prolonged confrontation with the U.S., loss of the loan guarantees, the dwindling of immigration from the USSR, and the deterioration of our relations with Europe.”50 As it turned out, both these premonitions of the outcome proved correct. Yitzhak Rabin was elected to head the Labor slate as the party nominee for the premiership. However, most of the other hawks did poorly and found themselves occupying lower slots, whereas dovish competitors tended to do surprisingly well. As for the Likud, Levy himself retained his place in the party leadership, but his followers fared poorly and an alliance between the Shamir and Sharon camps ensured the decisive triumph of the hawks. Paradoxically, the very polarization goes some way to explaining what rendered the shift from emphasis on position to emphasis on valence issues possible. Campaign strategies commonly reflect a desire to appeal to the party faithful as well as the uncommitted. The protection of a party’s electoral base involves the assertion of basic principles and the highlighting of ideological differences to reinforce group antagonism with other parties. Although such an appeal is not necessarily incompatible with one directed to the uncommitted, the stronger the confidence of the committed in their party’s policies, the freer the choice of appeal presentable to the uncommitted. The tilt of Labor to the left and of the Likud to the right placed the two on the eve of the campaign in a similar situation. Both could take their ideologically minded supporters for granted and could therefore concentrate on targeting those without clear party loyalty. However, the possibility of conducting a campaign based on catchall tactics does not automatically imply the desirability of so doing. And it is there that the symmetry broke down. As the elections loomed it closer became progressively evident that Labor’s preference would be to change its 1988 approach by stressing valence issues, whereas the Likud’s would be to keep to its focus on position issues. The rationale of the change can already be seen in Rabin’s suggestions at the Labor Party convention for a campaign strategy that would justify his bid to lead the party candidate list. The convention took place against the background of a rise in the popularity of the Likud, now buoyed up by the hopes raised in the general public by the opening of the peace talks in Madrid in 1991 and the plummeting of the popularity of Labor, whose ammunition seemed to have been stolen. Polls conducted in the first part of November 199151 indicated that if the elections had been held at that time Labor would have received only 22 percent of the vote (down from 31.5 percent in 1988), whereas the Likud would have garnered 37 percent (up from 36 percent). Worse still, the combined strength of the right would have reached 54 percent, and this even without counting the ultraorthodox parties, which were expected to join a Likud-led coalition. Such results gave credence to Rabin’s arguments that the party should concentrate its attention on the new voters and on disappointed deserters from the Likud and that the appeal should center on government’s failures in the economic sphere and in

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the absorption of the new immigrants rather than on its record in the spheres of national security, settlement in the Occupied Territories, or peace negotiations. The import of this suggestion becomes obvious once we take into account the fact that some 260,000 of the immigrants who had arrived since 1988 were eligible to vote and that some 400,000 young voters had been added to the voting list. They alone could account between them for 25 Knesset seats, and it was they who tended to be especially concerned over authoritative allocations of resources and over government performance because they were the most exposed to unemployment, housing shortages, and the skyrocketing cost of rental accommodations resulting from the large immigration. The spillover effects also hit other voters, such as young couples or families worried by the impact of the budgetary difficulties on the educational system thereby creating a ripple effect. Labor’s problem however was that in previous elections the young tended disproportionally to support the right, whereas a marked inclination to prefer the more radical smaller parties was found among those who favored the left.52 As for the new immigrants, polls consistently showed their clear predilection for the right. In December 1990, no fewer than 69 percent of new immigrants polled answered the question, “What is preferable: giving up territory in exchange for peace, or not giving up territory?” in favor of the second alternative. And in the following April, 46 percent declared they would support the right, versus 15 percent who favored the left with 29 percent undecided.53 In addition to the fact that Peres had led Labor in four consecutive electoral failures and that by the Likud’s repeated personal attacks, had tarnished his image, he was associated with the dovish ideological side of the party. As such, the argument went, he would be distrusted by a more hawkishly inclined electorate. Rabin, by contrast, was not directly linked to any electoral defeat, and in view of his military record and service as minister of defense under Shamir himself no one could suspect him of being weak-kneed on security issues. He could therefore establish a good rapport with such voters and lead a campaign focusing on government’s lack of leadership and failed stewardship of the economy. This interpretation was backed by polls that consistently indicated that Rabin would be more electable than Peres, and the trend became increasingly pronounced as the Labor primaries drew near.54 An additional factor that militated against the Likud and in favor of Rabin’s candidacy for the first place on his party’s list between the Labor convention and the primaries was the escalation of the strains with the United States. At stake was Washington’s demand for a freeze in settlement building in the Occupied Territories as condition for $10 billion in guarantees requested by Israel for the absorption of immigrants. This touched a raw nerve of the Likud ideology on the eve of the campaign with the parties of the far right waiting to point an accusing finger at any sign of weakness. Hence the government opted for the lesser of two evils, gambling on the dividend of a tough stance to offset any economic

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consequences. Nevertheless, the decision exacted a heavy toll with polls revealing a shift of opinion especially among immigrants. The number of these who rejected the “land for peace” formula dropped to 54 percent in January 1992 and to 46 percent by early May 1992. At the same time, polls revealed a swing away from the right. In April 1991, 46 percent of the new immigrants supported it; in October the number fell to 37 percent; in January, 35 percent, and in early May, a mere 19 percent.55 Labor’s exploitation of the social and economic woes depended however on preventing the Likud from turning the tables by accusing the United States of interfering in the elections and insinuating that Labor was conniving with it at the expense of national security. Indeed, some Likud leaders were already voicing the charge that “the opposition is harming the national interest under the artificial camouflage of feigning concern for the unemployed and the poor. . . . [It is] trying to sow demoralization and despair.”56 In these circumstances Rabin’s reputation and record gained in value because, unlike Peres, he could hardly be the target of such accusations. Finally, there was the ongoing debate on electoral reform that climaxed early in January with the second Knesset reading of the bill for the direct election of the premier. This aroused great public interest, not only because of the anticipated influence on the interparty processes and interparty competition, but also because supporters of the bill from both sides of the left-right divide argued that it would serve to break the gridlock that hampered coalition formation and often turned minor parties into kingmakers. The fact that most of the Likud MKs opposed the bill with Shamir even prophesying electoral disaster if it were passed,57 added credence to Labor’s pooh-poohing of his leadership and encouraged it to underscore the leader rather than the party as a whole. An example of this climate of opinion was the statement by a dovish MK that Rabin’s election to head the list did not signify any change of ideology: “All Labor wanted was to win. That was all. And it knew that only Rabin can deliver victory over the Likud.”58 Because of all this, it is understandable that the Likud saw no reason to shift the terms of the debate away from the security concerns that usually upstage other issues in Israeli campaigns. If anything, the discontent of Levy’s Sephardi followers, the growing tensions with the United States, and the constant harping of the media on the likelihood of further economic deterioration strengthened the resolve to base the party’s appeal on what Shamir described as a “two-track approach: keeping Eretz Yisrael along with an unrelenting effort towards peace.” As he put it at the end of April, “tacticians without ideology will not achieve anything . . . the top priority is ideology.”59 This turned the first skirmishes of the campaign into a battle of agendas. Although brushes between the parties had already occurred after February 1992, when it became clear that new elections were imminent, the rallies officially opening the party campaigns clearly indicated their proposed lines of attack. That of the Likud began with filmed excerpts of speeches by the revered late

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leader Menachem Begin on the subject of the territorial integrity of the historical Land of Israel, followed by impressions expressed by new immigrants who had toured the Occupied Territories. The themes of continuity and the realization of the vision were reinforced by the fact that the keynote speech was delivered by Begin’s son, MK Benny Begin, who dismissed contemptuously any compromise with the Arabs and stressed the strategic and redemptive significance of the Territories: “It will probably take Labor a full decade to appreciate the success and salvation contributed to the state by the settlements in Samaria, Judea and Gaza. They reject building in densely occupied Arab areas . . . they do not yet understand that these, by the grace of God, will be densely occupied Jewish areas.”60 The rally was immediately followed by a tour of the Occupied Territories conducted for reporters and accompanied by a cavalcade of busses filled with new and veteran immigrants. The opening rally of the Labor Party a week later was in stark contrast to this emotional and ideological display. It was a meeting of party activists with the chairmen of the various campaign headquarters and with Rabin as the main speaker. In his well-known laconic style he outlined the basic themes: Labor as the party representing national consensus, and the replacing of corrupt and ineffectual government by one capable of exploiting the potential offered by mass immigration and a modern economy. “Our slogan is no longer ‘let my people go’ but ‘let my people be absorbed,’ and it is here that [government has] failed.”61 The party, he proclaimed, must create an atmosphere of confidence in victory, leadership, and national esprit de corps. In mid-May, the Likud campaign headquarters reached the conclusion that organized tours of the Occupied Territories were counterproductive and that the emphasis of the campaign should be shifted away from the settlement issue. Polls showed that not only the young and the new immigrants but even traditional Likud supporters regarded unemployment, social and economic problems, and system management as their main concern and that the number of waivers had significantly grown at its expense. Of the potential Likud defectors, 21.6 percent pointed to unemployment as the main reason for their vote, 18.9 percent to socioeconomic conditions, 16.2 percent to government corruption and inefficiency, and 13.5 percent to the appeal of Rabin as a leader. Only 1.7 percent mentioned the settlement issue at all.62 The conclusion was that henceforth stress would be laid on casting doubts on Labor’s ability to govern and on Rabin’s personality and leadership qualities. A campaign of persuasion would be opened, one in which all Likud MKs and ministers would personally contact Likud defectors and waverers.63 Although faint ideological echoes persisted, mainly in the attack on Rabin as a Trojan horse of the extreme left, the debate thereafter was largely conducted on Labor’s turf, namely leadership, system management, and corruption.64 The statement of the head of the Likud campaign headquarters had a hint of resignation when he argued that a major change in the direction of public opinion is bound to take place with the beginning of the intensive part of the

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competition because the television campaign is “our greatest chance . . . Labor will have no answer to our messages.”65 Having noted the general shift of the center of gravity in the earlier phases of both the Labor and the Likud campaigns, we can turn to the second question posed earlier, namely, how is one to explain the weight Labor gives to controversial issues in the later phases, and why did the Likud not parallel this? The content analysis of the Labor and Likud television campaign in Table 5.4 reveals that an appreciable change actually did take place in the propaganda of the latter as well. If one compares the content of the appeals during the first four days with that of the rest of the campaign, the shift undertaken by both parties becomes even more prominent. Especially noticeable in the Likud’s appeals is the diminution of its criticism of Labor from 50.4 percent between June 1 and 4 to 37.4 percent between June 5 and 22. Similarly, the attempt to arouse fears of what a Labor government might do fell from 17.6 percent to 14.2 percent. This in turn involved less time being devoted to controversial foreign policy and security issues (from 5 percent to 2.1 percent) because much of the attempt to sow fear had been on grounds that Labor would play into the hands of the extreme left and the supporters of the PLO. Conversely, more time was spent on positive presentations of Likud leaders (from 30.4 percent to 50.6 percent) and on practical achievements of the Likud-led government (from 27.9 percent to 35.9 percent). What stands out, however, is that the low percentage of time in which controversial principles were raised was further reduced (from 5 percent to 2.4 percent) and that domestic position issues were mentioned in no more than 0.2 percent of the total time. As for Labor, it too reduced its criticism of the Likud and its leaders (from 44.1 percent to 35.3 percent). But the outstanding change was in the rise of controversial issues from 1.4 percent to 25.6 percent, most noticeably in the domestic sphere (from 0 percent to 19.3 percent). The reason for the shift in the appeals both parties launched may be found in the negative feedback received in the first four days of the television campaign. Summing up the campaign as a whole, the head of the Labor Party information headquarters acknowledged that already in the planning phase it was brought into consideration that the concentration on valence issues might involve “a price in terms of those hesitating between Labor and Meretz.”66 The penalty however proved to be badly underestimated. Polls taken after the first four days showed that 1 percent of the voters already indicated their decision to switch from Labor to the left.67 Meretz itself phoned as many as 80,000 households chosen from those voting centers where in 1988 a high proportion of votes had been cast for Labor and the parties on its left. Its findings showed that the number of hesitant voters between Labor and the left had jumped from 3.5 percent in 1988 to roughly 19 percent.68 More ominous still were the reactions of those to whom Labor primarily directed its appeal. As the reason for the revision of the style and content of the broadcasts, the party’s secretary general explained that the target

Table 5.4

Content Analysis of Labor and Likud Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, June 1–22, 1992 Labor

Content of Appeal Exploiting the reputation of leaders Past achievements and positive party traits Criticism of rivals on grounds of poor leadership or failures in system management

June 1–4 (%)

Total TV Campaign (%)

June 1–4 (%)

June 5–22 (%)

Total TV Campaign (%)

55.3

47.3

49.2

30.5

50.6

45.5

6.8

4.5

5.1

27.9

35.9

33.9

44.1

35.3

37.4

50.4

37.4

40.7

17.6

14.2

15.1

2.7

2.0

Fears (war, unemployment, etc.)

—

Unity

—

General noncontroversial issues (democracy, peace, etc.)

June 5–22 (%)

Likud

5.3

Continuity

—

Confident assurance of electoral victory

10.1

Stands on controversial domestic issues (state and religion, priorities in allocation of resources, etc.)

—

0.7 —

0.5 —

—

14.9

12.7

3.8

3.7

3.7

—

—

4.9

6.6

6.1

4.1

5.5

19.3

14.7

2.7 —

— 0.3

0.7 0.2

Stand on controversial foreign policy, defense policy, and defense issues (settlement in occupied territories relations with U.S., etc.)

1.4

6.3

5.1

5.0

2.1

2.9

Others

1.2

12.0

9.2

2.6

2.9

2.8

N (seconds)

1,045

3,358

4,403

1,188

3,486

4,674

Notes: The data appearing in the table was generated according to the following procedures: (a) the television campaign appeals were videotaped; (b) party jingles and time devoted to broadcasting party acronyms were deducted; (c) party presentations were reviewed independently by two panelists and divided into content segments; (d) each segment was timed and categorized by the two panelists according to a list of content appeals prepared by the author; (e) in cases of disagreement, the author served as a judge; (f) where all three failed to include the broadcast time under any of the content items it was listed under “others”; (g) because each broadcasting second may contain more than one of the content items, the total percent of content items to broadcasting time does not equal 100; (h) each broadcast was divided into seconds and each content idea was rounded to the nearest whole minute. Percentages were rounded to the nearest 0.5 percent.

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audience demanded “more concrete positions” and had little patience for what had been offered it.69 The Labor television campaign manager described the same phenomenon more bluntly after the elections. On the very first day of the intensive television campaign, he stated, “We were inundated with criticism on our lack of relevance. Reactions by the general public as well as by our own members were a call to stop with the jingles, technical trickery and vicious attacks on the Likud. People wanted to hear solutions instead.” It was, he concluded, “virtually a public rebellion in a demand [that we] come to the point.”70 What facilitated the switch was the availability of an earlier propaganda motif that could readily be overhauled and applied to the immediate situation. In the campaigns of 1981 and 1984, Labor had accused the Likud of reneging on its promises to the poorer urban neighborhoods and the development towns where a high proportion of its followers were concentrated. In its enthusiasm for the settlements, ran the argument, Likud-led governments had been channeling to the Occupied Territories the resources so badly needed by its constituents. In 1988 the argument was not pressed, partly because interparty debate focused directly on the questions of peace and the destiny of the Territories. The wedge issue concerning the Likud’s priorities again played a minor role at the beginning of the 1992 campaign because of Labor’s decision to turn the elections into a plebiscite on the Likud’s leadership and economic stewardship. Now the theme of a change of priorities and diversion of resources from the Territories to Israel proper was given pride of place. However, it was no longer limited to any one segment of the population but extended to cover the priorities of the nation as a whole, thus allowing all domestic areas of policy to be brought within its scope. Such comprehensiveness in turn added to the attacks on government and enabled Labor to promise social and economic reform without entering the minefield of the future of the Territories. A week after election day, the head of Labor’s campaign information headquarters drew the various stands into a coherent argument to make clear “what we repeatedly said and Rabin emphasized in his campaign regarding the [need for] a fundamental change of national priorities.” A brief listing of his main points illustrates the use to which the call for “new priorities” was put. The government’s settlement activities, he argued, were counterbalanced by its failure to intervene in social and economic matters. As a result, society was becoming increasingly polarized, and the standards of health, education, welfare, and other services were steadily deteriorating. The outer front of prosperity and ever-expanding settlements hid a backyard of neglect, illiteracy, unemployment, and drug use. If Israel was not to become a Third World country, investment in the façade must cease forthwith and the money diverted to clearing out the backyard junk. “It was this commitment to national and social change which lay behind the electoral volte-face.”71 Reading between the lines of this attack reveals a shift of focus from the question of “greater Israel” to Israel proper. Explicit in the insistence on fostering

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the well-being of the individual citizen was a conception of the nation as an aggregate whose success is measured by the well-being of its single members, thus contrasting the Likud’s subordination of the individual to the abstraction of the nation as a mystical entity. Thereby Labor offered a pragmatic concern with the present in opposition to the Likud’s vision of Israel’s future as wedded to its historical past. The difference, to take one example, is clearly discernable in Shamir’s plea to the new immigrants to consider themselves as an inseparable part of the Israeli people: “Your concerns with the problems of absorption should give way to the overriding destiny of the nation . . . of which you are now members. I call upon you to rise above your immediate interests as individuals and to think today of the supreme interests of the state.”72 The extent of the modification of Labor’s line of propaganda must be estimated in the context of the rest of its campaign, in which valence issues remained predominant. However, the effect was by no means insignificant, as attested by the Likud’s reaction. Incumbents must run in the final analysis on their record. They may lay blame for failures on the opposition or minimize the extent of difficulties, but they cannot credibly shift their principles at a moment’s notice. This may explain why the Likud responded by making changes in emphasis and tone rather than in content. Nevertheless, toward the end of the campaign it hesitantly returned to the settlement theme; this time defensively in an effort to minimize the cost of its policy. The total investment in the Occupied Territories, it was now claimed, was no more than 1 percent of the national budget. All the rest was invested in immigration absorption, in the poor neighborhoods, and in stimulating the economy.73 No less than 93.7 percent of government investment in housing was within Israel proper,74 as was most of the road building and infrastructure development.75 Such claims stretched general credibility to its limits and as critics quickly pointed out,76 there were signs that the Likud was aware that its central credo was working against it among the undecided. This had become clear even earlier as shown by the quickly abandoned attempt to appropriate the Labor slogan and to claim that it was popular young Likud leaders such as MK Moshe Katsav who had “changed the national priorities and brought about an upheaval.” Toward the end of the campaign, in a similar forlorn hope, the popular mayor of Yavne pleaded for a change of national priorities that would elevate education to the top of the list.77 Other parties too tried to base their propaganda on a call for a far-reaching change of national priorities and for a shift of accent onto the social and economic concerns of the citizen within Israel proper. That this line had been taken early in the television campaign by Meretz, on the Labor party’s left, was to be expected because it had always crusaded against poverty, religious bigotry, and gender and national discrimination, and it had tirelessly campaigned on issues such as the improvement of welfare and social services. Even before the campaign got underway, polls Meretz conducted revealed that the main attraction it

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held for its supporters as well as for those of Labor and for the undecided was its stand on social issues, including anticorruption. Forty percent of its members and supporters pointed to the party’s positions on social and economic issues as the first or second determinant of their preference, and an additional 22 percent attributed their choice or preference to the anticorruption stand. Only 20 percent gave defense and security issues as a main (first or second) factor. The more general polls revealed a similar picture: 40 percent regarded social and economic factors as the first or second reason for considering a vote for Meretz, 35 percent pointed to the stand on corruption, and again only 20 percent pointed to defense and security issues.78 What came, however, as one of the greatest surprises of the campaign was the successful call for a similar change of national priorities by Tzomet, a small party to the right of the Likud. Despite its strong endorsement of the policy of settlement in the Occupied Territories and its participation in the Likud-led government after Labor had left the national unity coalition, its situation differed significantly from the other right-wing parties. This was because of its independent line on a number of issues, including its support of electoral reform, which led it to temporarily withdraw from the government. In a press conference opening the party’s campaign, the founder-leader, MK Rafael Eiten, exploited his nonalignment with the Likud to redefine Tzomet’s position in the party spectrum as “a centrist party” intent with presenting an alternative to those Likud defectors who distrusted Labor.79 In the following days he came out with a series of programmatic declarations designed to shift emphasis in the party’s message toward social and economic issues and suggest a well-thought-out and moderate alternative on the territorial question.80 By the beginning of the television campaign, parallel with Labor’s call for changes in the national priorities, Tzomet was able to present its own more detailed and radical version. In a markedly unequivocal and trenchant style, it put forth a set of positions amounting to a complete reordering of the social and economic system, alongside major legal, electoral, and governmental reforms. Perhaps the most outspoken demands were those to stop all monetary favoritism of the religious institutions, to put an end to the release of religious seminarists from military conscription, and to elevate education to the top of the national priority list. Such positions, along with the call for new ethical standards in government, brought the party close to the principles Meretz advocated. Tzomet, one critic complained, “has become more and more a carbon copy of Shinui [the former independent centrist faction of Meretz] . . . and like it may well enter into unexpected coalitions.” “The right-wing has disappeared all of a sudden,” asserted another critic, “now that Tzomet has become concerned chiefly with good government and education, . . . its social and economic program is in fact that of the left.”81 Nor was such an appraisal confined to professional critics. The aforementioned Meretz telephone campaign found that after the first week of television

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some 3.5 percent of those polled (corresponding to one and a half to two Knesset mandates) wavered between Meretz and Tzomet. Subsequently, party and external polls confirmed the trend in all parts of the country, especially among the young first-time voters and the Likud defectors.82 Of special interest are polls that indicated that fully half of Tzomet’s gains were made during the first days of the television campaign, and the Gallup finding that several days before the voting most of the first-time voters who still wavered vacillated between Meretz and Tzomet.83 Several explanations were offered for this wavering between parties at the opposite ends of the political spectrum. For Rabin, it was a sign of the weakening of the party system, exposed by the tendency of voters to pin their faith in the charisma of individual leaders rather than on the parties that they had come to despise.84 For others, wavering between the two parties was due to the rejection of ideology by a relatively affluent electorate that deferred consideration of divisive issues to some distant future and was concerned with only marginal improvement of the status quo.85 Yet others saw it as resulting from the ideological coming together of the two parties on the religious issue. This suited the tunnel vision of young voters troubled by unemployment and freedom from conscription of religious seminarists, two issues that were linked by the fact that the minister of labor was a rabbi and leader of an ultraorthodox party.86 This diversity of explanations exemplifies the general bewilderment shared by Meretz itself. “We were at first dumbfounded, and by the time we figured out what had happened it was too late to do anything about it,” one of its MKs admitted. “What apparently lay behind it was that young voters were fed up with the large parties and looked for such as would address them straightforwardly. Meretz and Tzomet represented in their eyes an authentic, non-evasive ideological approach. . . . Had we realized this in time we would have pressed home that they [Tzomet] are hawkish and promoters of settlements.”87 The argument offered here is that these explanations are all partly, and none wholly, correct. The vacillation between parties that had hitherto been seen as holding extreme positions in the political spectrum and the disconcertment this evoked were symptomatic of what occurred in the entire campaign, and they help to explain the election results. It was not that young voters forgot or were oblivious of Tzomet’s positions on the Occupied Territories. Rather, it was that the entire issue was overshadowed by more immediate concerns on which the two parties overlapped. The 1992 campaign was launched at a time when large groups within the electorate were exceptionally concerned with questions of system management and the social and economic performance of government. Labor correctly identified the need to base its appeal to such voters on the issues that perturbed them, and the Likud was forced to follow suit. Neither, however, discerned the full nature of the perturbation. At this point it may be fitting to shift from the customary

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market analogy to a medical one. Patients suspecting a serious illness will not be reassured by doctors who merely enumerate the symptoms, put the blame on previous practitioners, and vaguely promise a cure. What they look for is an identification of the nature and causes of the sickness, a proposal of treatment, and an explanation of how it will work. What has been dismissed as public indifference was in reality the baffling of such expectations. The widespread feeling was that the party system had failed in that the main parties had neglected to structure an adequate choice between them. From this perspective the “virtual rebellion” after the first days of the television campaign could be interpreted as a groundswell of support for the return of meaning to electoral participation. Large parties basing their strategy on valence issues in conditions such as in Israel provide opportunities for minor parties to profit electorally. Less fearful of alienating specific segments of the electorate, they can rush in with clearer position issues for which they are not likely to be held accountable. But in defining the choices confronting the electorate, campaign tactics also create conditions that affect the existing lines of cleavage. When Labor made national priorities its leading position issue, it sought to meet the call to provide grounds for meaningful choice while bettering its position within the existing lines of cleavage. However, before the change could achieve its full intended effects, Meretz from the left and Tzomet from the right stole Labor’s thunder and won over significant numbers of the undecided voters, thereby blurring the existing party cleavages. In so doing, the two small parties enjoyed a similar advantage. Both were ideologically based and noted for their uncompromising stands. In the campaign they strengthened their image by a common style of direct, unadorned, and unambiguous presentation of principles. The fact that the large parties campaigned mainly in valence-issue terms highlighted this common denominator. In the final analysis, what had earlier separated them was subordinated to their common stands and to their credibility now that many of the voters had changed their conception of the ideological spectrum. National security remained a major line of cleavage and continued to exert a strong impact on the vote. To be sure, it did not take long before the old right-left divide reestablished itself with a vengeance. But in 1992, this issue branched in two directions: on the question of the destiny of the Territories, Labor and Meretz strongly differed with Tzomet. On the position of their place in national priorities, all three found themselves in agreement. Election results showed that the parties most closely associated with the outgoing government’s settlements policy, Likud and Tehiya, lost heavily: the former 8 of its 40 Knesset seats and the latter all its three seats. The biggest winner was Tzomet, which profited from both directions and quadrupled its representation from two to eight MKs. Next came Labor, which garnered five additional seats (39 to 44) and Meretz (10 to 12 MKs). In all, the 1992 elections were unusual in that they showed how popular undercurrents are capable of rising momentarily to the surface, disrupting campaign

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strategies, and forcing modifications of the party map, only to subside again in the course of time. But the 1992 elections were also unusual in another respect. The foregoing analysis has shown that they confirmed a conclusion that could have been drawn from the preceding elections. The centripetal logic of deemphasizing ideology and appealing to the widest range of voters can work well in conditions of more relaxed tensions such as obtained in the mid-1960s, but when tensions rise and anxieties are widespread, it can be countereffective. It is then that small ideological parties come into their own because they are more suited to the application of the centrifugal logic to which the larger parties have difficulty to adjust themselves. Yet such a conclusion is useful only for understanding what has already transpired and as a hypothesis for the study of other multiparty systems. In Israel, just when it might have percolated into general awareness, the entire issue became outdated. The elections of 1992 were transitional. Not only was the amendment to the electoral law already a fait accompli, but some of the features of the 1992 campaign itself, especially the emphasis on the personality of Rabin as a candidate for the premiership, already foreshadowed the new dispensation. Even before the electoral reform was implemented, unintended transformations in the nature of party competition and hence in the logic and the execution of electoral campaigns were clearly in the offing; but their full extent and implications were revealed only in the two last electoral campaigns to be held in the millennium.

IV. Summary and Conclusions The second part of this book offered a negative of the picture presented in the first. The analysis in part I of the emergence of the cluster parties and its outcomes had focused on decisions taken by party leaders bent on changing the structure of the electoral choice and on shifting public attention away from ideological principles. The discussion of the demise of the cluster party system and its substitution by the party-bloc system in the preceding chapters, on the other hand, demonstrated the limits of party autonomy. The ability to act independently of environmental conditions itself hinged on a permissive environment in which ideological and social tensions relaxed and a relative stability had been reached. A necessary precondition of change does not mean however that the change is inevitable. The reduction of socioeconomic tensions did not automatically result in a reduction of ideological differences among the parties or in the electorate. As long as the parties set the national agenda and defined their competition in ideological terms, growing social mobility and affluence did not lead to widespread ideological apathy and voter absorption in the pragmatics of leadership and system management. But the environment did give the parties license to impose on the electorate changes that in time led to a new political climate. This may explain why parties lost much of their autonomy once the electorate

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again became caught up with major problems of a contentious nature that directly impinged on the well-being of the individual. A return to the analogy of party strategy to entrepreneurship in the fashion industry, may clarify the situation. In the first part of the book it was noted that a successful designer may choose not merely to respond to public taste but to shape it. The second part considered the limitations of such a strategy. Once a change in conditions gives rise to specific and firm demands, ignoring them may incur a significant risk, especially where other entrepreneurs are ready to offer merchandise more suited to the needs of the moment. In terms of party competition, a frustrated electorate is liable to penalize parties that have failed to define the issues and to structure significant choices among one another. This subjected the main rivals to internal and external constraints, both of which served as catalysts of party transformation. Internally it intensified rivalry among the cluster party components. Precisely when critical decisions involving matters that were not backed by party consensus had to be made, the inherent weakness deriving from the conflicting desires that brought the factions together tended to surface. Rifts developed along the original fault lines, and the factions were confronted with the choice between compromise, which could alienate their followers, and factional games of chicken, which could bring about voter backlash and damage to the party as a whole. The necessity to offer clear policies and the attendant internal strains threatened to be the greater in a government party or when the cluster party could realistically expect to win office. Consequently the main rivals did not experience the problem synchronically but in turns. Both however underwent processes of structural simplification as ideologically close factions coalesced, weaker factions lost their capacity to resist, and various groups seceded to go it alone or to join alternative partners. In the Alignment the first type of process mainly speeded moves toward unification that had already begun in 1969 when the factions of the Labor Party amalgamated their structures according to a proportional key. The secession of Mapam left the main body as a united although still heterogeneous party. In contrast, the facts that Likud’s largest factions were highly institutionalized and ideologically based, that the programmatic distance between them was larger, and that blackmail parties threatened them from without, all led to greater bickering that ended with the clear domination of the largest and most ideologically committed party, Herut. External constrains arose in preelectoral seasons from the need to reach a common denominator among the factions. Their diversity and the consequent need to reach heterogeneous publics curtailed the freedom of the cluster parties to maneuver and rendered more cumbersome any effort to adjust the campaign to the requirements of voters who demanded clearer alternatives. In 1981 and 1984 this hobbled the campaign of the Alignment; it was forced to ignore the issues that lent themselves to more intense infighting and to suffice with reacting to the principles articulated by the Likud and the smaller, more ideologically coherent,

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parties of the left and the right. The results of both the campaigns seem to have confirmed the Kirchheimer thesis in obverse: namely, that when society is confronted with fundamental problems, parties that have adopted catchall tactics will suffer losses unless they reconsider their strategies, retrieve their ideological cargoes, and advocate clear-cut proposals to deal with the dilemmas of the day. Such reconsideration was indeed made and the consequence was the ideological complexion of the 1988 contest. With it the party system completed its second mutation. The elucidation of the change Labor underwent cannot be furthered by the approach that seemed appropriate to the explanation of what happened to the Alignment before its fall in 1977 or to the Likud after its accession to power. In both these cases the shifts can be traced to factional reactions to environmental challenges and are therefore most gainfully explained by the adaptive organizational approach. In contrast, the change of Labor originated in the decision of a small group in the party top leadership to change course to prevent a debacle of the kind experienced in the previous competition and is better explicated by the purposive action approach. Nevertheless, both contributed to the disappearance of the cluster parties, the substitution of ideologically differentiated party-blocs for the cluster party system, and the shift from centripetal to centrifugal pulls on the system. Not that the cluster parties vanished without a trace or that the party system simply returned to its starting point. To employ a common image, glaciers may disappear but they leave behind terrains that have been radically altered by their detritus. Processes in the international and domestic arenas, and even in the party system itself, were neither reversed, nor did they necessarily come to a halt. Ideological positions and stands on particular issues that once distinguished the parties that joint forces were not revived in their original forms, whereas cleavage structures within the electorate did not reemerge without difference. Even electoral tactics adopted by the cluster parties were not discarded. Their successors improved the mass media techniques, public party funding enabled them to engage in costly campaigns, and the vicious circle that had plagued small parties continued to prevent the appearance of large centrist parties. But perhaps the most important feature was the persistence of “imperfect two-partism.” Party clustering has broken the dominance of a single party and created a competitive bipolar system with fewer contenders. The endurance of this pattern was clearly illustrated by the neck-and-neck rounds between Labor and the Likud, which led to the narrowest of government coalitions or to the inability of either party to form a coalition without its rival. It was this stalemate that had led to the far-reaching reform that had altered the party system in 1996.

Part III

THE PARLIA-PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM

Chapter 6

THE LOGIC OF THE NEW SYSTEM: CANDIDATES IN SEARCH OF CENTERS

I. Introduction: On Feeble Parties, Weak-Strong Prime Ministers, and Other Schemes of Mice and Men Common to the various versions of the Israeli party system hitherto discussed was the gradualness of their development. Even when a political actor such as Begin planned ahead fundamental change, its salient characteristics became apparent only with time. The final metamorphosis that came about in the twentieth century differed in this regard. Although some of the outstanding features of the alteration had been anticipated, its full extent and meaning were revealed at one go on the night of the election day of May 29, 1996. If the electorate went to the polling booths under one system, the cumulative effect of their votes amounted to the creation of another. To a degree, this was an intended result of an electoral reform passed by legislators who themselves had been elected according to the old regime, but who decided to significantly modify the rules of the game. To a yet greater degree, however, the consequences of the reform were unexpected and their promoters were taken aback by the changes. Demands for the reform of the Israeli electoral system echoed throughout the history of the state. For the most part they were muted, but periodically they grew in volume, as happened on the eve of the formation of the Alignment in 1965. One reason for the failure to come to grips with the issue was that the positions for and against reform cut across the main parties. Ben-Gurion and his disciples were in favor, Ahdut Ha’avoda and Mapam were against; the Liberals supported, Herut opposed. In 1970, when the two clusters found themselves in the same government, negotiations on the subject began between the Labor party and the Liberals but little was achieved because Herut, Mapam, and other small parties organized to block any serious steps being taken. This in turn illustrates another factor that complicated reform. Although the various schemes aired throughout the years differed in detail, all shared a central objective: to raise the threshold of parliamentary representation to reduce the number and power of the 158

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small parties and free the larger ones from the reliance on them for purposes of coalition making. This, it was argued, would make for a more coherent government and diminish the distortion caused by the power of the small parties to extract concessions disproportionate to their size. But most of the small parties were unenthusiastic about their prospective loss of power and the benefits this would confer on the system. Because the large parties did not enjoy absolute majority and had to rely on the support of smaller partners, reform efforts were bogged down, and during the 1970s they became even more unrealistic in direct proportion to the intensification of the competition between the larger parties. The formation of the national unity government in 1984 decreased the coalitional dependence on lesser parties and offered a renewed opportunity for reform. A joint committee of Labor and Likud ministers was established to resolve the matter, and in June 1988 the first reading of a bill for electoral reform was passed by the Knesset. Yet, the dependence of the two main parties on their satellites and the mutual suspicion of each bloc that its rival was preparing to use the issue to undermine its cohesion prevented the completion of the process. When following the 1988 elections, the grand coalition was resumed, another joint committee was formed, and again its efforts came to naught. This time a new force came into play. Hitherto, the question had aroused only limited public interest. With the party-bloc system replacing the cluster party system, the demand for change, which would put an end to the political paralysis and the kingmaking power of the small parties, spilled over into ever-widening circles. This found expression not only in the polls but in the rise of extraparliamentary groups whose activity reached a crescendo with the protracted and ugly horsetrading, which followed the breakup of the national unity government in 1990.1 Under the pressure of public opinion, mass demonstrations, and a sweeping agreement among the large parties that the perpetuation of the stalemate was unacceptable,2 a solution to the dilemma was arrived at. The proportional system would be retained, thereby ensuring the small parties of their survival; but the prime minister would be elected personally on a separate ticket, and his election would be determined by an absolute majority.3 Should this not materialize in one round, a second one between the two leading candidates would take place, as in the French and Russian systems. This, it was hoped, would predetermine the coalition, thus shielding the winner from extortion by prospective coalition partners and shortening the range and duration of the bargaining.4 In itself, a mix between representation systems is not unique. Germany combines single-member districts and proportional representation, and several of the Israeli reform schemes suggested the adoption of similar arrangements. Italy employs at one and the same time both proportional and majoritarian criteria, whereas Japan has a “parallel system” in which the voter casts two separate votes: one for the single-member district in which seats are won on a majoritarian basis and another for a national list in which seats are allocated on proportional

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representation bases.5 However, in all these cases (and they are far from being the only ones) the mix applies solely to the legislative body, and the result is that the parliamentary representatives are chosen according to diverse criteria. By contrast, the Israeli hybrid combined a personally chosen premier with the entire country serving as a single-member district and a legislature that continued to be elected on a proportional representation list system. If we understand parliamentary regime to mean the merger of the legislative and the executive functions in a single institution and the investment of supreme power in the legislative body as the sole representative of the people, then the Israeli government ceased to be such. In presidential governments the two functions are independent, and the president, being directly elected, is responsible to the people. By instituting a direct vote for the premiership, Israel in part adopted such a dispensation. At the same time an important aspect of the parliamentary system was retained by way of the unification of powers: the prime minister continued to be a parliamentarian, and the existence of his government remained contingent on its ability to muster a Knesset majority.6 The disparity between the intentions and the consequences of this unique setup forcefully reminds the famous observation that “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/gang aft a-gley.” This was manifested most clearly in the dramatic change in the structure of the party system the turnover of Knesset seats caused in the 1996 and 1999 elections. The popular vote determination of who would head the government did deprive the small parties of their king-making powers. This was evident in 1996 when a margin of less than 0.5 percent in favor of the Likud’s candidate sufficed to settle the question without the lengthy wheeling and dealing typical of previous situations of evenly matched electoral results. But the cost to both large contenders was a steep decline in their parliamentary strength. The upshot was an increased fragmentation of the party system with a boost in the number of smaller parties and in their ability to draw voters away from the larger competitors. The new millennium found a Likud shrunk to 19 MKs, almost the size of the old Herut, which 35 years earlier had set out on the quest to transform the system, whereas Labor had been reduced to 34 MKs in 1996 and then to a mere 26 parliamentary representatives in 1999. The two rivals together were left with less than either had had in its heyday. But numbers alone do not adequately reflect the change. The parties that drained away the power of the larger competitors appealed to clearly defined segments of the population, and the consequence was that the socioeconomic, ethnic, and religious cleavages that the cluster parties and party-blocs blurred became ever more prominent. In 1996 a party of Russian immigrants (Israel Ba’aliya) made its debut with seven MKs and in 1999 it found itself in competition with yet another Russian party, which won four MKs on its own. In both campaigns Shas, based on the double cleavage of Asian-African ethnicity and ultraorthodoxy, shot ahead: first to 10, then to 17 MKs, thereby becoming the third largest party in the Knesset. Other new parties appealed to specific beliefs or interests: Shinui, campaigning on the

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single issue of antiultraorthodoxy won six MKs on its first showing in 1999, and in the same elections a party aggregating the interests of blue-collar Histadrut members took away two MKs from Labor.7 The introduction of direct elections for the prime minister seems insufficient to explain such an outcome. Research on the connection between the rules governing elections and the structure of the party system is available, and Duverger’s pioneering contribution was specifically mentioned earlier in this book. However, much of the literature is theoretical, and the adequacy of postulated relations has not been universally agreed on. Some proposed, for instance, that the Duverger’s Laws should rather be regarded as “probabilistic” and that a clearer distinction between the effects and the side effects of electoral laws be made.8 A solution may lie in Richard Rose’s suggestion to combine the consideration of the “generic properties” of the electoral system under consideration with that of the “specific national context,” or, as he put it, in “an analysis of an electoral-system-in-a-political system.”9 Especially pertinent to the Israeli case is the junction between the incentive structure produced by the new electoral system on the one hand and the considerations of the electorate and campaign strategies of party elites on the other. As an immigrant-absorbing society, Israel ever since its inception and even earlier constituted a jigsaw puzzle of communities separated by ethnic, cultural, and religious differences. Latent tensions between them have been a permanent feature of life that found expression in the political realm. Both main parties used them as a basis for symbolic manipulation and reserved Knesset seats for the representation of geographic, religious, and ethnic sectors. Nevertheless, the superimposition of the rationale of imperfect two-partism (and earlier of the dominant-party system) on the multiparty system served as an impediment to the development of communitarian parties. Electors had been faced with the choice of either one of the loose-fitting large competitors or one of the more exclusive tailor-fitted ones, and each choice carried a price. A vote for a narrowly defined party could mean forfeiting influence within the ruling party and later also jeopardizing the ability to partake in the decision who should form the next government. As electoral competition drew tighter, and especially in the stalemated party-bloc system, this price became increasingly heavy, driving communitarian parties to declare their choice as part of their tickets. However, this too penalized them because if the larger party they supported won the race, their capacity to blackmail was restricted by their prior commitments; if the chosen larger party lost, this capacity was reduced because the winners could form a coalition without them. This limitation was even more pronounced in the case of the small ideological parties. Being more radical than the main party in their bloc, they were from the start inadmissible in any coalition formed by the adversary. In addition, the fact that small ideological parties competed for votes within their bloc rendered them vulnerable to the accusation that by siphoning off voters from the main party they were playing into the hands of the opposing bloc. The double

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vote initiated by the electoral reform erased the price incurred by either choice and eliminated the need to agonize between them: the voter could now cast one ballot for the premier and another in accord with whatever his or her personal interests or ideological bent. This was conspicuous among veteran Israeli Sephardim of traditional bent who combined a prime ministerial vote for the Likud on the basis of national principles with a vote for Shas as a reflection of their cultural and ethnic identity.10 What happened, however, was not only the result of the breaking out of long inhibited needs but also the expression of new ones. This was especially noticeable among the new Russian immigrants. In 1992 some 250,000 voters were added to the register after the previous elections. This was only the last of several waves of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Earlier immigrants were more likely to be ideologically motivated and were eager to integrate in the general society. The lack of specialized parties seeking to represent them is therefore not totally surprising. But this cannot hold for the last wave, which came during the final years of the Soviet Union and immediately following its collapse. In 1992 a Russian immigrants party did indeed make an appearance, yet competing under the old rules it failed to gain more than 11,000 votes, some 4.5 percent of its targeted electorate. A mere four years later, Israel Ba’aliya, fighting under the revised rules of the game, garnered some 43 percent of the Russian newcomers’ ballots and seven Knesset seats, thus resolving the “common immigrant struggle between demonstrating communal identification yet longing for inclusion in the national mainstream.”11 Moreover, the emergence of a “sectarian-centrifugal Knesset”12 itself became a catalyst for the support of narrowly defined parties. This was clearly evidenced in the success of Shinui as a secular reaction to Shas’s achievements that forced the relations between religion and the secular state into the forefront of the public agenda. But the campaign strategy adopted by the main parties contributed not a little to split voting and hence to their own decline. As far as the Knesset elections went, the shift from the categorical system where the choice is restricted to one party to the ordinal one, where more than a single choice is permitted,13 and the relegation of national and of sectional issues to different contests, meant the institution of a purer form of proportional representation, purged of the obstacles presented by the cluster parties and party-blocs. A comparable phenomenon occurred in the race for the prime minister, where the competition between the main parties, hitherto restrained by its attachment to the multiparty parliamentary system, was now free to reach its full potential. Parties fielding credible candidates for the premiership were consequently forced to run simultaneously two very different campaigns. Victory in the race for the Knesset turned on the ability to expand or at least conserve their electoral base. Each had therefore to present distinctive stands on controversial issues that would serve to differentiate it from its rivals and unify its membership around a common cause. Triumph in

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the race for the prime ministership necessitated a broader appeal than that of the candidate’s party and a strategy for wooing the supporters of parties on the ideological flanks as well as voters wavering between the larger parties. As illustrated time and again in the United States and other presidential systems, to win, candidates must estimate and adopt the positions held by the majority of voters in the center while avoiding the danger of being cornered into giving voice to views that will alienate large segments of the population. The extension of the electoral hunting grounds to include the entire terrain barring only its extremes demanded that the campaign be based on personalities, system management, generalities and style, and on the employment of catchall tactics. In brief, what was required for an efficient run for the premiership was the avoidance of what was required in the competition for the Knesset. The two campaigns were clearly supplementary. Because the parlia-presidential system still obliged the successful candidate to form a coalition that would win the Knesset’s confidence, the party continued to serve as a safe base and a starting point from which to conduct negotiations. Once the coalition was established, it could also serve as a guarantee that the government as a whole would conform. Parties had an analogous stake in the premiership competition. Distribution to the party faithful of perks and positions in the public administration and the capacity to represent the interests of the party members henceforth depended not only on the number of MKs but, even more importantly, on the party affiliation of the winning candidate. In 1996 the Labor party found itself in opposition, whereas Netanyahu’s victory propelled the Likud into office despite its smaller size. In 2001 Sharon’s huge victory catapulted the Likud to power despite the fact that it had only 19 MKs and was not the largest party in the Knesset or even in its own coalition. However, irrespective of the way the campaigns supplemented each other, the paramount interest was to win, and hence the campaign for the top post, which determined whether the party would be in office or in the opposition, took precedence.14 Overshadowed by their candidates, the parties shed their social referents and vestiges of ideology and campaigned on the personality of their contestants and on system management issues. Furthermore, to ensure their support in the prime ministerial race the communitarian parties were presented as allies. No efforts were invested in persuading their supporters to transfer their Knesset vote to the candidate’s party, nor were defensive attempts made to thwart the communitarian parties’ appeal to members of the candidate’s party to maximize their benefit by splitting their vote between the partners. As one Likud MK openly complained in the middle of the 1999 campaign, the party’s propaganda actually “encourages voters to cast their ballots for Netanyahu and for any party other than the Likud.” The better to compete with small parties, which now found themselves freer than ever to speak on behalf of specific publics he suggested to divide the campaign headquarters into two organizations: one promoting the candidate, the other the party. Although this

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suggestion was immediately turned down as ensuring the defeat of the candidate, it did reflect a sense of desperation also evident in the pleas of Likud leaders to Netanyahu’s foreign consultants not to ignore the party in the campaign. Labor MKs for their part complained that they felt altogether redundant, as though the party itself was outside the electoral struggle.15 Where acute and polarizing issues engrossed the electorate the disadvantage of the main parties was further compounded. We have seen how Labor’s debacle in 1984 was largely attributable to the employment of catchall tactics in a divided society, while in 1992 both large parties were forced to succumb in midcampaign to the necessity of turning to positions of principle. Furthermore, the logic behind the parlia-presidential system was that the ballot for the premier would enable the electors to express their preferences concerning the composition of the government and the main lines of national policy. It was therefore to be expected that the candidates would come up with policy statements on the issues topping the national agenda. If to win 50 percent plus of the total vote candidates were obliged to frustrate such expectations, the danger was less that of alienating the general public at the level of the prime ministerial race and more of loosening whatever bonds of tradition and loyalty held the electorate to the major parties precisely when disappointed party activists were experiencing little incentive to mobilize to their party’s support. Indeed, in the situation where the larger parties found addressing ideologically clear messages to their own activists difficult, these themselves could be wooed by the small, more aggressive parties, which could play the game according to the logic of the proportional representation system of the Knesset competition alone. This consideration of the structural alterations of the party system has already touched on two processes of change within its main units. One was the wholesale adoption of catchall tactics, which resulted in a shift in the direction of their competition from the centrifugal to the centripetal, in contrast to the pulls exerted by the communitarian and narrowly defined ideological parties. The other was the far-reaching personalization and concentration of power at the apex of the party organizations following the adoption of the semipresidential format. Both were new only insofar as they accelerated preexisting trends that were already discussed in connection with the former phases of the development of the party system. As far as campaign tactics go, what excited most public and media interest was the nomination by the candidates of U.S. professional consultants as advisors on running the elections and most particularly the television contests. Using media experts was a regular feature of the cluster-party system in the early 1970s and has persisted ever since. In 1981 Begin imported a U.S. advisor to buttress his team, although his role was subordinate and low profile. In 1996, however, this underwent a sea change when Netanyahu hired Arthur Finkelstein as his righthand man to help conduct the propaganda campaign. Although he rarely

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intervened in the “what” of the message and although he was helped by an Israeli team, his impact on the “how to” was so profound, that it added a new word to the political vocabulary: Finkelization.16 What magnified this influence was the fact that Netanyahu’s rival, Peres, did not use so-called spin doctors from abroad and the lesson of his defeat was not lost on Labor. Barely one month after he was elected as party chairman, Barak began to form his own counterteam of U.S. consultants consisting of Stanley Greenberg, James Carville, and Robert Shrum. The three were veteran rivals of Finkelstein, not only in U.S. campaigns, but also more recently in contests that brought victory to their clients, Blair, Jospin, and Schroeder. One could thus say that the process of Americanization was complete once Israel became part of a worldwide clash between American traveling salesmen of election expertise.17 Together, they ushered in a style that had characterized Netanyahu’s campaign in 1996 and all the main candidates in the 1999 and 200118 elections: the use of succinct messages, almost amounting to slogans, couched in striking and easily remembered terms and visual images that are repeated again and again to sink as a unitary whole into the mind. The content of each such message is restricted to a single, simple, and easily understood idea intended not to persuade but to reinforce and give expression to feelings and unformulated intimations. Such an appeal to the noncerebral level is predicated on the assumption that the rational side of most voters, and especially of the uncommitted, simply serves to justify preexisting tendencies. This style and the basic premise behind it not only differentiated the propaganda of the parties running double campaigns from the other competitors, but also set the tone of the campaigns as a whole. The transfer of power and prestige from the party and government organizations to the individuals at their helm too had been a gradual process.19 The Israeli parties, as we have noted, had always been highly hierarchical, and later developments—chiefly the introduction of public party funding and the use of television as a vehicle for campaigning—furthered the concentration of decision making in the upper echelons. However, the institution of quasi-presidential campaigns and their primacy over the jousting for seats in the Knesset allowed the prime ministerial hopefuls a greater say than ever before. Both the Likud and Labor candidates in effect bypassed their parties by establishing separate campaign headquarters, thereby creating parallel organizations staffed by experts and by reliable loyalists who could include family members.20 Concurrently, the candidates retained a considerable degree of control over the various party campaign headquarters through their power to nominate their staff and especially their chairpersons. An example from the 1999 campaign relates to the Labor Party organization headquarters, charged with the direction and oversight of the party branches. When tensions developed between high-level party organizers and the chairman Barak nominated, the latter’s headquarters answered the complaints. The person concerned, it was claimed, “is a professional with much experience in administration and organization. It was he who had crystallized the method of

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working, and the [Barak] headquarters supports him. People in the party must get used to his mode of operation.”21 Another kind of structural change reflecting the supremacy of the candidate and of the prime ministerial race issued from the ability of small parties to field candidates of their own for the top post purely as a means of forcing the large party to buy them off before the election. In 1996 this device was employed by David Levi (Gesher) and Rafael Eitan (Tzomet), both of whom were offered high positions on the Likud candidates list and high government positions in return for withdrawing from the premiership race and for joining the Likud. More bluntly, they were bought off at the expense of the Likud as a party to better the chances of the Likud candidate. In 1999 an interesting variation of the same plot was the revival by Labor’s Barak of the logic that lay behind the formation of the cluster parties in the second half of the 1960s. To extend the attraction of his candidacy he invited two splinter parties to join in a cluster formation with Labor: Levi’s Gesher, which had seceded from the Likud, and Meimad, a moderate faction of the NRP. The former had never been tested in independent elections; the latter had run independently in previous elections, yet failed to pass the electoral threshold. Nevertheless, they were offered “safe” seats on the joint Knesset candidate list and promised cabinet positions at the expense of the Labor Party. Even the name of the party was changed to One Israel thereby reducing the Labor Party to the status of a faction, albeit the largest and most influential one. As in the 1960s, the consequence was the diluting of the party identity and the exchange of ideological depth for electoral width. The difference between the 1960s and 1999 was revealed however in the simultaneous casting of the double vote. The width may have helped produce a landslide victory for the candidate, but the lack of depth could only have increased the One Israel’s weakness.22 All this does not mean that the parties were reduced to the status of mere agencies for the provision of organizational and financial services. The candidates, having been selected by the members of their parties, remained responsible to them and had to take their views into account. This was especially true of the MKs who themselves had been selected in primaries and therefore acquired a measure of independence previously unknown. Nevertheless here too processes that had began earlier, reached their logical conclusion. The prereform decades had already witnessed the widening of the power gap between the party members, activists, and branch officers on the one hand and the national leadership in the Knesset on the other. Now the same pattern extended to the relationship between the Knesset members and the candidates for, or holders of, the top post. The concentration of power in a few hands reduced in turn the importance of the party organs and increased the sense among the lower ranks that they had little say in decisions taken higher up. With regard to conducting the campaigns, the obvious drawbacks were a saving grace. The determination of the general strategy by the candidates and their teams meant cutting much red tape and the

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primacy of professional efficiency over political considerations, thereby allowing for swift adjustments and shifts in reaction to polls and changing circumstances. However, following the elections, the widening distances within the party elite contributed much to the restiveness of MKs, in particular those who did not enjoy the power and prominence accruing from executive positions and so were more liable to question their leader.23 The combined effects of the two processes of change, that in the main parties and that in the party system, on the governing capacity of the prime minister created something of a paradox. The domination of the double campaign by the prime ministerial race, the focus on the individual candidates, and the discrepancy between the losses suffered by the main parties and the unprecedented width of the support garnered by their candidates accentuated the latter’s personal mandate. For the first time in the history of the state a political leader could base his authority on the personal choice of a majority of voters. The decay of the party structures and the prime minister’s ability to bypass them and to conduct policy with the advice of few chosen loyalists underscored his autonomy and perpetuated the subordination of the party throughout the postcampaign periods. But the precipitous shrinking of the main parties forced the premier-elect to cobble together an unruly coalition consisting of a large number of parties representing different and at times opposing sectional interests, and then forced him to engage in constant bargaining with and mediation among them to prevent internal combustion. This in turn tended to exacerbate the tensions between the prime minister and the party elite and diminish his ability to rely on the parliamentary support of rebels among the MKs with deleterious effects on his already-reduced capacity to run the coalition. All this sapped the steering capacity of both Netanyahu and Barak and all but precluded their ability to deliver on their electoral promises. Coalitional constraints had, of course, been a permanent feature of the parliamentary system and something similar could happen in presidential systems such as that in the United States, when different parties control the executive and legislative branches. However, the president is free from the need to muster a parliamentary majority and his ability to nominate his secretaries and his greater leeway in policy making enhances his ability to meet voter expectations. The Israeli hybrid denied the prime minister such powers and subjected him to cross pressures of parties pursuing particular interests, but to the voters he was accountable. Moreover, the quasi-presidential dispensation allowed the electorate to penalize personally the prime minister who has failed to hold his coalition together or whose policies have not yielded immediate satisfactory results, without the necessity to commit to or even seriously consider any alternative ideological line. This lay behind Netanyahu’s 1999 debacle, and it was even more glaringly obvious in Barak’s unprecedented landslide defeat in the special elections of 2001. The rest of this chapter examines the transition to the parlia-presidential system and more particularly how the rationale governing the competition

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between the main parties under the new electoral laws substituted that of the party-bloc system in the middle of the 1996 campaign. The contest was held against a polarization between the left and the right over the thorny question of the relations with the Palestinians, which reflected and further emphasized the cleavages of the party-bloc system. The right was united in opposition to the Oslo Accords, which recognized the PLO, committed the state to withdrawal from parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and required negotiations of final settlement agreements. Support of the government peace policies and the assassination of Rabin by a right-wing zealot had a similar effect of solidifying the left. Both Labor and the Likud felt compelled to concentrate almost exclusively on the peace process. Not only was it unthinkable that the candidates for the highest office and the parties supporting them would ignore such an all-engrossing question, but also that matters such as the relations between state and religion or immigrant absorption could be left to parties that did not field candidates of their own. To compete with them on their own turf would be counterproductive. To win the contest for the premiership, however, both contenders had to devise strategies that would enable them to appeal to moderates on all sides and to the floating voters, and this had to be achieved without alienating their own committed followers and voters at the ideological flanks of their respective parties. In brief, both sides confronted the problem of how to occupy the center in a polarized society. Of the two, Labor’s situation was by far the easier. The center as used here24 does not necessarily mean the halfway point between the extremes, and polls consistently showed that on the question of the Oslo peace process Labor enjoyed the support of a majority of Israelis. Its problem was rather to address fears of the security consequences of territorial concessions, brought home by terrorist attacks in the heart of the country and the frequent proclamations by Palestinian leaders of a continued jihad (holy war) for the liberation of Jerusalem. Labor’s propaganda therefore was directed to reassure the public that peace and security were mutually supportive. Although it emphasized the element of hope and constantly showed its prime minister, Peres, surrounded by enthusiastic young people of military age, it ran under the slogan of a “strong Israel” and promised referenda on any final settlement. The Likud, by contrast, faced from the start the imperative of making a choice between giving way to the majority of the electorate in accepting the basic legitimacy of the Labor-led government’s policy (although particular criticism could always be made) or giving way to its ideological purists in rejecting it in toto. The adoption of stands devised to win voters undecided between the Likud and Labor could alienate not only its own hard ideological core but also those voters who supported parties to its right. These, of course, would not vote for the other side, but they might well withdraw their efforts on behalf of the candidate, submit blank votes, or even refrain from voting altogether. On the other hand, adopting positions calculated to win over the supporters of right wing and religious parties could not only blur

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the party’s position, but also drive away those vacillating between it and Labor. Unlike Labor, whose “peace and security” could coexist, an optimal strategy for the Likud, one which would both accept and reject the Oslo Accords, seemed contradictory. And, if this were not enough, the fault line between those willing and those refusing to accept Oslo ran right through the party itself, endangering its unity whichever path was taken. The Likud’s dilemma, then, derived directly from the parlia-presidential system because earlier it could adopt an either-or position, hoping to represent and retain its hold on a particular segment of the electorate. It is perhaps fitting therefore that the solution arrived at was rendered possible by the organizational consequences of the reform itself. The concentration of decision making in the hands of the candidate and his consultants enabled the adoption of conflicting commitments, allowing convinced voters to read the party program in light of their predilections while representing the dilemma of those who vacillated between the options. Thus the message presented what might be called an arithmetical center, achieved by averaging out contradictory positions. Using the image of wheels on both sides of an axletree whose opposite movement propel the vehicle forward might be helpful. It is because both the dilemma and the way out illustrate so well the logic of the parlia-presidential system and the changes it brought in its wake that the following sections will concentrate on the struggle of the Likud opposition and its candidate over the problems presented by the famous handshake on the White House lawn until their resolution in the elections of 1996. Chapter 7 supplements this analysis with a closer look at the challenges that confronted the two prime ministers who began and ended their stint in office under the new system: Netanyahu in 1999 and Barak in 2001. Following the lurching of their government from crisis to crisis the two were forced to resign and face early elections. Each had to contend with widespread disenchantment with their performance with erstwhile supporters accusing them of reneging on their campaign promises and with rebellious, paralyzed parties. Each had also to grapple with a challenger who presented himself as having purveyed good governance and the pursuit of the national interests, and who sought to turn the elections into a referendum on the ineptitude of government, on the prime minister’s lack of credibility, and on his subservience to narrow interests. Nevertheless, Netanyahu’s Likud-led government of 1996–1999 and the government Barak headed between 1999 and early 2001 were very different and the same can be said about the challenges they faced and the strategy they adopted in the campaigns that led to their downfall. As the challenger in 1996, Netanyahu could make ambivalent promises that could be interpreted as presenting the party’s traditional ideology as well as its adaptation to the new realities. This subterfuge was denied him now that the inexorable progress of the peace process imposed on him to become the first Likud prime minister to legitimate withdrawal from parts of the West Bank.

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His essential strategy therefore was to concentrate on the strained relations with the Palestinians, where the feuds between the left and right within the coalition and the Likud itself, and the paralysis they caused, enabled him to present himself as a hard-nosed pragmatist representing the center against both extremes. To do so however it was imperative not only to run against the ultra-right but also, more critically, to tear away the challenger’s guise of being centrist to expose the extremism lurking behind it. The resulting catchall style was consequently characterized by an emotional “challenger approach” focusing on the positions of the opponents, supplemented by a parallel appeal to the electorates of the communitarian parties, each in its own style and its own media, with the rejection of the left as a common thread. One Israel, for its part, emphasized the fact that its candidate for premiership had been the chief-of-staff and the most decorated soldier in the state’s history and concentrated its fire on “the real issue.” Netanyahu’s lack of credibility, it argued, was revealed not only in the botched peace negotiations but also in that the government was stuck in all the spheres of national endeavor. No less importantly, it had given priority to the ultraorthodox and settler extremists, and it was essential to shift back to the center and to what was needed for the good of the nation as a whole. In essence, then, the choice the electorate faced as projected by both Likud and One Israel was one of trustworthiness: which claim to represent the center could be relied on, and which candidate could be depended on to be prime minister of Israel as a whole? Against the attempts to reach the center through the Likud’s appealing to both sides of the peace divide and One Israel’s extension of the left toward the center, the new Center Party came to birth in the center from which it sought to push out the Likud to the right and One Israel to the left. Led by Likud secessionists as well as by figures hitherto associated with the left, its basic argument was that in the new system the old ideological rifts had lost all meaning and that what counted now was character and leadership credibility. Its own candidate, Mordechai, it claimed, was not only a reliable politician with clean hands, but the only one able to appeal to the hard-core constituency of the Likud and thus free the nation from Netanyahu’s stewardship. The real choice, it implied, was between the old-style and the new politics; between the parties reflecting limited segments of the electorate and the party reflecting the needs of the here and now and the real center. In the 1999 contest, then, the three parties that ran double campaigns each chartered their own route to the center while attempting to block that chosen by its rivals. The result was that all engaged in a debate, which was conducted past each other rather than with each other. This became increasingly conspicuous in the 2001 special elections, perhaps because the dominant contest for the prime ministership was now the only one. Even more than his predecessor, Barak exemplified the strengths and weaknesses of the prime minister, or what might be

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called the weak-strong prime minister syndrome, in their most dramatic colors. His 1999 triumph was more massive, his independence from his party more complete, the coalition he put together more heterogeneous, its internal squabbling more acrimonious, and the time it took to falter shorter. At least in part this was because he attempted to use the unique power of his position in a desperate bid to bring closure to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is as though he served as a living example of the famous adage: “who never climbed high never fell low.” This in turn explains one of the more unusual features of the campaign. Like Barak in 1999, Sharon, the challenger, was free to focus on the lack of the prime minister’s credibility, on his giving in to extremists, and on his failure in system management and its consequences. He was also free to present himself as the champion of those goals that are practically accepted by all and to call for national unity and an end to all disagreements and sectional interests. Barak however could not resolve the problems he faced at the opening of the contest through the use of catchall tactics, and he was forced to adopt a strategy of ideological persuasion that was countereffective in a majoritarian competition. There is something revealing in the fate meted out to the two prime ministers. Popularly referred to as the most American of Israeli politicians, Netanyahu took as his model the American style, complete with its overarching ambiguity that allows the candidate to appeal to divergent groups at the same time. The source of his success became however one of the major causes of his downfall as soon as he had to face the need to make decisions on all-important divisive issues. The landslide defeat Barak suffered in the 2001 elections derived not only from the implosion of his coalition and the failure of his peace efforts, but also from his very readiness to make decisions on critical and divisive issues practically on his own without consulting his party and with insufficiently preparating the public. The two defeats then attest, each in its own way, to the mismatch between the new variant of the party system and the realities it had to deal with. A similar conclusion can be drawn from the autistic nature of the campaigns, which straddled the millennium. Electoral communications may be expected to operate on two interrelated axes: the horizontal debate among the candidates and the vertical discourse between the candidates and the voting public. The former is posited implicitly in a common area of dispute, an agreement as to what are the issues of major importance. Such a dialogue conducted before the general public becomes an important part of the vertical discourse when each candidate turns directly to his audience to present a monologue on that dialogue. In the 1999 and 2001 campaigns, where the customary television debate between the candidates failed to take place, the lack of common agreement on the nature of the issues and what was of relevance virtually precluded any horizontal dialogue. In a country well known for its bitter ideological rivalries, this constituted a precedent emblematic of the change brought about by the parlia-presidential hybrid and its incongruence with the practices of Israeli democracy.

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II. From Oslo to the Opening of the 1996 Campaign: The Likud in Crisis From an Israeli perspective, the recognition of the PLO and the signing of a Declaration of Principles launching negotiations with the Palestinians in Oslo (September 1993) involved more than a break of political taboos. Nor did it entail only the elevation of the land for peace formula from the realm of the theoretical to that of the immediate and practical policies. In the forceful words of Mayron and Yael Aronoff, it signified “a fundamental ideological shift in cultural perceptions of political reality away from the leitmotifs of the Likud-led government—the emphasis on the Holocaust, and Israel’s isolation in the world,” and the acceptance of “the universalistic orientation of human (liberal) Zionism in contrast to the . . . particularistic worldview of nationalist Zionism.”25 The support given by the absolute majority of the Jewish electorate meant that the Likud stood in urgent need of a serious reconsideration of what it stood for. This found its clearest expression in the meeting of the party center a month after the event. Of the 3,600 members only one-third attended and proposals brought before them differed so much that it was agreed in advance that no vote would be taken. Worse still, personal rivalries colored the debate. Common to virtually all the speeches was the sense of amazement that the Labor-led government was able to trick the people into collusion with the enemy by blinding them to the desperate consequences, that the Likud itself had failed to discern what was brewing, and that even now it was divided and ineffectual. Notwithstanding the breast-beating over disunity, the actual positions can be categorized under three broad heads. One was that of the ideological purists. A prominent hawkish MK summarized their view that any “effort to be fashionable” by tinkering with the party principles would not only fail to arrest the “wave of euphoria sweeping over the general population,” but also would impair the credibility of the Likud as an alternative.” Moreover, as another put it, the attempts to reconsider the platform were themselves sources of disunity and were liable to reduce the party to a “supermarket of ideas which is unworthy to survive.”26 A dramatically opposed position was that to hold on to the pure ideology would inevitably render the party irrelevant. “The platform was not drawn up by God,” insisted a moderate MK, “and so it can be changed if reality demands it.” To sanctify principles may be to sacrifice them, for “to try to restore the Likud to power by pure negation is to condemn it to many years in the wilderness of the opposition.”27 Another even proposed opening a dialogue with the PLO to influence negotiations while still in opposition and to continue them when in power.28 And a chairman of one district council presented his opinion in a letter circulated to the members of the party center: “We are outside the game like unruly spectators who whistle and scream . . . we must never act against the peace, against the nation. We must adopt the government’s peace plan and so work that the Likud will become a partner [to it].”29

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The party chairman, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the Likuds elder-statesman Ariel Sharon recommended intermediate stands. Both defined the main challenge as spearheading the widest possible opposition without diluting the party ideology. This could only be achieved by fleshing out the ideological principles into policies that could be presented as a plan of action that would constitute a concrete alternative. Sharon argued that whereas the goals advocated by the platform should remain unaltered, “one could exploit the tools [it provides] better and sometimes change them.” Suitably amended, the platform could serve as a blueprint for a solution to the Palestinian problem, which would ensure Israeli sovereignty over the Territories, and the restriction of Arab autonomy to the degree that it will not become a source of danger.30 Netanyahu for his part contended that “the question to be determined is not whether the Likud’s platform should be changed but how to adjust its principles to reality . . . if the Likud seeks to return to government it must present a clear-cut alternative. The platform alone is insufficient. We must sharpen the principles, because in the platform they are abstract and insufficiently clear.”31 As agreed beforehand, the various proposals were submitted to a 40-member committee nominated by the Executive Bureau for consideration, reformulation, and resubmission for the center’s decision. The committee chairman later succinctly expressed the task: “We shall offer clear alternatives [to the government’s policies] and determine how they will be presented to the general public.”32 However, because the committee included members of all shades, its mission was not surprisingly never completed. The persistence of the dissatisfaction with the party’s inability to present a positive alternative to the government policy induced Netanyahu to consider during the early part of 1994 the reconvening of the party center and forcing the issue by means of a vote. But consistent warnings against running the risk of breaking up the party led in the early summer to another modus operandi: the convening of top party leaders Netanyahu selected in a yet smaller, more intimate committee, whose deliberations would be frequent and secret. The mission of what later became known as the Leadership Team was again “to coordinate, the party’s stands in the context of existing conditions without impairing the ideological platform.”33 The existing conditions, however, rendered the Likud’s problem increasingly acute. An Israeli pullout from Gaza not only was effected painlessly but also seemed to be generally welcomed as its own reward. The country was establishing peace with Jordan, forming friendly contacts with the States of the Magreb and the Persian Gulf, and obtaining broad international support. In the meantime, lack of agreement within the Leadership Team became a source of friction that broke out into the open, deepening the party’s perceived paralysis. Thus, the Knesset faction chairman declared that the party must recognize the Oslo Accords and undertake, if it came to power, to abide by the Labor government’s international commitments. In response, former prime minister Shamir dismissed his words as “silly

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babbling”: “the Likud will never accept the Oslo Accords . . . because their aim is to deliver up parts of the Land of Israel!”34 Significantly, the tension subsided only after the party bureau intervened and called the Knesset faction chairman to account. In a different example, following the peace accord with Jordan Netanyahu revised his plan to include cooperation with it in the control of the Palestinian autonomy. This triggered the outburst of a prominent MK who denounced “the wooing of the center which has become a fashion” and the secretive discussions and decisions by bodies that had not received the party’s authority. “I demand that the party center be reconvened . . . [individual leaders] have no mandate to come out with announcements relating to the Likud’s positions.”35 If some consolation could be found, it was in the fact that in the second half of 1994 the popularity of the Labor government increasingly ebbed and the Likud enjoyed rising support with the electorate. One contributing factor was the widespread resistance to territorial concessions on the Golan Heights, prospects of which became ever more real as negotiations with Syria proceeded. Opposition culminated in hunger strikes among Golan settlers and a showdown between the government and hawkish Labor MKs who attempted to push through a bill requiring special Knesset and referendum majorities to approve any withdrawal. Another, perhaps greater, factor was Palestinian terrorism that, especially as the deadline for the pullout of the IDF from West Bank territories neared, ate away at public confidence in the efficacy of the government. By the end of 1994, polls gave Netanyahau a lead of close to 10 percent over Rabin36 and although the figures varied, they registered widespread disenchantment with government policy throughout 1995. Nevertheless, the Likud’s improved fortunes were clearly not due to what it had hoped for. Its ideological identity crisis persisted, and it could offer no alternative to the Labor peace policy. The Golan had never been an integral part of the land of Israel. The dilemma was caused by the ideologically sensitive West Bank and Gaza Strip, and here the Likud’s successes were mainly as a protest party. The peace process stood from the outset for vastly different things for Israelis and Palestinians. The latter read into it mutual recognition and territorial accommodation. The former saw it almost exclusively in terms of personal security. Hence terror, together with Arafat’s periodic calls for jihad and references to fallen terrorists as martyrs were widely identified as gross violations. The continuation of negotiations and preparations for military redeployment could therefore be presented as sheer incompetence if not flagrant disregard of citizen safety. However, an outright Jewish majority continued to support the notion of land for peace and there was a virtual consensus in favor of leaving Gaza in Palestinian hands. An additional problem was the temporary closures of the Occupied Territories. In December 1994 and especially following the death of 19 Israelis in an attack at the end of January 1995, prime minister Rabin broached the idea of permanent separation from the Territories by erecting fences, which implied the establishment of a fixed frontier. This policy was anathema to the

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Likud whose cardinal tenet involved the blurring of the former cease-fire lines, and the wide public support for it augured ill. Moreover, the struggle against military redeployment in the West Bank was led by parties to the right of the Likud and by settler movements whose members were predominantly a religious element in an overwhelmingly secular society. Finally, the Likud’s personal and ideological dissentions were not resolved. In August 1994, for instance, a group headed by MK Magen was formed with the aim of replacing Netanyahu with Dan Meridor as party chairman, and in October a party circle was established with a view to tilt the platform “in a more pragmatic and realistic direction.”37 Faced with such problems, Netanyahu and several other top Likud leaders embarked on a strategy of cooperation with the far right. This not only took the form of joint demonstrations and propaganda efforts, but also of a tacit division of labor. The Likud leadership focused on the alleged government failure to ensure domestic security and on the unreliability of the Palestinians as negotiation partners. Such an appeal was directed therefore also to those who were prepared to accept the principle of territories for peace. The far right on the other hand focused mainly on the handing over of Territories and on the illegitimacy of a government engaged in such policies. Thus the leader of the Moledet party reviled a government of “people who have no roots in the Jewish tradition and therefore have no loyalty to the land of Israel”;38 right-wing rabbis forbade religious soldiers to follow redeployment orders; and the extraparliamentary “This Is Our Land” blocked traffic on highways to emphasize that ceding parts of the land would plunge it into anarchy. Cooperation with the Likud enabled such elements to counter political marginalization, to obtain an entrée into wider circles, and to acquire an ally who could realistically compete for office. The Likud leadership stood to gain from its position at the head of a camp that transcended the party’s own membership, as well as from the delegitimization of the rival camp and its leaders.39 At the same time a strategy of triangulation could be adopted, calling for general moderation and blaming the government for exacerbating public divisions. “We are approaching the abyss,” Netanyahu repeatedly warned, “and must enter on some agreed process of discussion among ourselves. Without such a respite we are liable to witness the dismembering of the nation.”40 The Likud thereby could present itself as a champion of the entire nation and call for elections to replace a sectarian government in conflict with the people. More important, the strategy offered a way of circumventing the dilemma that had beset the Likud in the period following the Oslo Accords. The top leaders could concentrate their message on personal security, the failure of government to ensure it, and the need for national unity, while the blurring of lines separating the Likud from the right enabled the party to present itself as combative in the eyes of its stalwarts and to satisfy the pent-up pressures among its ideological hard-core. True, voices were raised within the party against such a “common front” strategy. MK Dan Meridor, for example, implied that whatever the benefit that

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might accrue to top party leaders, the association with extremists marred the image of the party and impaired its liberal and humanistic traditions: “the Likud must never be transformed into something foreign to itself . . . it must not parrot Moledet and Tehiya. To win it must remain loyal to itself.”41 But the success of the strategy rendered such protests futile. In the winter of 1995 at a demonstration of the coordinated right where the notorious pictures of Rabin in SS uniform were displayed together the placards “Rabin is a traitor,” Netanyahu could proclaim: “the erosion of government support is not only a result of what has happened on the ground, but also of the activity of the national camp. The minority has turned into the majority, and today most of the country is with us.”42 A no less clear sign of the Likud’s success was Labor’s decision to call for counter mass demonstrations in support of the government and its peace policies. Ironically, Rabin had earlier opposed such tactics as dividing the nation into “us” against “them,” thereby relegating the government to the leadership of only part of the nation. His yielding was to cost him his life. The assassination of the prime minister on November 4, 1995, revealed the weak link in the Likud’s strategic chain. In the words of one prominent leader, the party “did not actually perpetrate it, but public perception was that the murder of Rabin was the culminating point of a violent process in which the Likud played a major role.”43 Public opinion polls showed that it had lost at one go all that it had earlier gained, and that a huge 30 percent gap had developed in favor of Rabin’s successor, Shimon Peres. Netanyahu charged Labor with McCarthyism, and the press with witch-hunting against the Likud and himself personally. He also moderated his tone and defined the debate between the Likud and government as a “legitimate argument between the center-right and the center-left over Israel’s future.”44 But this did not allay severe criticism of his leadership. His strategy, some claimed, had failed to offer a credible alternative to the government’s policies, and his association with the far right had besmirched the party. As one senior Likud moderate put it: “if you don’t want to get fleas, don’t go around with dogs.”45 A second group, the Association for the Defense of Israel, was founded with the aim of replacing Netanyahu by Meridor, whereas internal polls indicated that more than one-half the party members believed that it was imperative to reconsider its ideology. The Likud found itself once more confronting the dilemma it had successfully skirted throughout the preceding year. Fortunately, the deliberations on principles and strategy could be left to a revived version of the Leadership Team, which had already begun to discuss the situation created by Oslo II some two weeks before the murder. Now it entered into high gear, taking up in weekly sessions the question of formulating a message that would win back public support without affecting the loyalty of the party faithful. What was not in debate was the need to create a more pragmatic image. Few were surprised by Meridor’s declaration that “the Likud does not belong to the right. We are a liberal centrist movement. . . . Any one who lives by vision alone and refuses to acknowledge reality had better stay at home. The

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solution is in the center.” More unexpected was Sharon’s suggestion that a Likud government could accept the first stages of the peace process as set forth in Oslo II.46 Nevertheless, neither Sharon nor Netanyahu changed their basic position. Rather, they sought reformulations that would narrow the gap between the Likud’s program and what was acceptable to most Jewish voters. And the purists not only would not budge but also argued that any change would be taken as a tacit admission of guilt. In the words of former prime minister Shamir: “a crazy assassin’s bullets have inflicted serious injuries upon the Likud, but that does not mean that a single event . . . should be allowed to alter a whole movement’s credo—a credo which remains as right and as just as it was prior to the assassination.”47 By the end of 1995 it became clear that the elections for the fourteenth Knesset would be advanced to the first half of 1996, and this served as a deus ex machina, forcing the termination of the programmatic debate and saving Netanyahu from his precarious position on the back of the party tiger. In early February 1996 he introduced on television the updated Likud program hammered out in the top Leadership Team. In attempting to satisfy the conflicting views within the party what was presented was either reactive or vague and cliché ridden. If the Likud comes to power, he asserted, Israel would not reoccupy Gaza nor abolish the autonomy already established in the densely populated parts of the West Bank. Nevertheless, “there is no reason why autonomy should be extended to the rest of the Territories.” Provided the prime minister would not meet or talk with Arafat, negotiations with the Palestinians could be conducted to achieve a “peace of mutual respect . . . in which we are not being spat on and parts of our state are not constantly grabbed.” Likewise, peace negotiations would be continued with Syria, provided they did not involve any compromise on the Golan Heights.48 Even these stands were not accepted unanimously, whereas other party members complained that all the months of the bureau’s work now became irrelevant without any clear-cut alternative to show for it. But at least it was a program of a sort, and its public presentation was itself an achievement. Similarly, although demands among the subleadership for replacing Netanyahu did not cease, the party upper echelons began to rally around him. Meridor even sent letters to the press obviously directed to those who advocated his nomination for the party chairmanship, in which he asserted that Netanyahu was the top party leader and its sole nominee for the premiership. More significantly, Netanyahu was able to reach an agreement for the amalgamation of Tzomet and the Likud in return for assured slots on the joint Knesset electoral list. The price was a blurring of the party ideology. Furthermore, polls showed that the merger would benefit Netanyahu’s campaign, but that the added vote for the party would not justify the number of safe slots offered to Tzomet.49 That Netanyahu was nevertheless able to push the agreement through reveals that the campaign for the premiership was beginning to take precedence over that for the Knesset, and further confirmation came a month later with the smooth approval of the agreement reached on similar terms for amalgamation with MK Levi’s Gesher.

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Meanwhile, preparations for the electoral contest continued. The campaign headquarters itself was not formed until the end of February, but well before that teams of professionals Netanyahu nominated were at work analyzing public opinion and crystallizing media strategies. Within a week of the above-mentioned television appearance the information team had not only been convened but was able to determine the party’s message, the manner of its presentation, and even who, apart from Netanyahu himself, would have major roles in the television campaign. The strategy was designed to surmount several difficulties. One was the inability to present an alternative that could define the party’s identity and distinguish it from other competitors, let alone appeal to the hard-core party members and to voters vacillating between the two main parties. Party leaders admitted that the “Achilles-heel of our propaganda effort” was the failure to arrive at a clear position on the Oslo agreements.50 Not only did radicals such as Begin fulminate against “coming to terms with [Oslo] . . . [, which] means giving in to a submissive frame of mind, to the victory of evil, and to the abandonment of any hope of averting catastrophe,”51 but even the Knesset faction chairman, in the very press conference that launched the campaign, decried the accords as contravening the Camp David and Madrid agreements on which a Likud government policy should be based.52 Another problem stemmed from the candidateoriented nature of the competition. The fate of Rabin meant that personal attacks on Peres had to be muted. As for Netanyahu, he lacked experience in high-level government positions, and his qualifications were in doubt even with the party. The way out was to mount a negative campaign that would criticize specific aspects of the government’s peace policy, yet without attacking the Oslo framework directly. The positive elements would be reduced to the determination to save the nation from the consequences of the attacked policies, plus the boosting of Netanyahu’s leadership qualities. This implied a campaign that thrust the party away from center stage to the wings, while relying on the esprit de corps generated by the virulence of the attacks to hold the party together. The targets were chosen in light of polls indicating that some 85 percent of the electorate rejected outright any concessions in Jerusalem, some 56 percent rejected withdrawal from the Golan, and close to 50 percent rejected the idea of an independent Palestinian state. The percentage differences suggested a campaign that would unfold in stages. It would begin with the allegation that the government was bent on dividing Jerusalem. This would inflame public opinion while galvanizing and unifying the party membership. Once sufficient momentum had been generated the issue of the Golan would be added, and finally that of the threat of a Palestinian state. Such a progression would also resolve the difficulty of attacking Peres. As Information Headquarters Chairman Livnat explained, the allegations would inevitably “arouse a general suspicion of Peres’ credibility. The Likud will not accuse Peres of lying, but we will instill doubts in people’s minds.”53 After the groundwork had been thus prepared, the attack would hone

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in on Peres as unreliable and dangerous for the country. This would set the atmosphere for presenting Netanyahu as the savior because he was young, coolheaded, realistic, and untainted by shady politics. Owing to its segmental nature the conduct of such a campaign required not a little time. Consequently, what was called Campaign Jerusalem started on February 18, barely one week after the first meeting of the information team and before the exact voting day was fixed. This involved serious risks. The question of the settlements that had been at the heart of previous campaigns and where real differences with government existed was replaced by the Jerusalem issue because polls showed that 70 percent of the electorate still rejected the Likud line. But the near consensus over Jerusalem included Labor, which was sure to accuse the Likud of incitement by fabricated allegations. With no change in the offing, a further danger was that the issue would fail to incite sustainable interest. That such a gamble had nevertheless been taken highlights the Likud’s need to find a way out of its dilemma at the opening of the campaign. Polls conducted after the first week indicated that the general public did indeed fail to rise to expectations, and although Netanyahu’s standing showed some improvement, most of it came from right-wing voters. Peres’s standing even improved slightly.54 In addition, the media ominously began to focus on the groundswell within the Likud to replace Netanyahu by Meridor.

III. Campaign 1996 and the Strategy of Contrived Bipolarity Just eight days after the Likud’s opening salvo, Palestinian fundamentalists began a series of suicide bombings in the heart of Israel, which cost 59 civilian lives. Repeated warnings of further attacks by military and intelligence sources as well as further threats by the terror organizations added to the general atmosphere of anxiety. In the pertinent image of a U.S. journalist, the elections became “a race against terror.”55 The effect on the campaign was immediate. Labor’s major asset, the cessation of terror and the optimistic expectation of peace, had been lost, the issue of personal security began to dominate the campaign, and government found itself accused of policies that had led to calamity. All this had a profound effect on the Likud strategy, but Labor and the general public did not immediately feel the full extent of the change because of the intraparty absorption in the primaries, fierce clashes on the northern border with the Lebanese Hezbollah, and the Grapes of Wrath offensive the IDF launched in retaliation. The intensive campaign activity was compressed into the five weeks preceding the actual vote. When electioneering accelerated, however, a new Likud course of action came to light, the result of a compromise between the differing positions within the top party echelon that the new conditions made possible.56 To understand the Likud’s strategy one must go back to events between the end of February and early March 1996. Spot polls conducted immediately after

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the first bombings revealed a complex pattern of reaction that further focus groups and successive general polls confirmed. No less than 17 percent of the Jewish voters asserted that they would switch their votes to the right. Support for Peres among those who voted Labor in 1992 fell for the first time below 75 percent, whereas support for Netanyahu among the 1992 Likud voters rose to 85 percent.57 However, even under the immediate shock more than 58 percent still favored continuing the peace process58 and the number rose later to 64 percent. Moreover, this majority included 53 percent of the declared Likud voters, whereas only 26.5 percent believed that the opposition had presented an alternative to the government’s peace policies.59 In sum, the focus groups and polls denoted a two-phase reaction to the terror attacks: an emotive response that worked for the Likud, and a more reasoned search for solutions that tipped the scales in favor of Labor. For attacks on government to arouse more than passing anger, therefore, an alternative policy based on the premises of the peace process had to be devised. Halfway through the week of terror attacks this realization already found expression in newspaper advertisements foreshadowing the slogans to be employed throughout the rest of the campaign. A brief analysis of one that was published repeatedly in full-page format reveals the new strategy-in-the-making. A highly emotional volte-face appealed to the nation not to abandon the peace process, “even with heavy hearts and while choking back our tears.” However, it defined peace as contingent on the assurance that “parents would be able to part from their children in the morning without fear.” In this government had failed. The Likud, by contrast, “will continue the quest for peace in the spirit of responsibility and, above all, while taking realities into account.” The advertisement ends with a prescription for policies necessary to achieve the kind of peace indicated in the familiar code words: “we shall no longer acquiesce in the building up of terrorist infrastructures in the heart of Eretz Israel . . . the army and security forces [i.e., intelligence and counterterrorist units] will be free to defend our lives [i.e., to enter the autonomous areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip notwithstanding the Oslo Accords].” In sum, personal security began to operate as a bridge connecting the opposite positions of hawks and moderates, and the final words of the ad juxtaposed the two in the promise “we shall bring Peace with Security.” By the end of March, the new strategy was already formulated and put into practice. The rationale was clearly articulated by the Likud’s chief strategist, Eyal Arad, in a revealing interview that merits full treatment. He sketched the lines of a sports field that he called “the peacefield.” For a long time, he explained, Peres has been well in the center of the field and we can’t beat him back. Until very recently Netanyahu was playing another game in another part of the country, and now we have to bring him into the peacefield [in the center, opposite Peres] . . . in the next stage, and in parallel, I want to draw a distinction between our good and secure peace . . . and their [Labor’s] peace, a peace at any price which also means that Peres will

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divide up Jerusalem and means all the other negative slogans we have stuck and will stick on to him. Peres’s two weak points are the price of peace and the security issue, and we shall go for them all the time.60 Bringing Netanyahu into the peacefield took the form of the battle cry, “Netanyahu! Creating Peace with Security,” which was so conspicuously featured that it became virtually part of the title of the Likud party. Other slogans played on the same theme, as for example “Peace Will Prevail Under Netanyahu,” where the word peace appears between two blue bands similar to those on the Israeli flag. Interestingly, this had been the motto of the left-wing Efshar movement in their anti-Likud drive months earlier. In an open letter to Netanyahu they complained that “the appropriation of our motto, both its words and its graphics, is intended to create the impression you are one of us.”61 But what was involved was more than mere sloganeering. In late April Netanyahu publicly declared that “a Likud government will recognize the facts created by the Oslo Accords” and that it would maintain continuous contact with the PLO through the common committees and joint patrols established by the Labor government and through negotiations for a permanent settlement. “We are ready to negotiate . . . in full knowledge that there will be concessions. There is no choice; in negotiations there must be concessions.” Finally he declared that if the good of Israel requires it, he would personally meet with Arafat.62 The new line was given full prominence by the Likud’s television jingle. The customary music of a march with trumpets, drums, and a large band was replaced by a sentimental, optimistic duet in a major key sung by a man and a woman. To the usual national symbols was added the white dove of peace. The words too were surprising: “I want a world of unity and hope, I want peace . . . there is only one man who can bring peace agreed to by left and right, peace for all . . . the whole of Israel craves for a peace that is secure. Netanyahu! Creating peace with security.” The impression was that the Likud had accepted the demands of its pragmatist wing and that differences with Labor were no longer those of principle. But the obverse of the coin was the adoption of many of the basic demands of the ideological purists as vital for the defeat of terror and hence as preconditions for the pursuit of peace. In effect, many of the traditional Likud principles were reformulated along the lines Sharon and Netanyahu suggested immediately after the Oslo Accords. The linchpin of the overture to the party hard-core and to the electorate of the far right and religious parties was the position on security, most fully expressed in party publications, meetings and addresses. A centerpiece was the contention that it was not Labor’s formula of “separation” from the Palestinians but increased military presence that could guarantee the cessation of terror. In practice this nullified the clauses in the Oslo agreement permitting IDF incursions into Palestinian territories only in hot pursuit. Table 6.1 shows that only 3.5 percent of the Likud’s total net television time was devoted to its conception

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Table. 6.1 Content Analysis of Likud Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, May 8–27, 1996 (excluding party jingles and the Peres-Netanyahu debate) Content of Appeal

Percentage of total net time

Positive Contents Building up the image of Netanyahu and other party leaders Principles directing a Likud government in peace negotiations Principles directing a Likud government in spheres other than peace negotiations Positive Likud traits and past achievements (credibility, strong negotiating team, etc.) Confident assurance of electoral victory Noncontroversial stands on peace (desirability of peace, etc.) Total Positive

35.00 3.50 1.00 3.50 4.50 7.00 54.50

Negative Contents The unreliability of Peres The unreliability of Arafat Exposure of true Palestinian aims vis-a-vis Israel The intimate partnership of the Peres-Arafat team Consequences of Labor government’s failures in handling the negotiations (loss of inability to control terror, Hamas bombings, etc.) Jerusalem under threat Other dangers attending continued peace negotiations under Labor Criticism of Labor government in spheres other than peace negotiations

11.00 14.50 6.00 6.00

Total Negative Others

71.50 8.00

N (seconds)

3,965

9.00 12.00 8.00 5.00

Notes: The data appearing in the table were generated according to the following procedures: (a) the television campaign appeals were videotaped; (b) party jingles and time devoted to broadcasting party acronyms were deducted; (c) party presentations were reviewed independently by two panelists and divided into content segments; (d) each segment was timed and categorized by the two panelists according to a list of content appeals prepared by the author; (e) in cases of disagreement, the author served as a judge; (f ) where all three failed to include the broadcast time under any of the content items it was listed under “others”; (g) because each broadcasting second may contain more than one of the content items, the total percent of content items to broadcasting time does not equal 100; (h) each broadcast was divided into seconds and each content idea was rounded to the nearest whole minute. Percentages were rounded to the nearest 0.5 percent.

of Palestinian autonomy. To this one may add the 7.5 percent devoted to warnings of Palestinian true intentions, which indirectly justified the demand for denying Arafat the power to act as “subcontractor for Israel’s security.” What was passed over in the television, although taken up frequently in the party

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branches, was further restrictions on Palestinian autonomy. The party platform laid down that not only matters of foreign relations and defense would continue to be under Israel’s control but also an open category phrased as “matters necessitating coordinated action.” This enabled Sharon, for example, to include veterinary supervision.63 More important, this allowed an open-ended interpretation of the program. As one prominent party activist put it in an interview with the writer: “in party circles we talk of ‘personal autonomy’ as against territorial autonomy as offered by [Menachem] Begin in Camp David.” Other issues related to the gradualist logic underlying the Oslo Accords. Under the interim agreements, Israel was committed to additional military redeployments in the West Bank. Concurrently, final status negotiations were to be conducted over the thorniest issues of the Jewish settlements, the status and final territorial boundaries of the Palestinian entity, the rights of Palestinian refugees to return there, and the future of Jerusalem. The Likud’s conception demanded however the immediate predetermination of all these issues in conformity with its principles. With the exception of Jerusalem, all this was deemed necessary for maintaining security. As for Jerusalem, its unity was presented as its own raison d’ètre, justifying policies to secure it. The Likud’s acceptance of the Oslo Accords was anything but enthusiastic. “It was,” to quote Netanyahu, “compelled to accede to the reality created by Mr. Peres.”64 Because this already entailed security risks, any further redeployment of Israeli forces was out of the question. One nuance has escaped general notice, although Netanyahu was quite explicit in his speech on the Oslo Accords. There, he asserted that a government under him would recognize the facts created by the Oslo Accords, but he was careful not to commit himself to the further steps it mandated. “The debate,” he said, “is not over what has already taken place but over what will take place.”65 Faute de mieux the Likud accepted the realities, but it rejected the principle of “territories for peace” that had created them, as well as the dynamics it would generate. As one MK put it, “we shall not mobilize an army in order to enter Gaza and we shall maintain day-to-day relations [with the Palestinian Authority]. But from this to the acceptance of the Oslo Accords the distance is huge.”66 The Likud also advocated steps to minimize the dangers stemming from the Accords—namely the expansion and reinforcement of the settlements to encircle the PLO strongholds. This issue received scant attention in the television campaign—and even then only in the unelaborated promise that, as formulated in the party platform, under a Likud government “settlement will be furthered and the [current government’s] decision to freeze settlement development will be cancelled.” However, of special significance was the claim in the preamble to the party platform that “the right of the Jewish people to Eretz Yisrael is an eternal right which cannot be questioned” and the pledge that the actualization of this right would be put “at the top of the [Likud] government’s order of priorities.” If the issue was skirted on the television, it

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was expressed more boldly within more restricted circles. Netanyahu, for instance, spoke of it in an interview to the newspaper of the hawkish NRP67 and when addressing the settlers in Hebron.68 Indeed, Ariel Sharon, whose main campaign efforts were within the party branches, insisted that he raise the question at every opportunity.69 Featured more prominently in the television campaign were the rejection of a Palestinian state and of any division of Jerusalem. These took the form of dire warnings of the potential acts of a government led by Peres. Table 6.1 shows that such attacks assumed pride of place, exceeded only by the promotion of Netanyahu’s image. The opening night featured the take, thereafter often repeated, of Arafat leading Peres by the hand. Hence attacks on Arafat often implied attacks on his partner, whereas the revival of the pre-Oslo conception of the PLO and its leader served to incriminate Peres by association and to warn against the results of such collaboration. These warnings were reinforced by the depiction of Peres as a highbrow visionary detached from reality. A regular corner in the broadcasts was devoted to the “sayings of Peres” where he was quoted expatiating eloquently on airy figments of his imagination. The obvious conclusion was that he lived in a fantasy world. The danger of his “new Middle East” lay in blinding the government to the real intentions of the PLO and to its repeated infractions of the agreement it had signed with Israel. In this context the issue of Jerusalem assumed special prominence. Table 6.1 shows that more than 14 percent of the total television time was devoted to the accusation that Peres had every intention of dividing the city, amply proved by the insistence of his partner, Arafat, that Jerusalem would be the capital of his Palestinian state. No less prominent was the argument that Peres had transferred the duties of thwarting terrorism to the PLO. If the planned fate of Jerusalem foretold future collective danger, the turning of the areas under PLO control to “cities of refuge” for terrorist activities constituted immediate personal danger. Explaining why the Likud television broadcasts focused on Arafat, MK Livnat said “the person nominated nowadays for overseeing Israel’s security is Yassir Arafat. . . . It is he who determines our present safety and our future destiny.”70 Together, these messages point to both the inherent strengths and potential weaknesses of the Likud’s propaganda. Arguing that the Likud merely played on the fears of the electorate or that the elections were a referendum on the Oslo Accords is an oversimplification. Rather, the messages were geared to overcome the divisions within the party by offering a sop to every taste. The description of Netanyahu’s approach by a leading Likud moderate is revealing: “[he has taken] a big step in the right direction . . . but there are powerful voices in the Likud which refuse to contemplate even the slightest diversion from their pristine ideology, and maybe Bibi’s trying to live in peace with all of us.”71 As for the general public, the Likud staged an effective appeal by combining a promise to continue the peace process with assurance of eliminating the fears and insecurities it had generated. A distinct and coherent program failed, however, to emerge

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and consequently the campaign for the Knesset was overshadowed by that for the premiership. Table 6.1 shows that positive party traits and past achievements were presented in no more than 3.5 percent of the net television time, and despite the fact that several party leaders were featured in the broadcasts, the accent clearly fell on Netanyahu. Moreover, a hidden danger lurked in the differentiation of emphases between those presented to the general public and those to the party membership. Appeals to the former could not be kept from the latter. These, especially the hawks among them, were consequently liable to be bewildered. Aware of the problem, the information headquarters became the nerve center for maintaining contact with the party branches. MKs, security experts, and other speakers were sent to explain the party line, and the top hawkish leaders, Begin and Sharon, were relieved of other functions in the campaign headquarters to make the rounds of all the branches.72 Nevertheless, many supporters could be counted on to aid efforts on or about voting day but who were not otherwise engaged in party activities. Moreover, there were hawkish leaders whose distaste for the strategy could be sensed. MK Landau, for instance, defined the Jerusalem born Netanyahu as Mixed Jerusalem Grill (a popular fast-food dish) and complained that the confusion in his positions was his and not that of the party that he had not consulted. And in his statement of resignation from his position as head of the campaign communication headquarters Gil Samsonov protested that the Likud “tries to outflank Labor from the left and ignores its traditional positions.”73 Sensing the lack of enthusiasm among the party activists, hard-line top leaders turned to the public media to assuage the fears of party members and supporters even if it meant sabotaging the strategy of appealing to the uncommitted. It is noteworthy that immediately after Netanyahu’s change of heart over Oslo Begin argued that “a government that conducts negotiations with the PLO is not worthy of trust, irrespective of who is at its head”74 and that later he admitted in a public address that if the Likud came to power negotiations with the Palestinians would be replaced by a renewal of the intifada. Ariel Sharon put his finger on the problem. Likud loyalists found it in the past “very easy . . . to struggle for an idea . . . [but] all the chasing after the ‘floating vote’ [is] threatening to lose this loyal core.”75 To prevent this, he outlined in an article addressed to the party stalwarts “before they too become floating voters in the confusion,” his interpretation of the party program: “The Likud cannot accept the Oslo Accords . . . [although] the Palestinians will be allowed to conduct their civil life without our interference (except in the case of matters necessitating coordinated action). Areas settled by Jews and additional security zones will remain permanently under exclusive Israeli control. If we decide in the future . . . to impose the Israeli law on these, we shall do so.”76 Possibly the reason why the Likud reached the voting day without a debacle was not merely Labor’s failure to capitalize on such fissures, but the exceptional shortness of the intensive campaign that ended before the rifts became unbridgeable.

Chapter 7

STRADDLING THE MILLENNIUM

I. The Center That Could Not Hold Netanyahu’s narrow victory did not remedy the Likud’s basic malady, but it did ensure a remission. From dwelling chiefly on the peace process, the top leaders, now ministers, had to extend their concerns. Frictions within the party itself had been reduced as most of its prominent members moderated their tone. This in part was due to the tendency of those benefiting from government positions to be sensitive to the pragmatic aspect of governing on which their positions depended, and hence their relative restraint.1 But another moderating factor related to the peace process itself. The first problem was the fulfillment of the previous government’s commitment to a withdrawal in Hebron. This was a bitter pill to swallow, but firm international obligations could hardly be nullified by an Israeli government. Most Likud leaders acceded to the inevitable and even to the likelihood that some additional concessions would have to be made in the course of time. The substitution of a relative “more or less” for the absolute “yes or no” in itself contributed to moderation. Nevertheless, from the very beginning storm clouds began to accumulate. They darkened throughout 1997 until, late in the year and more intensively in 1998, they broke out in periodic storms. The situation that developed lends itself to a more apt metaphor: the prime minister as a juggler challenged by more and more balls that threaten his timing. One reason for the success of the 1996 Likud campaign was that it turned back the peace issue from a debate between Israel and the Palestinians to one between itself and Labor. Whether the Palestinians would accept peace at the reduced price the Likud offered to Israel was a problem that was never raised. The insistence of the new government to renegotiate the terms of the Hebron withdrawal only deepened Palestinian suspicions and led to bitter bargaining that lasted until the beginning of 1997. But the acridity expressed itself also in clashes, the most serious of which occurred toward the end of September 1996, when a tunnel along the outer wall of the Temple area was opened. The disturbances throughout the West Bank were the worst since the pre-Oslo era, whereas 186

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the urgent Arafat-Netanyahu summit Clinton convened inaugurated a new phase in which the United States began to intervene actively, exchanging the impartial role of an honest broker and facilitator for that of a direct participant, thereby limiting the maneuverability of the government. The ultraright too organized to pressure the government to adopt firm stands. What prodded this was not only the frustration brought about by the Hebron deal, but also the realization that it signaled the continuation of the peace process. Notwithstanding the Likud’s repudiation of the gradualist logic underlying Oslo, once in power the Likud-led government found itself obliged to undertake three additional withdrawals as steps toward the final status negotiations. Unlike Hebron, the extent of these was left open, and the onus fell on the government to hammer it out with the Palestinians. In the atmosphere of mutual suspicion, the offer to fulfill the first phase by transferring to exclusive Palestinian rule 2 percent of the territory already under joint control was immediately rejected. This meant haggling over the second phase under even deeper suspicions, with the Americans this time fully involved. Readiness to negotiate under such conditions was interpreted by settlers, who almost unanimously had supported Netanyahu in the elections, as reneging on his commitments. More ominously, the sense of betrayal was shared by MKs of coalition parties, including several of the Likud itself. One expression of the malaise was the reawakening after a hibernation of several years of the veteran parliamentary Land of Israel Front. A nebulous forum chaired by a Likud (Gesher) MK, it contained approximately 17 members (the exact number varied), two of whom were from the opposition Moledet party but the rest from the parties in the coalition: the NRP, Israel Ba’aliya, and, the largest number, from the Likud. Their demand for the reduction to a minimum of the territories to be conceded was justified by Palestinian breaches of their duties under the Oslo agreement, and these should be countered by insisting on full compliance in return for any further step in the negotiations. Otherwise they threatened to bring down the government, a warning reinforced by the fact that some of the hawkish Likud MKs were not associated with the forum. A day before the Wye memorandum was signed, Begin could plausibly claim that “it was the crystallization of forces in the right questioning the political future of the prime minister, that has enabled us to delay the sale of the territory of Israel to the Palestinians.”2 Such threats were rebutted by the argument that if the government were toppled, the Labor-Meretz alternative would be far worse. But a positive attempt was made to placate the right-wing supporters, whether symbolically (e.g., Netanyahu’s well-publicized tour by air over the West Bank on the eve of the Hebron deal), or by blaming lack of progress on Palestinian violations of their Oslo obligations, or by coupling moves forward with defiant moves back. Perhaps the best-known example was the post-Hebron authorization and the use of bulldozers in preparation for a building project in East Jerusalem, which brought

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about the cessation of negotiations by the Palestinians and became the subject of an international outcry. Netanyahu too froze the negotiations several days later, after accusing Arafat of approving the Hamas bombings, followed a day later by a serious bombing incident in the heart of Tel Aviv. Two years later, Thomas Friedman referred to this ongoing back-and-forth pattern in his description of Netanyahu as swimming laps across the Rubicon.3 However, the alternating efforts to accommodate the United States and the moderates within the Likud and the coalition on the one hand and the nationalist elements within the party and the coalition on the other won only short-lived respites, and Netanyahu was accused by all sides of inconsistency. In November 1997 the problem was compounded by an intraparty crisis where senior Likud leaders lined up against the prime minister in what was tantamount to a declaration of no confidence. The implosion occurred when Netanyahu’s supporters managed to pass a resolution abolishing the primaries and transferring the selection of the party candidate slate to the party center. The ensuing brouhaha forced the prime minister’s chief of staff to resign. Netanyahu himself disclaimed any part in the scheme, but the general consensus was that it was really he who was behind it, and that his denials were further evidence of his lack of credibility. MKs and activists interviewed in the preparation of this chapter were also at one in their assessment of the motivation: primaries ensured the independence of the MKs, enabling them to adopt positions incompatible with the prime minister’s line. The dependence of their political future on the center, where Netanyahu wielded considerable influence, could therefore rein them back. Nevertheless, his promise to conduct a referendum of the membership at large ended an open rebellion, although at the cost of worsening his plight. The already cool relations turned into a deep chill with Begin and others accusing him of dishonesty and Netanyahu characterizing those who had turned against him as “subscribers to a coalition of personal ambitions” and their supporters as “blind.”4 Signs increased of a double challenge from both wings. Contemplating leaving the Likud to oust Netanyahu from without were Begin and the Tel Aviv mayor, Roni Milo, who had moved during the 1990s from the right to the left of the party. The moderate Meridor (who later broke away too) was balanced against Ehud Olmert, the Jerusalem mayor, who had moved from the left to the right of the party, the former considering and the latter actually announcing his intention to contest Netanyahu for the party leadership. Although polls conducted among the membership revealed that Netanyahu had more supporters than any dissident, less than 40 percent favored him.5 Except for Begin, what animated these nascent moves to depose Netanyahu was not directly ideological, yet it was clear that sooner or later bids would be made to woo disgruntled party members on ideological grounds as well. Together with these tensions, two more burdens led to a situation where government could no longer withstand escalating pressures: the competition

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between the communitarian partners, and the deteriorating economic conditions. The ultraorthodox, the Russian immigrants, the Sephardim, and the West Bank settlers had little in common beyond the resentment of the highly educated, secular-minded Ashkenazi elite. Hence Netanyahu’s constant use of “Left,” not in the ordinary sense of a point in an ordinal scale indicating the positions in a major cleavage, but as a catch-all term with negative associations for his coalition partners: those who “forgot what it means to be Jewish” (the words Netanyahu whispered to the most senior of the cabalists, which were caught and broadcasted by the Israeli television); the type of regime under which the new immigrants had suffered in the former Soviet Union; the fat-cat Westerners who had so discriminated against the fathers of the Eastern Jews, the economic and cultural underdogs; those “delicate souls” who were prepared to deliver the Land of Israel to the enemy. But beyond such associations, more positive incentives were necessary, and the parties competed for available resources. Worse still, their interests could clash, as in the case of the secular Russians and the ultraorthodox. Such strains were especially liable to surface when the national budget was being negotiated. In 1996 the communitarian parties had just catapulted from opposition to government or were altogether new, and as yet restrained in their demands. The following year presented a different picture. In view of the trouble within the Likud, Netanyahu was in greater need of support at a time when the United States was becoming impatient with Israel’s hesitations in offering a withdrawal acceptable to the Palestinians. This gave further power to the coalition partners’ demands for practical incentives. In mid-December Netanyahu promised the U.S. secretary of state that he would pass a government resolution for a significant redeployment, but only after the budget had been passed. In all likelihood this was not only to prevent the opening gambits starting from a higher point, but also because of the inverse proportion between the demands and the ability to satisfy them at a time when symptoms of economic slowdown were growing increasingly acute. In point of fact, indications of an impending recession preceded the Likudled government. Restrictive fiscal policies aiming to curtail the deficit, coupled with the constraining monetary policies of the Bank of Israel may have been necessary countermeasures, but their effect was to stunt economic growth and infrastructure investment. Accompanied by factors such as the Asian flu and the decline in tourism, they caused ever-poorer economic figures to plague the government up to the campaign of 1999.6 It was therefore less than surprising that the budget negotiations were tortuous. But the breakaway of foreign minister Levi and his Gesher party was less foreseeable. The background was the prime minister’s decision to give priority to Shas’s demands, mostly for social welfare, over those of Gesher, which after all had run within the framework of the Likud in the 1996 elections. But in the tacit competition between Shas and Gesher for the Sephardi electorate, the advantage was with the former. Seeing that the prime minister

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could not guarantee the Gesher MKs slots on the Likud candidate list for the next elections, Levi resigned, leaving the coalition in protest against a government “on its way to nowhere.” The government majority was thereby reduced to 61 MKs, rebels included, raising the fear that it would fall now that every member had a veto power. Justice minister Hanegbi summed up the situation as “the Last Supper.”7 This turned out to be too gloomy, but what did occur was that the subtle timing of the juggler was disrupted at irregular intervals, threatening completely to overload his act. Throughout 1998 the United States intervened to restart the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue and hold Israel to its commitment to redeployment. At the beginning, at the middle, and toward the end of the year, this peaked in meetings that were preceded by intensified pressures from both moderates and extremists in the coalition. The first occasion came immediately after the shrinking of the government majority, when the United States refused to postpone a planned summit in Washington, D.C. One day after Levi’s resignation was effective, Dennis Ross arrived to prepare the meeting. The equally impatient defense minister, Mordechai, threatened to follow Levi unless progress was made on the redeployment issue, and the Third Way Party indicated it would follow suit. The second occasion was an early May meeting in London with the secretary of state, followed by another two weeks later, when Israel was strongly pressed to accept a U.S. compromise proposal of 13 percent redeployment. Netanyahu’s departure to the United States was accompanied by warnings that the NRP would abstain from Knesset noconfidence motions until the government published tenders for the Jerusalem construction that had stopped the negotiations in 1997; his arrival was greeted by accusations from Sharon who was in the United States that he and other ministers suspected him of readiness to sell out Israel’s vital interests.8 The third occasion was the Clinton-Netanyahu-Arafat summit at the Wye plantation, where the three delegations finally agreed on the second Israeli redeployment. The pattern was repeated: the NRP declared it would overthrow the government if an unacceptable agreement was arrived at; rightist Likud MKs organized to oust Netanyahu; hawks within the government met to coordinate early elections should the Wye decisions fail to meet expectations. For his part, Kahalani of the Third Way, announced that “should Netanyahu because of internal pressures come back without an agreement, I will not continue in government.”9 The pattern also holds of the relative calm between these summits, when matters could be discussed more peacefully. Following the first and second summits the government could discuss maps, and the fact that the sides were represented by the Likud’s two distinguished military experts, the moderate Mordechai and the right-wing Sharon, who considered practical details rather than ideological tenets also served to reduce the temperature. Under the surface passions still continued to seethe. A body calling itself The Secretariat of Yesha in the Likud accused Mordechai of “sacrificing the settlements and the Land of Israel,” and of

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readiness to “divide Jerusalem . . . to the delight of the left and the Americans.” It demanded “a [new] defense minister, for whom Hebron is not just a ruin and the Land of Israel is not just a map.”10 The party mainstream however was unaffected by the hysteria. Moreover, from February talks with Labor over the formation of a national unity government served as a warning to the Likud and coalition extremists that if they failed to conform, Netanyahu could dispense with them and govern with the aid of Labor. Turning away from the earlier counterthreat that if he were toppled the left would come to power was a return to a device used during the bargaining phase preceding the formation of his government, when, as he bluntly stated, “the intention was that the conducting of the talks would be leaked to the media to induce our coalition partners to reduce their price.”11 Yet the consistency of the pattern need not imply repetition. U.S. browbeating steadily increased as did the dire warnings at home. Government positions likewise changed. At the beginning of 1998, agreement existed only on what territories could not be ceded. In the spring Netanyahu let it be known that he had reached “an inner decision” that a serious withdrawal was unavoidable.12 Later specific percentages were debated with Sharon arguing for a maximum of 9 percent, and on the eve of the Wye summit it became clear that more than that was involved. Netanyahu’s tactics changed too. If earlier Labor served as the dreaded enemy and later as a potential ally, now he actually won from it a commitment for a safety net: it would vote with the government as long as it adhered to the Wye decisions. At the same time he tried to support his position within the Likud by offering the foreign ministry to the moderate Meridor, and when this was rejected, to the right-wing Sharon, whose appointment came into effect two days before the summit. But the critical divagation from the pattern was that in contrast to the relative calm between the previous summits, after Wye the temperature rose. Settler leaders announced that “this government is not our government. We have been tricked . . . a new leadership is needed in Israel”; Land of Israel Front MKs vowed to bring down a prime minister who “believes in certain ideas and acts exactly the opposite”; and within the Likud itself Shamir was not alone in condemning Netanyahu for “his complete about-face.”13 Aware of what awaited him, Netanyahu decisively moved to the right and again blamed the left. On landing at Tel Aviv airport he claimed that in Wye he had fought vigorously to reduce Labor’s earlier commitment to a 90 percent withdrawal, and that only he could foil Labor’s conspiracies. “Who will see to it that the border will not reach Tel Aviv? Who will protect Jerusalem?” Three days later, the party center, Netanyahu’s party stronghold, was convened to hear the same explanation.14 Support of the party center magnified however the intraparty division because party MKs and most of its ministers, not to mention other members of the coalition, remained unconvinced. They needed positive incentives to win them

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over: to return to the Rubicon image, a vigorous retreat from the further shore. Government ratification was delayed first by citing Palestinian failure to deliver plans for fighting terror, then by the demand that the Palestinian Authority guarantee the arrest of 30 fugitive terrorists. The day the accord came into effect, the government announced the enlargement of Kiryat Arba, the settlement adjoining Hebron. The demand that the entire Palestinian National Council meet and annul clauses from the Palestinian covenant calling for Israel’s destruction shackled ratification itself; it was combined with the promise to restrict the next phase of withdrawal to no more than 1 percent of the Territory; the beginning of the work in the East Jerusalem project was announced; it was threatened that if the Palestinians unilaterally declared an independent state, Israel would reserve the right to annex parts of the West Bank. The insistence that the Authority first gather the illegal arms held by the Palestinian police, thereby rousing the ire of the United States, conditioned the first phase of the pullout mandated by the agreement. All this was unavailing. Ratification was a shaky victory for Netanyahu: only 8 of the 17 ministers voted for it, among them Sharon and Mordechai; the rest of the Likud ministers abstained. The situation even worsened because the animus against Labor released it from its safety net obligation. In this context the annual vote for the budget turned into a test of the government’s survival. Failure to entice Levi to return to the fold led to desperate efforts to gain the cooperation of MKs of every shade. Pledges were made to Arab MKs and to moderates such as Levi that in return for their votes Wye would be honored. Members of the right wing were promised that in return for their support Wye would be scuttled, and the fact that such promises became known to all sides further reduced Netanyahu’s credibility.15 Freezing of compliance with the terms of the Wye agreement likewise failed to save the day. Netanyahu’s last plea for a national unity coalition with Labor met with general laughter in the Knesset. Later Peres was to thank him for at last unifying the left and the right: against him.16

II. Barak, Mordechai, and Netanyahu: Alternative Routes to the Center Peres’s witticism, whether intentionally or not, held more than a grain of truth, at least with regard to the Labor party. The fact that Netanyahu not only met Arafat but continued negotiating with the PLO along the lines laid down in the Oslo Accords, and that more than once he raised the question of Labor joining his government, created a dilemma for it. Some of the top leaders, prominent among them Peres himself, indeed favored entering such a coalition. The ground for their views, already voiced in 1996, soon after Peres lost the elections, was not only the natural wish for individual and party power, but also the urge to influence the peace process. Netanyahu’s government contained moderates as well as right-wingers, and a unity government would decisively shift the center of

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gravity in favor of the former. Ironically, what the prime minister intended as warnings to rein in dissident Likud members and extremists among the coalition partners were taken by some of the Labor leaders as promises. The last of many such instances occurred just a few months before the fall of the government. Barak, as party chairman, declined Netanyahu’s offer to join his government, whereas the Labor Party deputy leader caused a tumult by his public declaration that he supported its acceptance. The fall of the government extricated Labor from the dilemma and precipitated, virtually at one go, its transformation from an introspective party brooding on its leadership and policies, into a unified, fighting opposition prepared to plunge into a campaign that was to become the longest unbroken electoral contest in the history of the state. A domestic dimension also existed in all this. Even before Barak was elected party chairman in June 1997 there was little chemistry between him and Peres. Afterward, the lack of sympathy deepened into publicly expressed antipathy. This added to the growing unease among party leaders who were concerned about Barak’s lack of sparkle: his poor oratorical skill, his inability to captivate audiences, his soldierly carriage that made him seem more comfortable in uniform than in civilian attire, all of which were in sharp contrast to Netanyahu’s polished appearances. For such leaders, the incapacity of the party to improve its popularity by capitalizing on the crises and scandals that accompanied Netanyahu, revealed that with all his solid qualities, Barak (to employ the oftquoted metaphor of MK Ben-Ami, the future number two on the Labor Knesset candidate slate and minister in Barak’s government), was like an airplane that cannot take off. In addition was the problem of acting as an effective opposition over the preoccupying issue of the peace process and all that it involved. Negotiations within the Oslo framework precluded ongoing criticisms of the government from the left. The opposition would then be held responsible for any concession that Israel might make. The problem was even compounded when the government engaged in matters such as the building project on East Jerusalem mentioned earlier. When the writer asked a prominent Labor MK why the party had voted with government on the issue, his reply was, “You and I know that this was an act of idiocy. But if you could find me a way to avoid approving it, you would deserve a Nobel Prize in political science.” (I suspect he knew there is no such prize.) With the collapse of the government these complications disappeared. The ranks were closed, criticism and expression of doubts concerning Barak ceased. This banding together around an accepted leader was thrown into relief by what was taking place in the Likud. On the very day that the bill for the dissolution of the Knesset passed its first reading, Meridor announced his break-away and other top leaders openly questioned whether to remain loyal to Netanyahu or to secede to join Begin on the right or the evolving Center Party on the left. Barak himself seemed to have undergone a change. One journalist summed up a widespread

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impression by claiming that on the day the bill advancing the elections passed its first reading “the political system took a major turn: Ehud Barak took-off.”17 Actually, the image is somewhat misleading. What really happened was that preparations for the impending competition had long been in the works behind the scenes but now came to the fore. The connections between Barak and the U.S. advisors, which were to form the team balancing Finkelstein, began to take form as of the summer of 1997. In the following summer, Barak’s revamped personal headquarters began to operate at full speed to update the electoral scene, identify its problems and opportunities, define the general party propaganda line, and chart the general contours of the responses to the Likud and other contenders. Within this context the candidate himself was coached on how to improve his communicative skills, his carriage, and even his clothes.18 Now that the peace negotiations were put on hold and that preparations were set for elections, the opposition was also at liberty to hone its message. Critics of the government could no longer be arraigned as putting spokes in the wheels of ongoing negotiations, and the general manner of the government’s conduct of them could be scrutinized. Moreover, whereas formerly the government’s policies in other spheres could not be criticized in conjunction with the peace issue, now a general overarching attack could be launched on the entire operation of the government and most particularly of the prime minister. And yet, the problems confronting the party as an opposition aspiring to take over the reigns of government were not wholly caused by Netanyahu’s grabbing its attention over the peace process. They underlay the 1996 debacle and were only aggravated by Netanyahu’s alliance with the communitarian parties. In short, the difficulty was that Labor had little access to the publics represented by the communitarian parties. To win the crucial competition for the premiership it had to double the vote it had won in its 1996 Knesset competition. But its core constituency comprised veteran, educated Ashkenazis, and Netanyahu’s carping against the left well exploited the image of an elitist party. In brief, the identifiable basis that may have served the party well in the Knesset militated against it once it had to broaden its appeal significantly to win the race for the premiership. Whereas the gap between Labor and the blue-collar voters, especially those of Sephardi descent courted so successfully by the Likud and Shas, was a long-standing problem going back all the way to the waves of immigration from Asian-African countries of the 1950s, the negative assessment of the party among religious and traditionally minded voters was of more recent origin. At bottom was the multifaceted issue of Jewish identity. This concerned not only the place of the Jewish religion in the Jewish state but also the relation between the two and their territory. Although the Likud as a successor of Herut was closer to the religious parties on all three points of the triangle, the Oslo Accords created a major crisis among those who regarded the West Bank as part of the religiously ordained land of the Jews. One must remember that Rabin’s assassination was at

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the hands of a religionationalist extremist. But the problem was not restricted to those religious and traditionally minded Jews who were associated with the settlers in the West Bank. Aggregate data shows that in 1996 no less than 90 percent of the religious communities voted for Netanyahu. To a large extent, this was due to the linking of Labor with Meretz. Not only was it Labor’s largest and most consistent ally, but also it presented a more coherent and militant ideology, bringing much of what Labor stood for into sharper relief. This marked the tenure of Rabin and Peres, when the anticlerical positions of Meretz became a persistent source of contention with religious partners in the coalition. Labor’s post-1996 electoral report bluntly stated that much of the defeat was Meretz’s fault: “Many voters regarded us as anti-religious. They ignored what we stood for and only [brought into account] Meretz, and their hatred of Meretz translated itself into a vote against Peres.”19 More recent still was the difficulty with the Russian immigrants. As a predominantly secular and highly educated population, their disproportionate support of Netanyahu was puzzling, while considering their numbers, Labor’s lack of success in reaching out to them was alarming. Two explanations highlighted major problems. One was that the association of Labor with the old-guard elites deterred newcomers seeking higher positions in society. Even as the Opposition, Labor was still regarded as the Establishment. The other explanation was that having been socialized in the former USSR, the immigrants were inclined to support hard-line positions on territorial issues, and this gave the Likud an ideological advantage. But the problem with Labor’s image was even deeper. As Barak himself bluntly stated in a circular to the party, it was generally regarded as outdated and lacking in ideals; an apathetic party that had “lost the hunger for success.”20 This was not merely a result of being associated with the socioeconomic status quo and the groups enjoying it, but of Netanyahu’s ability to break out of the traditional positions of the hard-core right-wing electorate. Perhaps the best example of the danger this posed regarded the Arab sector. Constituting some 20 percent of the electorate, Labor relied on its vote to win. Yet in 1996 many Arabs abstained to the great advantage of Netanyahu, and recently the Likud had opened a highly active minority bureau that played an important part in securing major gains in the Arab towns in the municipal elections held in November 1998, shortly before the fall of the government (e.g., lists affiliated with the Likud gained a majority in Shefaram, Nazareth, and Taibeh). The freezing of compliance with the articles of the Wye agreement weakened the Likud’s ability to garner Arab support, but the danger of apathy was real, especially in light of Barak’s military record. Finally, Netanyahu could prove to both the center and the right that his policies actually worked, as evidenced by the decline in terrorist activities under his watch. Especially if one recalls the last days of the Peres government, which witnessed spectacular acts of terrorism in the heart of the country, the government’s oscillations could be presented as a source of achievement.

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In combination these problems defined both the electorate to be targeted and the nature of the message. Unlike the Likud, Labor strategists could safely assume that Jews who supported Peres in 1996 would shun voting for Netanyahu. Not only did they tend to be more sensitive to the lack of progress in the peace process, but it was also Netanyahu’s constant jabs at the left that explains the deep resentment he aroused. The opposition reasoned that reaching out to the far right was futile and especially to the religionationalist elements, and only marginally better was the situation regarding the Ashkenazi ultraorthodox and the Sephardi supporters of Shas. These tended to obey their Rabbis who were allied with the Likud as a party and personally with Netanyahu. What remained were voters belonging to two overlapping categories. One consisted of the undecided, the unaffiliated, and potential defectors from the Likud, the other of the Arabs and of defined sociological sections of the Jewish population who were liable to cast their vote in favor of communitarian parties in the Knesset. An especially difficult problem involved the Russian immigrants, traditionalist and religious Jews who were moderate both in their religious views and in their stances concerning the peace process, as well as Sephardim who were not affiliated with Shas. Success in competition for the premiership hinged on the ability to draw many of them to the support the Labor candidate, yet a prior condition was to devise a way to overcome the problem of the party’s image as a militantly secularist and elitist Ashkenazi entity. Several months before the fall of the government Barak and the top leaders closest to him concluded that the only way out was to take the radical step of forming a new cluster party with a no-longer independent Labor at its core. On the face of it, this was no more than another organizational accommodation to the centripetal drive instituted by the majoritarian competition for the premiership. One should remember that in 1996 Netanyahu reached a similar deal with Levi’s Gesher and Eiten’s Tzomet to join his party. However, the Likud had retained its name and identity, with Netanyahu as the party candidate. The solution for Labor’s predicament on the other hand involved a return to the strategy that had served Menachem Begin as a fulcrum to change the political system inherited from the prestate period. Its aim was the creation of a new body in which divergent parties, splinter groups, and individuals would jointly accept an agreed basic platform and arrangements for the division of slots on the candidate list and the award of government positions, while each retained as an autonomous faction its own principles and basic structures. That meant that there would no longer be a party called Labor in the Knesset and that Barak could run as a candidate of the new entity to be named One Israel. The aim and nature of the enterprise can better be gleaned from the fact that already in 1997 Barak spoke of the need to transform the Labor Party into “a centrist-populist party, much wider than it is now” by incorporating more Sephardim, Russian immigrants, the young, and the traditionally minded voters, the segments of the electorate who

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tendered to vote for the Likud. He also suggested changing the name of the party to the True National Camp, a term conspicuously close to the Likud’s selfdescription as the National Camp. The name, he said, was actually appropriated falsely by the Likud. Since he first entered politics, in discussions with Rabin he had brought up the name change, but because the idea was not taken up at the time the Likud managed to take the credit for itself just as it had done in the 1996 campaign with his suggested slogan of “secure peace.”21 With such a purpose in mind, a series of discussions took place in the latter part of 1998 with individuals and groups reaching from Meridor (then still officially in the Likud) and former Chief of Staff Amnon Shahak to the NRP’s dovish Meimad faction and to the leaders of the Russian immigrant party, Israel Ba’aliya. Most of these efforts came to naught. Meridor and Shahak went on to form the Center Party, and the Russians ran a separate campaign. Nevertheless, March 22, 1999, saw the ceremony officially launching One Israel as a framework bringing together the Labor Party, Levi’s Gesher, and Meimad. The cost to Labor was exceptionably high, both in terms of slots on the joint candidate list and positions in the government to be.22 But the question cannot be measured in numerical terms alone. What was achieved was the submersion of Labor and the formation of a leadership team, which included a prominent former Likud representative of the Sephardi blue-collar underclass and a Rabbi who until recently had served as the chief Rabbi of Norway. This fortified and further legitimated the portrayal of Barak as the representative of all people in their moment of need, one that had been put forward even before the actual institution of the cluster. The first Labor newspaper ad featured him in a commanding, all-embracing presidential pose against the background of the Israeli flag with the caption, “Israel is waiting for a change.” The phrase had a strong resonance with Rabin’s “Israel is waiting for Rabin,” which in turn played on a popular song loaded with memories of the great victory of the Six Day War Rabin led against the enemies that had threatened to strangle the country. The ad, in brief, sought to evoke the image of heroic leadership uniting the people and leading it to redemption. The earliest bumper stickers, exhibited in the first week of January, completed the image by accenting the contrast “Barak for all; Netanyahu for the extremists.” The same note, with the military overtones coming to the fore, was sounded throughout the campaign, right up to the elections, nearly five months of repetition. Perhaps the best example of the node of strands (national unity, military heroism, succession of Rabin, and the redemption of Israel) came on the very opening night of the intensive television campaign. One Israel’s very first broadcast began with a biography of Barak in which the pictures of Rabin’s forces breaking into Jordanian-held Jerusalem featured prominently. Thereupon Barak narrated how, as chief of staff, his visit to Auschwitz brought home to him that “today as then we all share a common destiny. It is therefore that I have taken upon myself the mission to establish an all inclusive movement . . . because we

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all deserve respect and equal treatment. . . . I am proud that One Israel includes Meimad and Gesher. . . . We give honor to the Jewish faith and tradition because the state of Israel which has been the dream of generations is the home of all of us.” This was reinforced by the repeated slogan, “only Barak has the courage to treat every one equally and not to surrender to the blackmail” of the extremists. The fact that the alleged extremists consisted of the ultraorthodox and the settlers, segments of the electorate that were impervious to One Israel, could be turned into advantage; associating Netanyahu with them differentiated Barak as a leader uniting the rest of the people. Most significantly, it enhanced One Israel’s ability to compete for the Russian vote, for the communitarian parties representing those portrayed as extremist fringes have been their antagonists in the Netanyahu government. The claim that Netanyahu was beholden to them thus rendered One Israel an ally of the Russian immigrants. At the same time, the emphasis on Barak’s military record neutralized the Likud’s agenda of portraying the left as weak-kneed dreamers who would endanger Israel’s security. This was later buttressed by the pledge to submit any peace agreement to a referendum of the people as a whole. Table 7.1, presenting the content analysis of the One Israel television campaign, shows that this complex of positions was presented in 44.5 percent of the net broadcasting time, to which one should add 13 percent devoted to the attack of Netanyahu’s credibility. The second main One Israel line was likewise boosted by the formation of the cluster, and constituted a continuation of the same composite argument. MK Abrum Burg, in charge of the propaganda direction term, pointedly singled out the strategy. The campaign, he explained, “was built from the bottom up.” Polls and focus groups served to pinpoint what worried the electorate most and what it wanted most. The answer lay in the general sense that government had lost the capacity to act decisively, especially on social and economic matters. Netanyahu did have a relative advantage as far as the problem of terrorism was concerned, but “we are trying to offset this with Barak’s record.” Success would free the party to concentrate on Netanyahu’s weak point in the social and economic spheres, “at which point I shall have finished my chores.” The words are a pithy summation of what had become clear from the start. In fact, the opening broadside, even before the 1999 new year, was trained against the same issues, with Barak finger-pointing at government’s failure not only to advance the peace process but also mainly in the provision of health services, in alleviating poverty and, worst of all, in aggravating unemployment. In this context of a general onslaught on the failure of a government headed by an untrustworthy prime minister who capitulated to extremists, lack of progress on the peace front was mentioned not as an issue in its own right but as additional evidence of failed system management. Ironically, the Likud’s acceptance of negotiations within the Oslo framework was now turned against it, allowing One Israel to avoid substantive debate by arguing that although the aims were accepted by all, the fault lay in the

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Table 7.1 Content Analysis of One Israel Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, April 26–May 15, 1999, in Percentage of Total Net Time (excluding party jingles) Content of Appeal Positive Contents Building up the image of Barak and other party leaders Positive One Israel traits and past achievements (e.g., credibility, strong negotiating team, etc.) The availability of a One Israel peace plan The availability of a socioeconomic plan Confident assurance of electoral victory Call for unity of the nation Noncontroversial stands (e.g., desirability of peace, the indivisibility of Jerusalem, etc.) Total Positive Negative Contents Netanyahu’s lack of credibility Failure of the Likud-led government to progress on the peace front The socioeconomic failures of the Likud-led government The failure of government to engage in orderly decision making Warning of what another Netanyahu government could bring Criticism of rivals other than the Likud Total Negative Others N (seconds)

Percentage of Total Net Time 44.50 4.00 4.50 8.00 2.50 3.00 5.50 72.00 13.00 2.00 22.50 8.50 3.00 0.00 49.00 2.50 4049

Notes: The data appearing in the table were generated according to the following procedures: (a) the television campaign appeals were videotaped; (b) party jingles and time devoted to broadcasting party acronyms were deducted; (c) party presentations were reviewed independently by two panelists and divided into content segments; (d) each segment was timed and categorized by the two panelists according to a list of content appeals prepared by the author; (e) in cases of disagreement, the author served as a judge; (f) where all three failed to include the broadcast time under any of the content items it was listed under “others”; (g) because each broadcasting second may contain more than one of the content items, the total percent of content items to broadcasting time does not equal 100; (h) each broadcast was divided into seconds and each content idea was rounded to the nearest whole minute. Percentages were rounded to the nearest 0.5 percent.

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practice. Typically the star performer at the One Israel founding ceremonies was a general who campaigned in 1996 for the Likud but had now joined Barak. “Three years ago,” he declared, “I called from this podium to support Bibi. I was proven wrong on a grand scale. Instead of leadership what I found was a theatrical show. Cry the beloved country! What have we come to!”23 Table 7.1 indicates that in the television campaign the attack on the Likud-led government’s mishandling of the peace process occupied an astonishingly low 2 percent of the total net broadcast time. Even when one adds the bare mention of it in the repeated jingles that were not taken into account, the amount of time stands in stark contrast to the attack on the socioeconomic performance of government (22.5 percent) or on its failure to engage in orderly decision making (8.5 percent). If the persuasive power of these arguments hinged to no small extent on the combination of Barak’s record and the metamorphosis of Labor into One Israel, then the final strategic line depended on the revamped image in the call for a change of priorities away from the benefits privileged groups to the needs of all. At the heart of this line was a document issued before the start of the campaign, “Proposal for Alternative Fiscal and Social Policy as Opposed to the Netanyahu Government’s Budget Proposal.” Its basic premise was transferring funds from the ultraorthodox and the West Bank settlers to be invested in infrastructure and education. Throughout the campaign this refrain was sounded time and again. It highlighted the fact that One Israel had issued an all-inclusive socioeconomic plan, and it underscored its central principle of the equitable distribution of resources that would lead to the drastic reduction of unemployment and to higher standards in education, health, and all the rest of the issues that Netanyahu had neglected. As Table 7.1 shows, the existence of such a plan was mentioned in 8 percent of the total One Israel net broadcasting time, almost twice the amount devoted to the mention of any specific peace plan. Nor was this all, for part of the power of the One Israel message inhered in the mutual reinforcement of its various components. But part of the persuasiveness is also attributable to the fact that the demands for change made urgent because of Netanyahu’s failure came not only from One Israel but from Likud secessionists who had abandoned the government itself. A symbiotic relationship thus developed between One Israel and the second opposition party to present a credible candidate against Netanyahu, the Center Party. The relationship was however unequal, with One Israel more essential for the Center Party than the other way around in part due to the latter’s recent formation. It took shape only after the campaigns of the Likud and One Israel had started and was not inaugurated until March 1999 as a result of the joining of forces of a splinter group called Atid (Future) founded by Milo in mid1998, and Shahak and Meridor who decided separately to run as candidates for the premiership in December that year. Mordechai joined these three in January 1999 after being dismissed by Netanyahu from his post of defense minister.

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Around this nucleus other political figures gathered, either because their former parties could not accommodate their craving for a higher position in the crowded Knesset candidate lists or because they shared what the founders had in common: the belief that Netanyahu had to be displaced and that Labor was not able to do so. In the apt image of one observer, it was an “inchoate . . . refugee camp for those hell-bent on casting Netanyahu from office.”24 Whereas Labor and the Likud were overshadowed by their candidates, in the case of the Center Party there was actually no party in the usual Israeli sense of a mass organization aggregating the interests of grassroots members. This may explain the unprecedented method of selecting the candidate for the premiership: the capacity to attract the largest number of voters as judged by an agreed-upon pollster. This procedure acquired a post factum justification by the Center Party’s main tenet: that under current conditions the differences between the main political contenders had become irrelevant and all that actually counted were personal ability, integrity, and charisma of individual leaders. Ideologies inherited from the past were artificially sustained because of vested interests that thereby sought “to perpetuate an antiquated party map that no longer serves the real problems on the agenda.”25 In a sense, this was an anti-ideological ideology of a party seeking to break the traditional mould of voting allegiances. In itself it served as an answer to one of the problems that beset such a formation: the need to present a program. Just before Mordechai’s joining, in the latter half of January, representatives of Shahak and Meridor began to crystallize the principles that would serve as the basis for their proposed joint headquarters. At the end of the month, Mordechai as the new leader was able to present the gist of the program accepted by the four founders: the pursuit of peace based on “a reasonable compromise,” unrelenting battle against terrorism and crime, the rule of law, the supremacy of the courts. With the possible exception of demanding a written constitution, the principles were accepted by all but the fringes of the radical right and the ultraorthodox, which was precisely the point of the program. What was needed, it was argued, was not polarization and mutual hatred but the coming together to create a new culture of unity and toleration. This was also the gravamen of the complaint against Netanyahu. Rather than serving the interests of all, he served the interests of the extremists; rather than unifying, he sowed hatred. Such positions seem to duplicate those of One Israel, but in adopting them the Center Party had a difficulty unique to it. As a cluster party One Israel consisted of entities that claimed to represent segments of the population. The Center Party represented no specific public and this indeed was its claim for distinction. The problem then was how to convert the representation of nobody in particular to become the representation of everyone. To render such a Herculean task more difficult, the Center Party had to make do with meager resources. It is true that Knesset members who joined it brought with them as dowry both public campaign funding and media time, but it is illustrative that versus One Israeli’s

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112 minutes of broadcasting time and the Likud’s 67 minutes, the Center Party had no more than 25 minutes. If it had an advantage, it was that it chose its perch on the very political center from where it could hope to attract the large number of vacillating and unaffiliated voters. Although the Likud offered a choice of incongruent positions, and One Israel tempered whatever positions it did not blur, Center Party voters were invited to commit themselves by the act of voting for a party while remaining uncommitted to any ideological line. In addition, the party appealed to the large number of voters who were disillusioned with Netanyahu but who could not bring themselves to vote for a One Israel with Labor at its core. In effect it could do to the Likud what the DMC had done in 1977 to the Alignment. The DMC however could play an important role in the upset without garnering anything near to 50 percent of the vote. The Center Party’s ability to bring Netanyahu down, in contrast, hinged on its winning a majoritarian contest, either outright or after succeeding in reaching a second round. The problem was that although polls predicted the likelihood of a second round Mordechai win against Netanyahu, in a multi-candidate competition for the first round Mordechai trailed both the incumbent and the One Israel candidate. The strategy the Center Party gambled on was therefore built on a tacit alliance with One Israel, coupled with competition against its leader. In all that related to the attack on Netanyahu and the urgency of change, it could bank on the One Israel propaganda. But precisely because change was so vital it called on the One Israel voters not to risk voting for Barak who, incapable of drawing deserters out of the Netanyahu camp, was liable to lose the elections. The very first ad published by the Center Party featured two die bearing the pictures of Barak and Netanyahu. The accompanying inscription ran “One does not gamble with elections. You want to dispose of Bibi and you gamble on Barak. But there is a great risk that this will not work, and the result will be the repetition of the previous elections.” As Shahak put it, “We feel that we are an emergency measure; without us, there will be no change.”26 This argument served as the core of the Center Party’s campaign up to the week preceding election day itself. Table 7.2 shows that the consequence was a unidimensional message. Unlike the Likud’s negative tone and the 49 percent of negative content on One Israel broadcasts, the ratio of positive to negative in the Center Party appeal was roughly 4.5 to 1. Table 7.2 shows that even out of the 29 percent of the time devoted to negative appeals, the attacks on government and on Netanyahu played a minor part (4 percent). More than twice this time (9 percent) was attempted to sow doubts whether Barak had the power to unseat Netanyahu. As with the Likud and One Israel, the main effort was dedicated to building the image of the party candidate, Mordechai. What distinguished his claim from that of the others was not that he was a tested leader but that he in himself embodied the heterogeneity of the nation: a Sephardi member of the military elite, of humble origins and great achievements, of secular beliefs but

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Table 7.2 Content Analysis of Center Party Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, April 26–May 15, 1999, in Percentage of Total Net Time (excluding party jingles) Content of Appeal Positive Contents Building up the image of Mordechai and other party leaders Positive Center Party traits Electoral calculous: only Mordechai can win against Netanyahu Call for unity of the People Noncontroversial stands (e.g., desirability of peace, democracy, etc.) Stand on controversial issues in domestic affairs (e.g., desirability of a written constitution) Total Positive Negative Contents Criticism of Netanyahu and the government Barak’s inability to win against Netanyahu The danger of Likud win The divisiveness of other parties Total Negative Others N (seconds)

Percentage of Total net Time 63.00 30.50 12.50 12.50 10.00 1.00 129.50 4.00 9.00 8.00 8.00 29.00 0.00 1029

Notes: The data appearing in the table were generated according to the following procedures: (a) the television campaign appeals were videotaped; (b) party jingles and time devoted to broadcasting party acronyms were deducted; (c) party presentations were reviewed independently by two panelists and divided into content segments; (d) each segment was timed and categorized by the two panelists according to a list of content appeals prepared by the author; (e) in cases of disagreement, the author served as a judge; (f) where all three failed to include the broadcast time under any of the content items it was listed under “others”; (g) because each broadcasting second may contain more than one of the content items, the total percent of content items to broadcasting time does not equal 100; (h) each broadcast was divided into seconds and each content idea was rounded to the nearest whole minute. Percentages were rounded to the nearest 0.5 percent.

traditionalist leanings, having served in the Likud government but identified with the center. In short, a composite figure that could, in the words of Rabin’s daughter, break the old stalemate between left and right and “create a new reality: not right, not left, but forward.”27 To the emphasis on these qualities (63 percent) should be added 12.5 percent of the total net time given to the arithmetical calculation showing that a Mordechai second round victory was more than feasible. In the last week, when polls predicted that Mordechai had no chance of winning

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sufficient votes to ensure the second round competition against Netanyahu, this claim was dropped, and the accent shifted dramatically from the candidate to the party and from the competition for the premiership to the Knesset. The main argument however persisted that the other parties were locked each in its own corner and were solely engaged in bisecting society. “The vote for the Center Party is a vote against the artificial division of left and right, against the old politics of hatred and blackmail, and for politics of a new kind, one of bringing people together, a unity of hearts.” In crossing the divide to examine how the incumbent Likud sought to repel the onslaught, one should note that neither the strategies of One Israel nor those of the Center Party took it by surprise. Like Labor, it was aware from the start to the dangers it faced. At a time when the peace process was at a standstill and there was a prolonged economic recession, the toppling of the government by the joint forces of the opposition and coalition members rendered it inevitable that a central issue overshadowing the campaign would be the functioning of the government. Simply to ignore it was impossible, but to address it head on ran the risk of accepting the opposition agenda of lumping together the miring of the peace process and the economy and attributing them to the failure of the Likud government in system management and to its internal contradictions, thus linking the fall of government to a refutation of the Likud claim to represent the majority of the electorate. Another hazard was the temptation of dispirited Likud supporters to transfer their votes to neighboring parties. The fall of the government unified the party, and the Americans and the Palestinians helped by relaxing their pressure in anticipation of the elections. Yet the secession of Begin to head a new party to the right of the Likud and of Meridor and Mordechai to join in forming the Center Party meant that Likud members would be wooed from both directions. New parties were no novelty in Israel, and few of them ever became viable. The danger of such arrivistes as Begin’s National Union and the Center Party hinged on their ability to siphon off a substantial following from the Likud. Ideological proximity and personal links between the leaders of the new parties and Likud members suggested that this was the case. On the eve of the Wye conference, Gallup polls predicted that if Sharon formed a new party to the right of the Likud he could wean away a full half of its vote.28 Begin was no Sharon, but he was the son of the founder of the Likud and one of the most respected of its leaders. He was also supported by personalities such as party ideologue and former prime minister Shamir, and polls conducted late in December 1998 pointed to some 10 percent of the voters supporting his bid for the premiership. Meridor was already before the elections of 1996 the candidate of a sizable group within the Likud for replacing Netanyahu, whereas the popular Mordechai was former minister of defense and number two on the Likud 1996 candidate slate. A variant of the same hazard was that of Shas. Unlike the Center Party and the National Union,

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the issue was neither ideological nor personal but socioeconomic and cultural. Yet the lackluster spirit of the Likud could extend the appeal of Shas to the Sephardi core-constituency of the party, and it had already captured Knesset seats from the Likud in previous elections.29 Finally, from the start the support of the communitarian partners of the Likud could clearly become an albatross. This was demonstrated in the campaign waged by the ultraorthodox against the Supreme Court, whose decisions on matters such as the deferment of Yeshiva students from military service raised their anger. The climax came in February, when a 250,000 ultraorthodox in Jerusalem demonstrated against what Rabbi Ovadia, the spiritual head of Shas, termed “the tyranny” of the “wicked . . . empty-headed evil-doers” of the Supreme Court. Minister of justice Hanegbi, the only Likud leader to attend a counterdemonstration in support of the court, recounted after the elections how his fellow ministers responded to his query why they had absented themselves by “stuttering about the approaching elections and their fear of quarreling with the ultraorthodox.”30 In the widening cleavage between the ultraorthodox and the secularists over the very nature of the state, the danger was that the Likud would be seen as capitulating in to the former. The conviction of the Shas leader, Deri, on bribery charges complicated the problem. His friendship with Netanyahu and the political association of the Likud and Shas threatened to compound the cost in the Sephardi vote by alienating secular elements in the electorate. Not the least of these were the Russians whose leaders were already at odds with Shas over the treatment of new immigrants by the Shas-controlled ministry of the interior. What rendered this all the more dangerous was the foreseeable opposition tactic of linking the economic downturn with the Likud’s dependence on the communitarian parties. Thus in November 1998, the university students’ strike over tuition fees mushroomed into a demand for resetting budgetary priorities away from payoffs to the religious parties and their Yeshivas, to the universities and general education.31 As with Labor, the outlines of the strategy to be employed in confronting these challenges were arrived at early. The ongoing relationship between Netanyahu and his foreign consultant, Arthur Finkelstein, enabled a basic understanding to emerge even before the actual fall of the government, and during the latter’s visit to Israel in the first days of January this was finally wrapped up with the advice of the members of Netanyahu’s personal campaign headquarters. The first decisions to be made concerned the voters to whom the message was to be directed and the antagonists against whom it was to be aimed. To be targeted were obviously the floating voters and last-minute deciders. Whereas they were not demographically distinct, the Russians, the Sephardis, and the ultraorthodox were. They were the fastest growing sectors of the Jewish population and being represented by communitarian parties could be efficiently mobilized by their own leaders. This was especially true of the Sephardi supporters of Shas and the

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Ashkenazi ultraorthodox. The Russian vote was less predictable, and as a group they could swing the elections either way, but in 1996 they had voted strongly for Netanyahu and the appearance of a new Russian party led by his former chief of staff improved prospects from that quarter. As a hedge against One Israel encroachments persuasive message had to be tailored to their particular interests, but in a way that would not alienate the ultraorthodox. Fortunately, the other way was not necessary and the general effort to drive up the One Israel unfavorables would suffice. All these were expected to vote for Netanyahu in the first round, whether they split their ticket with a communitarian party. Center Party and National Union voters presented a different problem. Like the Russians and ultraorthodox they would vote for parties other than the Likud, but unlike these two electorates they could also vote for a candidate other than Netanyahu in the first round (the tendency to abandon preferable candidates who were certain to lose in favor of less desirable ones likely to win might persuade National Union voters to cast ballots for Netanyahu in the first round too). The effort should therefore be to ensure their support for him in the second. National Union voters would have no option, but the danger following Begin’s defeat was one of apathy. Because Center Party voters might give their second round vote to Barak, they justified greater investment. Then there was the matter of the party membership itself. In the situation the party was in, heavy spending would be essential to deter members who were not keen Netanyahu supporters from voting for the National Union, the Center Party, or Shas. However, what had foundered the party was an ideological self-identity crisis. Attempts to reach out to either side would not only alienate other members but also endanger the second round premiership vote of those who had already rejected the party in the Knesset. The same considerations applied to the selection of the targets for attack. One Israel was obviously the main one, especially because polls showed that the second round for the premiership would be between Netanyahu and Barak. The decision was taken however to restrict the attack to it and not to direct any fire at the Center Party, the National Union, or Shas.32 In each case the same decision was made: to risk votes for the Knesset to avoid irritating voters who would support Netanyahu whether in the first or the second round. The necessity to forego attempts to energize activists whose enthusiasm had flagged, coupled with the readiness to avoid feuding with the adjacent parties, went hand in hand with the solution to the problem of operating on a tight budget. Reduced from 32 to 19 MKs by the defections to the left, center, and right, the Likud lost much of the campaign financing allocated according to the number of MKs in the outgoing Knesset. This dictated a campaign reminiscent of the United States, with the main focus on the prime minister and the majority of the resources devoted to the “Netanyahu for the Premiership” drive, the production of the television campaign, and the emoluments for professionals. Little was left for printed information and even less for the expenses of activists. Contrary to

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previous practices, Likud-controlled municipalities such as Nataniya, Netivot, or Rosh Ha’ayin could not contribute to the party, being themselves in financial straits. Thus the budget for the Voting Day Headquarters had at first been fixed at 3 million NIS (some $750,000) and only after a struggle this was raised by 1.9 million NIS, but it was for both of the expected rounds. As against 1,200 NIS (roughly $300) per polling station in 1996, all that could be allocated was 400 NIS ($100) to cover all expenses, including the telephone calls to voters who failed to show up. Similarly, the fleet of party vehicles disseminating information all over the country was reduced from 40 in 1996 to 4 at the beginning of the campaign and then during the last month increased to 25, to form “a cavalcade of triumph.” All this meant that participation in the common endeavor as an alternative to the creation of an esprit de corps by means of ideological distinctions received a lower priority than heretofore.33 Similar calculations help to explain the decisions concerning the message. The appeal had to fulfill two conditions. It had to be simple enough to come home to a large heterogeneous public and sufficiently ambiguous to allow nuanced variations to differing groups. Because the Likud itself consisted of such groups, it also had to provide a common sense of mission. The peace process provided a perfect answer to these needs, and so the primary objective was to base the campaign agenda on it. As a senior Likud figure explained to the writer, “if on election day voters perceive the ballot to be a referendum on the negotiations with the Palestinians, Bibi has a chance.” Seeing that the crises and fall of the government were often connected with such negotiations, a discrepancy would seem to exist here. However, the prime minister’s negotiating record lent itself to favorable interpretations by the general public. The defeat of government by “those who wanted me to scuttle the Oslo, Hebron and Wye agreements” proved his readiness to unflinchingly pursue peace. On the other hand, the repeated deferments and breakdowns in the process, including the freezing of the compliance with Wye itself, proved persistence, stamina, the ability to resist “the chimeral ‘New Middle East’” and stare down the Palestinians and the Americans.34 Thus the apparent veering from side to side could be taken as testimony of a consistent maintenance of balance. The cardinal choice faced by the electorate then would be that of trust: who would they bank on to represent the state in the fateful negotiations about to be held with the Palestinians, Syrians, and Americans. As Netanyahu put it, “the real encounter will begin the day after the elections. This will be the struggle over the nature of peace, over the final borders, over Jerusalem.”35 During the months preceding the television campaign the most persistent theme of the Likud’s message was therefore the hammering on Netanyahu’s record on the Palestinian issue. Among the first battle cries at the beginning of January were, “We shall not compromise on Israel’s security,” and “We shall never compromise on Jerusalem.” The self-description on both slogans was, “The Likud, a strong leadership.” The positive reaction of focus groups led to

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Netanyahu’s choice of the slogan, “A strong leader for a strong nation” (later, “A strong leader for the future of Israel”), as mainstay of the Likud propaganda after his nomination as the candidate for the premiership. It encompassed the image of a pillar of strength sustaining the nation and the claim of centrism attested by the balanced appeal to all nonextremists. As he had declared in his statement opening the campaign, “leadership means the ability to say ‘Yes!’ and ‘No!’ I said yes to progress towards a true peace; I said no to compromises that might endanger the state.”36 This middle-of-the-road consistency found its most concise form in the theme that was repeated throughout the campaign: “If they give they will receive; if they don’t give they won’t receive.” This was a variant of the 1996 “Netanyahu! Making peace with security,” professing a readiness both to go forward and to freeze the process. A related theme that was upgraded as the campaign proceeded was the allegation that the demand for reciprocity was responsible for the dramatic decline in terrorist activity. This in turn suggested that the Arabs’ acceptance of the reciprocity principle created an opening for a breakthrough toward a true, secure peace. The flip side was the persistent attack on the left as extremists who would imperil the state by unilateral concessions and bring about the replacing of the principle of “territory for peace” by the paradox of “territory for terrorism.”37 As a countertheme this received at least as much attention throughout the campaign, yet unlike the continuity marking the claims supporting the incumbent, and in a stark contrast to the consistency that marked the propaganda of One Israel and the Center Party, it unfolded in a series of “drives” each replacing a predecessor that failed to achieve hoped-for results. A brief comparison of Peres’s 1996 campaign may shed light on that of Netanyahu in 1999. Largely turning on the peace process, each relied on memorybased vote, in effect appealing to the electorate to ignore temporary present concerns and base expectations on past performance. Each too confronted challengers who campaigned on immediate, “online” issues (terrorism in 1996, failures in system management particularly in the socioeconomic spheres in 1999) with memory playing a part only as an accumulating “online tally.”38 Similarly, both attempted to disparage their adversaries, Peres claiming that Netanyahu lacked qualifications and Netanyahu portraying Barak as an unprincipled front for leftist extremists. Such efforts could also be bolstered by the tested online issue of the danger such extremists would pose to the unity of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, both found it difficult to build a persuasive attack against challengers who had no prolonged political careers the negative recollections of which could serve as an organizational principle for the online tally. Furthermore, the challengers could deflect attacks, Netanyahu by his acceptance of the Oslo framework and Barak by his military career. Netanyahu’s predicament in 1999 was however worse than that of Peres, because the discrediting of the left and of Barak were the linchpin of his entire campaign. Hence the continuous effort to change tactics to reach the same goals.

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The first negative slogans presented Barak’s statements, “I don’t express dovish positions because I want to win the elections,” and “Had I been a Palestinian I would have joined a terrorist organization” as evidence of his evasiveness as well as of his true opinions. The slogan “Ehud Barak—too many ambitions, too few principles” sought to support the first allegation, but the second was that there was a reason for the evasiveness. Here a parallel developed between the two main contestants. One Israel accused Netanyahu of being beholden to the extremists of the ultraorthodox and the settlers. The Likud, for its part, accused Barak of being a front for the extremists of the left, whose true positions were unacceptable to the bulk of the population. Its slogans described Barak as fleeing from truth and from responsibility, echoing the accusation that as chief of staff he fled from the scene of a serious military training accident. It was implied also that fleeing was the basic philosophy of the left according to which unconditional withdrawal would appease the Arabs. The argument against such weak-kneed naïveté served in turn as the basis for the readaptation of the successful venture of the 1996 campaign—the threat to Jerusalem. As noted earlier, this was an issue seized by Netanyahu on landing from Wye, and with the beginning of the campaign it became the main plank of a drive entitled, “Barak will set up a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem.” But it was further maintained that the logic of those who would join a government headed by Barak would inevitably achieve the Palestinian dream. This, it was claimed, was no theoretical threat, for the majority of Labor MKs had already “abstained or voted for resolutions calling for a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”39 By the end of March neither Jerusalem nor the anti-Barak drives had swayed significant numbers of floating voters. The state comptroller’s report on the training accident exonerated Barak, and Olmert’s admission that no candidate would divide Jerusalem deepened the loss of credibility. The conclusion was that the manner although not the matter of both charges should be changed. “Barak,” argued media-campaign head Livnat more moderately, “is likely to bring about the division of Jerusalem not . . . [because] that’s what he wants, but that is what his policy could definitely lead to.”40 The Jerusalem issue still played a leading role, but now mainly through the attempt to convince the electorate that the battle with the Palestinians over the destiny of the city had actually begun. The trigger was a series of highly publicized meetings between the Jerusalem representative of the PLO and European Union consuls that were held in late March in Orient House, the semiofficial headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in the city. The prominence given to this violation of Israeli sovereignty afforded the cabinet leaders (Netanyahu, Sharon, and the new defense minister Arens) an opportunity to declare a series of steps retaliatory, including annulling the privileges of PLO leaders, closing the Palestinian Authority News Agency and other offices, and finally proclaiming the intention to close the PLO offices

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Table 7.3 Content Analysis of Likud Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television April 26–May 15, 1999, in Percentage of Total Net Time (excluding party jingles) Content of Appeal

Positive Contents Building up the image of Netanyahu and other party leaders Positive Likud traits and past achievements (e.g., credibility, strong negotiating team, etc.) Achievements in the context of relations with Palestinians, including the curbing of terrorism Domestic achievements (socioeconomic) Confident assurance of electoral victory Noncontroversial stands Total Positive

A Entire campaign

B April 26– May 7

C May 8– May 15

43.00

35.50

57.50

14.00

3.50

32.50

15.50

22.00

4.00

6.00 1.00 2.50

7.00 0.00 3.00

4.00 2.00 1.00

82.00

71.00

101.00

4.50 5.00

4.00 6.50

5.00 2.00

2.50 6.50

4.00 10.00

0.00 0.00

Negative Contents The unreliability of Barak Failures of the pre-1996 Labor government over relations with the Palestinians, including inability to curb terrorism The socioeconomic failures of the Labor government The elitism of the left Exposure of true Palestinian and Syrian aims vis-à-vis Israel Warning of security dangers inherent in One Israel government Jerusalem under threat Criticism of rivals other than One Israel

7.50

10.50

1.00

17.50 8.00 1.50

16.00 16.00 0.00

19.00 1.00 4.00

Total Negative

53.00

67.00

32.00

6.50

5.50

8.50

Others N (seconds)

3,008

1,944

1,064

Notes: The data appearing in the table were generated according to the following procedures: (a) the television campaign appeals were videotaped; (b) party jingles and time devoted to broadcasting party acronyms were deducted; (c) party presentations were reviewed independently by two panelists and divided into content segments; (d) each segment was timed and categorized by the two panelists according to a list of content appeals prepared by the author; (e) in cases of disagreement, the author served as a judge; (f) where all three failed to include the broadcast time under any of the content items it was listed under “others”; (g) because each broadcasting second may contain more than one of the content items, the total percent of content items to broadcasting time does not equal 100; (h) each broadcast was divided into seconds and each content idea was rounded to the nearest whole minute. Percentages were rounded to the nearest 0.5 percent.

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in Orient House itself. The activity of minister of internal security Kahalani, who for fear of bloodshed adopted a foot-dragging strategy by conducting consultations with Palestinian figures ready to compromise, may have prevented a major conflagration, but it ensured the presence of the issue on the agenda up to and including most of the television campaign. An additional front opened at about the same time employed yet another 1996 strategy, to assert a hidden competition between Netanyahu and Arafat underlying the elections. Like the Jerusalem issue the allegation of a partnership between Arafat and the left was part of the campaign from the start. In late December Netanyahu had already argued that “Arafat wants to conduct the final status negotiations with the left.”41 At the end of March, the Israeli Arabs supervisory committee called on MK Azmi Bishara to withdraw his straw candidacy for the premiership to avoid splitting the Arab vote, thereby furthering Netanyahu’s chances; media rumors were that this was at the request of senior members of the Palestinian Authority, thus confirming the Likud claim. A special meeting of the Knesset was convened to discuss Palestinian intervention; Netanyahu fulminated against it as a “disgrace,” and a new drive centered on slogans such as “Arafat votes for Barak” and “It is not for Arafat to decide.” Accusations made at the opening of the campaign were revived: the Beilin-Abu Mazan plan included “a return to the Partition Plan and the ceding of parts of the Negev; what Beilin says today Barak will do tomorrow.”42 Toward the later part of April, however, indications were that this drive too had failed to influence the uncommitted voters. Considerable sums (about 30 million NIS or $7.5 million) had been wasted to little effect and, in addition, much of the material prepared ahead of the television campaign had already been shown to be largely ineffectual. The limited success of these drives raised the premium of specially tailored appeals suited to narrowly defined sectors of the electorate. Among these most critical were the Russians, not only because of their numbers, but also because a significant proportion of the undecided were Russians. Since the beginning of the campaign, the immigrant headquarters worked through the Russian media to translate the general propaganda and evoke memories unique to the audience. The left, for example, was explicitly related to the socialist command economies, which the addressees knew all too well. But toward the end of March an implicit attempt was made to exploit more positive memories. This started with a brief but highly visible visit of Netanyahu to the Ukraine, Russia, and Georgia. The Russian television most immigrants watched broadcast his meetings with high dignitaries and Jews. This was immediately followed by a series of visits Sharon made, likewise featured on Russian television. Such activities were supposedly independent of the campaign, but Sharon was quite frank. The key to the elections, he explained to William Safire, was the Russian-Israelis. Should these visits raise their support of Netanyahu from the two-thirds they gave him in 1996 to 70 percent, that alone would be enough to clinch the matter.43

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Further appeals to specific groups were made in mid-April, introducing a new tone at the ceremonial opening of the Likud campaign a month before voting day and almost four months after the campaign had actually started. These found their place within an expanded discussion of socioeconomic issues that conveyed greater Likud readiness to take on matters that One Israel emphasized. Hitherto, if mentioned at all, these took the form of sweeping generalizations, such as the contention that what was at stake was “the conflict between free economy and the bankrupt socialist economy,”44 or that the Rabin-Peres government had favored their cronies and flooded the country with foreign workers. A few days before the official opening of the Likud campaign, however, the government approved a number of economic palliatives for farmers, cab drivers, Jerusalemites, and other groups. This served as a backdrop to Netanyahu’s speech at the ceremony. The pride of place was still devoted to the main issue, but concrete commitments were made for younger voters: subsidized loans for small-scale entrepreneurs, for people at the outset of their careers, and for students of all institutions of higher learning. Together with the continuation of privatization, it was argued, these measures would help the country to become the world’s Silicon Valley. Thereafter, the economic issue had a regular place in the agenda, chiefly on claims of performance that served to rebut the One Israel attacks: the reduction of deficit, lower inflation, longer school days for development towns and minorities, and a computer for every child. The content analysis of the Likud’s television campaign in column A of Table 7.3 points to an amalgam of all the above-mentioned elements. As in the preceding months, the accent fell on Netanyahu’s leadership and on peace and security. The relation between positive and negative appeals emphasizing the challenger strategy of the incumbent did not change materially. The overall picture, however, cannot highlight the most outstanding trait of the campaign—the increasing attention generated not merely by the rapid succession of broadcasts but as a deliberate strategy. Because quiet campaigns tend to work in favor of the status quo, the challengers usually have an interest in stormy confrontations. But this depends also on the state of the party involved. Stormy campaigns arouse enthusiasm, encourage potential supporters not to abstain, and press hesitant voters who previously voted for the party to repeat their choice. This explains the Likud strategy for attracting the numerous wavering supporters and former Netanyahu voters who still had not made up their minds. The opening broadcast employed a variation of the attack on the left in an appeal to specific sectors. “We have turned Israel into a state of all of us,” Netanyahu declared, “the religious and the secular, the Sephardis and Ashkenazis, the new immigrants and the veterans. We must never return to the reign of the left, of a band of despotic elitists alienated from the people.” This argument in its various forms appears in 6.5 percent of the net propaganda time taken as a whole, but at first in a much larger proportion following the denigration of the

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Likud partisans as “a rabble” by an actress at a Labor rally. The anger among lower-class Likud Sephardim, Netanyahu hoped, would “finally send the Likud engine on the right track.”45 “I am,” he declared, “proud to be a member of the rabble.” The television schedule was altered to include the doctored screening of the lapse with a smirking Barak standing nearby, and Netanyahu made a whirlwind tour where he repeated his accusations. His words at the Tikva market were caught by the television: Barak’s “elites hate the people. They hate the Sephardis, they hate the Russians, they hate all who are not like them, Ethiopians, Sephardis, Moroccans, the religious, they hate them all.”46 The new tone equally pervaded subjects already dealt with previously, such as Netanyahu’s curbing of terror, illustrated by 1996 footage of blown-up buses. The problem of Jerusalem, to take another example, was brought to a climax not only on the screen. A week before voting day the police served orders to close three Palestinian offices in Orient House, and Netanyahu was quoted on television as calling Kahalani “chicken” for his warning of riots in the city and the West Bank.47 Concurrently the government came out with new spending plans that included grants for purchasing apartments in East Jerusalem and for infrastructure improvements in the new Jewish neighborhoods. None of these turned the tide. The battle over Jerusalem subsided when a Supreme Court judge ordered the halting of the Orient House closures until after the elections; even the minister of treasury stigmatized the budgetary plans as an election ploy; the denunciations of the left’s elitism showed no effect on the undecided, whereas Netanyahu’s words in the Tikva market generated a backlash within his own party. Worse was the clash between the Likud’s communitarian allies. Israel Ba’aliya’s slogan was “Shas Kontrol Nyet” (Don’t let Shas control the interior ministry). The Shas television responded that the ministry was the only defense against the prostitutes and criminals among the immigrants, thereupon One Israel promised Sharansky the post of minister of the interior in a Barak government. Polls showed a steep decline of Russian support of Netanyahu, and indicated that most Russians believed Netanyahu was giving in to the ultraorthodox whereas Barak would defend the rights of the secular.48 Although Netanyahu brought Shas’s Suissa and Israel Ba’aliya’s Sharansky to a brief televised meeting of reconciliation, the latter stood by his aim to wrest the interior ministry from Shas, whereas a day later Shas’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia, again delivered tirades against Russian criminals and prostitutes. In the middle of the television campaign Netanyahu had to start a new drive to stop defections. Sharansky was offered a ministry that would be more important than the interior; a series of benefits was announced for the Russian immigrants, thousands of personal letters were sent arguing that only a reelected Netanyahu could continue cooperation between Israel Ba’aliya and government, but all in vain. As a final straw, Mordechai’s continued decline in the polls and his own comrades’ questioning of the wisdom of his candidacy raised the fear that there would be no

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second round. Signs of growing hopelessness were media stories of quarrels within the campaign headquarters and of high-ranking Likud members blaming Netanyahu for the impending defeat.49 With little more than a week to go the campaign underwent a final shift. Column C of Table 7.3 shows that the overall tone had changed with the emphasis shifting from the negative to the positive. The party now featured 32.5 percent of the time, and the appeal was explicitly directed to wavering Likud voters. The first intimation of change was when Sharon pleaded with them not to forsake the party. The following night Netanyahu apologized for disappointing party members who were now undecided, and requested them “to put aside other considerations” and “return home, to the Likud” for the sake of “our principles, our way.” Other television appeals depicted the party as “a beautiful rainbow, where all can find their own color” and pleaded “stop wavering; let us remain in our home. We have no other.” The logo changed too. Hitherto it was two voting slips, the one bearing the party acronym, the other Netanyahu’s name. Now the full name of the Likud was added, with the caption, “This is our home.” An accompanying theme was the attempt to explain away the adverse polls: “The Likud loses all the polls except the final one.” Netanyahu’s image was also revamped. Hitherto he had been his own promoter, and the focus lay on his achievements in office. Now he was presented by others, including U.S. President Clinton, who described him as “a skilled and tenacious negotiator,” and the focus shifted to his military past and his personal qualities. But all this came too late. The die had been cast.

III. Again the Center Cannot Hold Following a series of negotiations with prospective coalition partners, which Barak and loyal emissaries conducted without disclosure to the media or consultations with his party, he invited its top leaders to meet him one-on-one to learn his verdict to whether they would serve in his government, and if so in what capacity. In hindsight, this moment encapsulated not merely his relations with One Israel but his entire style of governing. But the sphere in which the enhanced power of the premier became most evident was again that of the peace negotiations. It was in these, he was to argue patronizingly in his concession speech, that his government had made its greatest achievements by forcing all sides to “irreversibly awaken and experience the pain which is part of entering adulthood”; and it was these negotiations that brought about the government’s undoing once it became apparent that many in both camps were still “insufficiently aged to confront the truth we laid bare before them.”50 Regardless of how this assessment will withstand the test of time, at least one element stands correction. Without Barak’s ability to keep his cards close to his chest, not merely from the Syrians and the Palestinians but perhaps more importantly from his coalition, his party,

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and the Israeli public at large, imagining how he could have offered the compromises he did and how the process could have advanced to the point it had is difficult.51 This was especially true of the negotiations over Jerusalem, whose unity was embraced by a consensus of all Jewish parties. Hitherto Arafat raised the issue at every opportunity to prove Israeli intransigence. Barak’s unprecedented concessions, including Palestinian rule over the Arab neighborhoods and shared sovereignty over the Temple Mount, not only took the Israelis aback, but also turned the table on the Palestinians, thrusting them into the very position from which the Israelis were extricated. Not that Barak could dictate his policies with impunity. Among the main sources of his power were his sweeping victory in the 1999 elections and the numerical decline of his party in the same match. But the electoral achievement reflected the weaknesses, which plagued Netanyahu and which were now bequeathed to his successor, and the dwindling of his party along with the accentuation of the centrifugal trends in the Knesset rendered his plight even worse. With only 26 One Israel MKs, Barak had to include in his coalition parties with different and potentially incompatible interests, several of which participated in the previous coalition.52 It was hardly surprising that his positions proved unpalatable to the two furthest to the right among them, the NRP representing the settlers in the Occupied Territories and the Russian immigrant party, Israel Ba’aliya. Moreover, David Levi’s former Likud Gesher faction crossed over to support the opposition while still ostensibly a member of the One Israel fold. But probably the greatest obstacle before the premier was the inextricable link between his ability to conduct the affairs of the state and his capacity to master the coalition’s internal contradictions. Among these, the most debilitating was the incessant conflict between Shas and Meretz, the two largest partners. Meretz was a party of the noncommunitarian sort. And yet, where with the exception of the Likud and the majority Labor faction within One Israel the parties associated themselves with specific segments of the electorate, it came to aggregate the interests of the public who lacked such representation, essentially the well-educated, secular, and Western elites. Against these did Shas, as a representative of the ethnic and cultural interests of the traditionally minded Mizrahim, revolt, rendering the battle especially bitter. Moreover, Shas regularly exploited its numerical leverage to induce the prime minister to intervene on its behalf by supporting the opposition on the issues that mattered to him most. For instance, barely eight months into the government’s tenure, when negotiations with Syria seemed to have neared conclusion, Shas’s support ensured the passing in the first reading of a Likudsponsored bill, which would require a majority of 50 percent plus of all eligible voters (whether or not they actually voted) for a referendum on the impending peace agreement. Thereupon the smaller NRP could send its own signals relating to the destiny of the settler communities in Gaza and the West Bank by adding its vote to the opposition. The consequence was that the prime minister became

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hostage to the vicissitudes of coalition power struggles and the government hobbled from one crisis to another.53 As with Netanyahu, constant mediation between the coalition partners met with only temporary success. Satisfying neither side, it weakened Barak’s credibility ending ultimately in both Shas and Meretz leaving the government. The obverse side of the coalitional disorder and the shrinking of support in the prime minister’s policies was what former defense minister and prominent Likud leader Moshe Arens called “the recrudescence of the Likud.”54 From a party that had sunk to its nadir, it regained stature as spearhead in the parliamentary struggle against the concessions offered, first to Syria and then to the Palestinians. Under Likud leadership the Knesset embarrassed the government repeatedly, for example with the choice of Moshe Katav, a littleknown Likud parliamentarian, as president over the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres.55 By the beginning of August 2000, barely a year after the formation of Barak’s government, its parliamentary base had shrunk to the degree that at best it could rely on 60 votes, half of which belonged to parties that were not in the coalition (10 were of the Arab parties that by tradition are excluded from any coalition). Barak thus became the head of the smallest minority government in the history of the state, and owed his political survival to informal understandings with parties in the opposition56 and to the new laws that required an absolute majority (61 MKs) to dispose of him. In a similar, although less grave situation, we have seen how Netanyahu had toyed with the idea of bringing Labor into government. Now Barak used the same tactic. Both held negotiations on the formation of a national unity government, the content of which was widely leaked to the media, and in both cases the bargaining came to naught, mainly because the prime minister recoiled at the last moment. In each case the price was not only the further erosion of his credibility, but also early elections in which he suffered a landslide defeat and was replaced by the person with whom negotiations had been conducted. The comparison, however, breaks down here. Netanyahu’s objective was to hold together his Knesset majority with the targets of his maneuver being reluctant coalition partners and inner-party rebels. Barak lacked a majority to hold on to. A national unity government could secure him one, but the cost would have been the effective freezing of the efforts to reach a final status agreement. Alternatively, final status negotiations could have been intensified in time for early elections in which national approval for a peace agreement would be sought. Ironically, Barak’s weakness served thereby to create the situation in which the opposing interlocutor was not only the Likud, but first and foremost the Palestinians. Neither a unity government nor a peace agreement materialized. Not only were offers perceived by most Israelis as unprecedented in their magnanimity rejected, but also no counteroffer was even made. Worse still, late September 2000

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witnessed the unleashing of what became known as the Al Aksa Intifada, the greatest wave of sustained violence in the Occupied Territories since the signing of the Oslo Accords and bordering on actual war between the Palestinians and Israel. This left Barak in the worst of all situations. Having given up the possibility of shoring up his parliamentary base precisely because he gambled on a peace deal, he was left without any resources on which to run in an early election. Like Netanyahu, following his return from Wye, Barak seized the initiative in calling for early elections. This spared him the humiliation of being deposed and denied inner-party oppositions time to organize against him in the rushed primaries. But whereas Netanyahu adopted a bill for the early dissolution of the Knesset, Barak resigned personally from his post as prime minister. This meant the separation of the elections for the executive from that for the legislator and a blitzkrieg campaign with elections for the top post mandated within 60 days.57 The combination of weakness and strength that forced Barak into early elections in the first place and then enabled him to dictate the time and nature of the competition, lay behind his campaign strategy. Throughout, this had to contend with what the U.S. consultant Stanley Greenberg called “the most difficult situation I have ever encountered in an electoral contest.”58 To win reelection Barak had to garner at least 50 percent of the ballots. Yet at the very week when it became clear that it would be Sharon rather than the more popular Netanyahu who would challenge Barak polls revealed a gap of 19 percent in Sharon’s favor,59 and the seemingly unbridgeable chasm did not disappear but grew even wider as voting day approached. A survey conducted on the eve of the television campaign and during its first phases found that some 63 percent of the public defined their feelings toward the incumbent as anger and 43 percent were afraid of him, compared with a mere 23 percent who expressed fear of Sharon.60 The figures point to the costliness of the prime minister’s strength. Constantly in the limelight, he was identified with the pursuit of negotiated final status agreements to the degree that the policy became virtually synonymous with him. Consequently, he was personally put to task for its perceived failure, at the same time the logic that turned the public against Peres in the wake of the terror attacks of 1996 was now working against him. The situation was further compounded by the demoralization and loss of faith in the peace process that infiltrated voters of the center and even of Labor and the parties to its left following the Palestinian insistence on the right of return. A month before the elections, one of the most respected ideological leaders of the left pointed out that this was in effect a demand for the dissolution of the state of Israel, hence “Israelis acting for peace must not pretend it is business as usual. Nor should [they] continue to argue that ‘the sole obstacle to peace is Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.’”61 In such circumstances, negotiations under fire were liable to be perceived not merely as unacceptable but as actually dangerous. As Greenberg and other consultants warned, the repeated argument that peace was at hand was simply

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unbelievable and the call for additional concessions was liable to be interpreted as a desperate, electorally driven bid to gain some verbal assurances from the other side.62 Barak himself seemed to confirm such suspicions with his accusations that the Palestinian Authority was orchestrating the violence, and his retraction of his threats to take a time-out from the peace efforts was widely perceived as part of a pattern of management popularly referred to as “zigzagging.” Public vexation with this pattern as revealed in successive polls was an additional cost of the prime minister’s power. The capability to make and pursue key policies without advice from all but a small group of loyalists enhanced Barak’s ability to react swiftly to shifting circumstances and changing policy assessments. “This,” a member of his cabinet complained, “was his leadership style. He made all policy moves quite personally. He navigated with barely any consultation with his colleagues, neither his ministers, nor his party comrades.”63 But policy reversals that were not explained to the public and that failed to elicit wide political support gave credence to the accusation that his policies were spur-of-the-moment and lacked consistency. The sudden decision to hold the elections itself seemed to fit this mold. In the absence of a peace referendum or a change in the Knesset composition, for any viable government to emerge clearly would have to be based on a national unity coalition. This, however, could have been achieved without the contest, and the result was a wave of accusations that Barak was subjecting the country to a meaningless campaign at a time of national emergency to satisfy his personal whim. Ironically, the built-in weakness of the prime minister likewise had a price to pay. Barak was elected in a wave of optimistic expectations not only for peace, but also for sweeping domestic changes. Yet he was hamstrung from the start by the need to maintain a large coalition in which opposing pulls precluded any decisive change in the status quo. This in effect meant the subordination of the social and economic visions he had offered in 1999 to the pursuit of final peace deals. The failure of the peace efforts consequently magnified the widespread sense that Barak had let his voters down. At the same time the economic toll of the violence, which worsened an already bad unemployment situation64 and threatened to erode what was gained in a year of renewed economic growth, frustrated hopes for future social and economic amelioration. Together they deepened the disillusion, which made “Barak disappointed” one of the most effective slogans in Sharon’s arsenal. An especially worrisome version of the problem related to the Israeli-Arab voters. Here too the outbreak of violence exacerbated a sense that Barak failed to fulfill the hopes raised during the 1999 campaign and that he should be held accountable to his own and his government’s shortcomings. But at the start of his tenure the protest was directed against his omission to take the Arab parties into any form of partnership and his disregard of the special interests of the community they represented. By contrast, the end of his tenure saw the breakdown not

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merely of the relationship between the Arab parties and the Israeli government, but also between the Arab-Israeli minority and the Jewish majority following the fatal treatment by the police of the October 2000 demonstrations in support of the intifada. This meant that the Arab parties could not be counted on to provide the organizational means for mobilizing their constituents or even to announce formal support for Barak. In fact, toward the end of January they united in rejecting him, and when one bears in mind that blank ballots in the Arab sector were among the chief causes of Peres’s defeat in 1996, the implications seemed clear. Finally, both Barak’s strength and weakness affected his relations with his colleagues. Tensions between the prime minister and his party were an inbuilt feature of parlia-presidential system. They came to the fore during campaign seasons, when the strategy suited to the majoritarian semipresidential rivalry conflicted with the strategy needed for success in the multiparty competition for seats in the Knesset. But they were also evident in postelectoral periods, when the prime minister’s centralized management eroded the status of the leadership and rendered the party organs largely irrelevant, while compromises and balancing acts necessary to appease coalition partners clashed with party interests. During Barak’s tenure these trends reached their zenith, and now he found that they undermined his capacity to mobilize Labor behind him precisely when he stood on the verge of an electoral disaster. The problem was not restricted to the subleadership levels. Early in his reign, Barak cut out of the peacemaking process most of his comrades, including figures such as Peres who had negotiated the Oslo process. Now Barak found himself cut off from most of his colleagues, and even though One Israel leaders headed various campaign headquarters, little coordination existed among them and his headquarters. Again in the words of Greenberg, “it was the worse case I ever encountered of a party . . . which is paralyzed and non-functioning.” Furthermore, it was “split and fragmented.”65 By this he meant the unheard-of situation in which an unofficial headquarters was formed in mid-campaign to promote the substitution of the party candidate by an alternative who had better chances, namely, Peres. The “battle of the headquarters”66 lasted up to the very homestretch67 and meant that Barak had to expend constant efforts on internal squabbling and that expectations for his imminent resignation underscored the impression of a foregone conclusion. Thus, for example, his former chief of staff could predict less than a month before the vote that Barak was waiting for the most appropriate moment to drop out of the race because he was “no kamikaze. Whoever reads the map knows that [he] has no chance to be elected.”68 Facing such an accumulation of negatives, the Barak campaign was obliged to regard as its paramount task curbing the widespread feeling that there could be no hope of defeating Sharon. Left unchecked it was liable not merely to encourage absenteeism by party members and voters of the left but a tendency to penalize Barak for the defeat even before it took place. Paradoxically, public

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opinion polls that presented the vote for Peres as a possible choice gave plausibility to the claim that the real test was one of ideas and that all who intended to vote for Peres would therefore have to switch to Barak once it became clear that the individual they preferred was no longer a candidate. The fact that the polls showed Peres and Sharon running neck and neck meant that in the last four days, when by law Peres could no longer become a candidate, Barak stood an actual chance of winning. As he put it, “the real campaign [will begin] once the public wake[s] up to realize that it’s not about the Labor Party or even the two beauty [contestants]—myself and Sharon—but about the fate of Israel.”69 To make such a claim plausible, much of the advertising effort was spent to remind the public of the policies Sharon stood for and their results, especially the recently disentangled embroilment in Lebanon. A central theme became the claim that Sharon’s adventurism would drag the country into war as it had done in the past. Toward the end of the campaign brown envelopes resembling reserve call-ups were distributed door-to-door, inviting the voters to choose between the envelope to be delivered should Sharon win, which would contain an emergency draft summons, or the one to be delivered if Barak was reelected, which would reduce by half the reserve duties. But credibility hinged also on the ability to advance substantive arguments, refuting the general conception that Israel was already in a state of war and that peace was no longer an option. The obvious (and effectively the only) strategy was to continue to advocate peace efforts and the compromises they demanded in the hope that marathon negotiations would indeed secure a deal with the Palestinians and restore calm to the Territories. In this regard, the continued escalation of the intifada and the intensive negotiations under fire left Barak in a quandary. On the one hand, any deal hinged on further Israeli concessions. On the other was a growing perception that in view of what the Palestinians demanded, no concession would avail, that Barak’s leverage was weaker than ever because of his need of Palestinian cooperation, and that the result could well be that Israel would irreversibly commit itself to compromises without any quid pro quo except Barak’s electoral advantage. In short, success in the negotiations was essential—but the negotiations themselves were turning an alarmed public increasingly against Barak. The choice between the fire and the frying pan was especially noticeable in the decision to hold marathon talks in Taba, on the Egyptian border, just two weeks before the elections.70 Ministers in Barak’s own cabinet castigated it as an “inappropriate and unethical” electoral ploy and compared the negotiations to “a loaded gun” pointed at the country, whereas polls revealed that even if an agreement were reached it would be voted down in a referendum.71 If queuing Labor hopefuls to meet Barak on the eve of his government’s formation encapsulated his style of governing, this reaction manifested in petto the problem this style had engendered. Coming from the public, the media, and even from within the cabinet, it reflected bitter disillusionment and loss of faith in Barak’s ability to be their savior, and a protest against

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power exercised without consultation and, even worse, without producing the results he had pledged.

IV. Parlia-Presidentialism’s Last Hurrah Electoral systems are not neutral referees. By structuring the choice they favor some strategies while militating against others. Unable to deliver a deal with the Palestinians, Barak was forced to anchor his campaign in the effort to rally the electors to a compelling vision of peace and to persuade them that all current setbacks should be disregarded. The attempt to avoid such a strategy, it would be remembered, resulted in electoral losses that compelled Labor and the Likud to enter national unity governments in the 1980s, while in 1992 it led to last-minute strategic shifts under the threat of impending debacles. This however preceded the institution of the presidential-like races that favored the convergence in the center of the ideological map and focused on personality and the ability to carry out broadly accepted goals. In effect, Barak faced the daunting task of running against the system itself. Sharon, by contrast, could suffice with voicing commitment to positions that were accepted by the vast majority of the electorate and using the turbulent background of the elections to turn the contest into a referendum on Barak’s leadership and personal credibility: an approach that worked in with the system. Nevertheless, a basic similarity existed in the arguments the two proffered. Although each warned that the other would exploit the strength of the prime minister to advance a dangerous private agenda, both vowed to act against the division that caused government paralysis. Although neither addressed the democratic system as such, both echoed thereby the feeling that something had gone wrong with it and that reining in the tendencies that found their expression in the “weak-strong prime minister” syndrome was imperative. The content analysis of the televised campaign in Table 7.4 shows that, as could be expected of a contest centering on figures rather than parties, the two candidates primarily emphasized building their own images (Barak, 32 percent; Sharon, 41 percent, of their respective net broadcasting time). This hides however a major difference among them. Usually one expects incumbents to run on their record, inviting the public to vote for another successful term in office. Challengers can hardly run on such a platform and might be expected to rely more heavily on a prospective strategy, clarifying what they would do in office and how it would differ from the incumbents. Here the roles were reversed. Barak’s problem was that the general disillusion with his performance could further erode the credibility of the vision he was promoting. Therefore, in the first broadcast of the television campaign, when public attention was expected to be at its highest, he acknowledged his mistakes, apologized for them, and promised their correction. On the one hand, he claimed, he realized his failure to inform the people and take their advice and has “learned that you must build up a strong

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team and consult more with it.” On the other, he discovered the mistake of paying the ransom demanded by Shas and understood that “parallel to the pursuit of peace . . . we must focus on the formation of a new social and economic agenda and on bringing an end to the capitulation to the Orthodox.” One is reminded of Netanyahu’s “confession” at the close of the 1999 campaign. This, however, came when he all but despaired of his reelection bid, and it was an integral component of the effort to save the Likud from devastating parliamentary losses. Barak’s apology in contrast came at the very beginning of the intensive campaign, when he still entertained the hope of eking out a surprise defeat of the challenger. In effect, he was asking the voters to vote for him in spite of his record, for the sake of “the most important goal—peace.” This, he claimed, was the mission he had pursued throughout “my entire life, not just as a prime minister . . . if you shall give me the chance, I will do it better. I will be more attentive and do all that is in my power to win your trust.”72 This may explain why no more than 9 percent of Barak’s net broadcasting time addressed his tenure in office, and of this 5 percent was devoted to the single most important achievement for which he took credit: “bringing the boys home” from Lebanon. As column A in Table 7.4 shows, the explication of Barak’s mission constituted another difference between the candidates. If we disregard platitudes such as the paramount importance of peace (most of the 6 percent under the category of general noncontroversial issues), we find that the controversial core of these messages took up 14 percent of the broadcasting time. The smaller share (3 percent) was allotted to a series of reforms that would address secular needs at the expense of Orthodox interests.73 The rest was devoted to the Palestinian issue. To a large extent the contents repeated the familiar positions of the left concerning the moral and strategic perils of ruling other people and the inevitability of painful compromises. If there was a new element, it consisted of the argument that the conflict is a non–zero-sum game in which both sides would pay an escalating price for the attempt to delay the inevitable. It was therefore incumbent on Israel to disregard all hardship and persist in the journey to its very end. Even if there was no partner to the effort, immobility was no option. Rather the alternative would be a unilateral “separation of forces” and the establishment of a border between the sides until such time as the mutual effort could be resumed. But perhaps even more novel was the eloquent presentation of the ideological underpinnings of policy by one who was not known for his oratorical skills nor for the frank discussion of his ideas. Against this emphasis on what the prime minister would do given another term, the promotion of Sharon took precedence both in terms of the time devoted to it and of its purpose. The story of his early life up to and including the Yom Kippur War, which was repeated again and again, presented him as emblematic of the previous generations of the proud Zionists who acted on their convictions in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. At the same time, his recurring

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Table 7.4 Content Analysis of Electoral Appeals Appearing on Israeli Television, January 16–February 1, 2001, in Percentage of Total Net Time Content of Appeal Positive Contents Building up the image of the contestants and other party leaders Domestic achievements of the government (in office) Defense achievements of the government (in office) Confident assurance of electoral victory Call for the unity of the people Stands on general noncontroversial issues (e.g., the desirability of peace, democracy, etc.) Stands on controversial domestic issues (e.g., state and religion, priorities in resource allocation, etc.) Stands on controversial foreign and defense issues (e.g., peace negotiations, the destiny of the Occupied Territories) Total Positive

Percentage of Total Net Time A. Barak

B. Sharon

32 4 5 — 2

41 1 — 3 19

6 3

16 —

11

—

63

80

21 5 4

15 21 —

Negative Contents Criticism of rival’s performance in office Rival’s untrustworthiness Domestic dangers attending rival’s victory (e.g., concessions to the ultraorthodox, economic collapse, etc.) Security dangers attending rival’s victory (e.g., breakdown of relations with United States, war, etc.) Jerusalem under threat Criticism of leaders other than main rival

24

6

— 2

8 5

Total Negative

56

55

7

7

3,699

3,192

Others N (seconds)

Notes: The data appearing in the table was generated according to the following procedures: (a) the television campaign appeals were videotaped; (b) party jingles and time devoted to broadcasting party acronyms were deducted; (c) party presentations were reviewed independently by two panelists and divided into content segments; (d) each segment was timed and categorized by the two panelists according to a list of content appeals prepared by the author; (e) in cases of disagreement, the author served as a judge; (f) where all three failed to include the broadcast time under any of the content items it was listed under “others”; (g) because each broadcasting second may contain more than one of the content items, the total percent of content items to broadcasting time does not equal 100; (h) each broadcast was divided into seconds and each content idea was rounded to the nearest whole minute. Percentages were rounded to the nearest 0.5 percent.

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depiction alongside leaders such as Ben-Gurion served to associate him with the pragmatism and consensus-building that facilitated the establishment of the state. This went hand in hand with the firm obligation to respond to what the people craved for. As Arthur Finkelstein put it, “by definition of who he was,” Sharon “provided security. What he needed to do was to show that peace could be accomplished through security.”74 Thus the hammering on general noncontroversial principles enabled him to present himself as Barak’s antithesis. An even greater emphasis (19 percent) was placed on the call for national unity. The opening night of the intensive television campaign saw his call for the constitution of a government of national unity under his leadership. Especially toward voting day itself news reports of his negotiations with figures in the center of the political map and even in One Israel served as a refrain to the nightly hammering on the need to pursue policies that would put an end to all social and political squabbling. The nature of these policies was not clarified, but the assurance was repeated that the result would be an end to the weakness that was grinding down the ability of government to act on behalf of the people, and thereby the resolution of the critical tests confronting the state. In line with this aim, thorny domestic issues such as the relations between the secularists and the ultraorthodox were ignored altogether, whereas pronouncements on relations with the Palestinians and the pursuit of peace were restricted to what was in effect accepted by national consensus. A firm commitment was made to continue negotiations with the aim of establishing full peace,75 but only following the complete halt of Palestinian violence. Achieving secure peace would inevitably involve compromises, but these, it was asserted without any elaboration or explanation, will not include the division of Jerusalem, transfer of control of the Jordan Valley, or the acceptance of the Palestinian right of return. The words of the jingle76 may serve as a fair summary, not only of these stands, but also of the entire positive contents presented in 80 percent of the total broadcasting time: “we want peace and security/we want an experienced leader/we want to think about tomorrow/to know it is possible/to have Jerusalem forever/with hope and with future . . . only Sharon will bring peace/peace that will protect us/Sharon—a leader for peace.” The attacks the candidates launched alongside these positive appeals provided mirror images of one another. Both directed the voters to base their preferences on a negative retrospective evaluation of what their opponent had done in office. Barak devoted 21 percent net broadcasting time to criticizing Sharon as a minister under Begin responsible for the war in Lebanon, and Sharon, 15 percent to hold Barak responsible for the current security situation. In neither case however was the attack confined to the past. As Downs argued,77 assessment of past performance allows the rational voter to project what competitors will do in office. Such estimations are faster and easier to make than the analysis of party platforms and ambiguous statements made in the heat of the contest. They also

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give relevancy to character and to otherwise aimless past events. Barak devoted 24 percent of his time to Sharon’s adventurism that, as prime minister lacking effective controls, could lead to the deterioration of the state’s standing in the world and the risk of regional war. Additional 9 percent was devoted to his untrustworthiness (5 percent) and association with the ultraorthodox and other extremist groups (4 percent).78 Sharon for his part devoted 21 percent to a constant reminder that what lay at the bottom of the present troubles was (to quote Finkelstein79) “the structure of Barak’s behavior—to say one thing and do the other . . . this caused him to betray the citizens, including his own party members.” He added 14 percent for the second term with such a prime minister continuing to act according to his whims: 8 percent returned to the familiar Likud theme of the danger to Jerusalem, whereas 6 percent raised the specter of the return of the Arab refugees of 1947–1948. Because Barak “had no red lines” he would capitulate to Palestinian demands, spelling the end of Israel. All this was hardly enough to excite the voter into an adrenaline rush. Yet from the point of view of a competitor who enjoyed a double-digit advantage in the polls a dull campaign was an advantage. Nor is it surprising that the Sharon strategists decided to forgo the customary televised debate between the candidates, to draw away from the media interviews, or to ignore all attacks by Barak.80 Particularly because these related to events that had taken place some 20 years earlier, when a large number of the voters were too young to have traumatic memories or were not yet in the country, a dynamic exchange could have only helped the beleaguered incumbent. If there was a puzzle it concerned Barak. Where hopes pinned on the campaign strategy are not met and polls persistently project electoral defeat, contestants are expected to modify their approach and try some alternative. This is what had happened in 1992 and again in 1999 when Netanyahu deflected the focus of the campaign from himself to the Likud party. But in 2001, despite the disheartening situation and manifest absence of improvement, no shift occurred in Barak’s game plan. Even more intriguing was the refusal to renounce the possibility of joining a government of national unity under Sharon. His calls for national unity were obviously designed to alleviate fears of his alleged extremism and his negotiations with various parties and centrist individuals strengthened the sense that the electoral results were a forgone conclusion. If Barak had a fighting chance, it rested on his ability to persuade left-leaning and centrist voters that there was something real in the balance, that a Sharon victory would not issue in a Likud-One Israel partnership but in a fanatic right-wing government. An early reaction could therefore have shaped such voters’ attitudes toward him and the race itself in critical ways. The answer seems to lie in the combination of two assumptions. One was that the public preoccupation with the Palestinian violence, the broadly based disenchantment with Barak and the widespread sense that the campaign does not

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really matter, all militated against the possibility that strategic shifts would make a change. All they could do was to deflect attention from the warnings of what a Sharon victory entails. Paradoxically, this applied equally to the renunciation of the possibility of joining any national unity government. Given the electoral landscape, such a forswearing was bound to raise a question: if Sharon is as dangerous as claimed, why does Barak rule out the possibility of a partnership that would constrain him? In addition, polls that showed overwhelming public support to the idea of national unity raised the peril of a backlash that would alienate even left-of-center voters, whereas the distribution of seats in the Knesset clearly showed that the only alternative to such a government would be a narrow one of the right. The second assumption was that the warnings against Sharon were going to bear fruit only at the last moment, after the possibility of a Peres candidacy was laid to rest. At that point, a large number of voters who still entertained the hope of choosing Peres or who had declared their intention to cast a blank ballot would recoil and vote Barak however reluctantly. What all this meant, in brief, was that in effect the prime minister himself joined the challenger in the belief that the campaign, at least up to its last five days, did not make any difference. In view of this broad community of opinion, ending this discussion by inquiring whether indeed the campaign counted for anything is appropriate. One way to assess this is to examine the polls. Do they indicate that the campaign absorbed the attention of the electorate? Did it play a significant role in determining the winner? The answer to both questions seems to be a clear negative. Although overall one may expect public involvement to grow as the competition unfolds, the build up is most likely to be uneven. It gradually picks up in the pretelevision phases to climax in the opening salvoes of the television battle. Thence one can anticipate a shortfall reaching a plateau as the contestants as well as the voters rev up toward the final push. In 2001 such patterns failed to develop. Not only was the competition largely restricted to the final weeks of television programs, but no more than 23 percent of the public viewed the first broadcasts81 and the ratings remained at such levels to the very end. Apart from the preoccupation with the Palestinian violence, several explanations seem to suggest themselves. One is the absence of clarity concerning the difference between the options presented for choice. This was not just the outcome of Sharon’s blurred stands on the Palestinian issue, or his unwillingness to present anything that went beyond the slogans of peace and security. It was rather the seeming irrelevancy of debates about reconciliation and the strategies of achieving it in face of what was perceived as the irrevocable collapse of the peace process and the prevailing sense that the formation of a government of national unity was an inevitability. The consequence was that notwithstanding Barak’s frank talk, respondents to public opinion polls as well as media critics repeatedly complained that the competition lacked issues.82 Another explanation for the widespread indifference was that the elections were held solely for the executive. This tended to reinforce the sense of irrelevancy by

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keeping off the table issues pertinent to specific parties, thereby sapping the enthusiasm of party activists and reducing the engagement of such voters as are motivated by the sense of group affiliation. Yet one can safely assume that much of the lethargy is explicable by the fact that throughout the campaign poll respondents indicated the intention to vote against Barak by such substantial margins that the outcome was widely perceived to be a forgone conclusion. We have seen that the first polls conducted in the latter part of December 1999 revealed a gap of 19 percent in Sharon’s favor with an unusual number of voters declaring their intention to cast a blank vote or not to bother themselves with voting at all. These figures remained essentially unchanged over the course of the campaign. Despite six weeks of propaganda, the drama of Peres’s candidacy, and the negotiations in Taba, differences among polls and across time remained within the margins of statistical error.83 Irrespective of the close balance between left and right and of Barak’s 1999 landslide victory, therefore, Sharon’s 25 percent lead in the elections came as no surprise. It simply confirmed that the campaign had failed to affect choices that had been made before it started. And yet the conclusion that the campaign did not make a difference need not necessarily mean that no collective message could be gleaned from its results. Of these, the most surprising was not the size of Sharon’s victory (62.39 percent) or the humiliating defeat suffered by Barak (37.6 percent); rather it was the profound decline of electoral participation. It is true that the forecasts of many blank ballots did not materialize. The percent of valid votes (97 percent of those cast) actually exceeded that of 1999 (94.67 percent), leading us to conclude that many of those who contemplated such a vote of protest preferred in the end to stay home. It is also true that the Arab boycott succeeded beyond expectations, despite the massive efforts invested by the Barak campaign to get the Arab citizens to vote.84 Nevertheless, all these cannot fully account for the precipitous decline of the turnout, from 78.7 percent in 1999 to 62.28 percent of the electorate, the lowest figure in the history of the state.85 A narrow interpretation would see such a massive decision not to participate as evidence of a lack of trust in each of the candidates separately and in what was perceived as their connivance to join forces in a unity government following the contest. A wider view would see in the decision to abstain a protest against, and a resolution not to take part in, a system that denied the citizens any real choice; a system that could only lead to the combination that Israel could ill afford of a government too wide and internally divided to offer clear directions and an all-too-powerful prime minister held hostage to particular, self-seeking interests.

Summary Political reforms are teleologically constituted, aiming to alter the reality in which they are carried out to achieve preconceived objectives. Their success

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hinges on the accurate identification of needs and the arrangements that would satisfy them in the future. It equally depends on a correct identification and consideration of the current realities and environmental conditions, and the greater the magnitude of the reform and the future uncertainty it engenders1 the more essential this becomes. The analogy of construction may help clarify this point. Home improvements are directed by blueprints, or visions of the future, in which present or foreseeable needs will be satisfied. These however must be based on an accurate reading of the terrain as well as of the climate and other conditions. Failure to factor in such variables is not only likely to complicate the attempt to improve further, but also worsen the deficiencies that the improvements sought to overcome. One can argue that a potential gap always exists between what people want and what they get as a result of their actions. But in most reforms the benefits and the gaps are more immediate and acute if they do not allow for trialand-error processes of piecemeal adjustments. The far-reaching electoral reform legislated in 1992, and practiced in the suffrages of 1996, 1999, and 2001, provides a textbook example. Like the formation of the cluster parties it was a product of the intentional decision of politicians to restructure the party system. Here too, a discrepancy developed between the desirable effects sought and the effects of the change. But insufficient attention to the realities that were tinkered with confirmed the famous warning of Charles Caleb Colton that “attempts at reform, when they fail, strengthen what they seek to abolish, as he that struggles tightens those cords he does not succeed in breaking.” Although this was laid bare almost instantaneously in the elections of 1996, the elections of 1999—the second to be held under the new rules and the first to follow a government, that itself had been so elected—revealed the full extent of the failure and its consequences, later confirmed in the special elections of 2001. To follow the changes triggered by the reform in the party system and its main components it is significant to note that on the very day Sharon took office the reform was rescinded and that the aims were no other than those that animated the reform itself.2 Both the institution of parlia-presidentialism and its abolition are best explained by the purposive action approach: as reforms brought about by deliberate acts of party elites in reaction to external shocks. The direct election for the prime minister was intended to provide him with a wider national backing and protection from the caprices of the shifting Knesset politics that followed the series of electoral debacles suffered by the larger parties contending with the drives of the party-bloc system that were pulling the system toward its extremes. The abrogation sought to redress the numerical superiority of the main parties following their electoral catastrophes caused by their inability to cope with the centrifugal pulls shaping the Knesset competition and by the inherent instability brought about by the weak-strong prime minister syndrome. But the similarity between the reform and its annulment should not blind us to a critical distinction between the external shocks. Those that triggered

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change in the electoral rules grew out of the inability of the main parties to offer decisive solutions to problems that were the outcome of the external environment following the Yom Kippur 1973 War. The requirement of an absolute majority in the direct elections for the premier was expected to focus attention on national rather than sectional interests and thereby to encourage straight ticket voting in the Knesset. In contrast, the shocks that triggered the abolition sprang from the fact that the reform itself induced changes that could best be explained by the social structure approach: the release of pent-up sectional needs and narrowly defined interests now that the ordinal system rendered it possible to pursue them without surrendering the voter’s expression of national identity or ability to influence composition of the government. Both the reform and its abolition, then, were intended to act as an incentive for the electorate of the narrowly based parties to switch from sincere to strategic ballots so as not to waste its votes. The aim of reducing fragmentation in either case implied a structural alteration of the party system. Underlying the institution of parlia-presidentialism was the premise that the direct election of the prime minister would sharpen the alternatives and facilitate the conduct of consistent policy. The nullification of the requirement to amass a majority, which pushed candidates to blur programs and to converge in the center of the ideological continuum, was likewise designed to enable the parties to present more meaningful alternatives. The hope was that the weakening of the communitarian parties, which radicalized the cleavages in the electorate, would reduce their ability to force compromises thus contributing to the same end. For One Israel and the Likud the other side of the coin was that both the institution of parlia-presidentialism and its repeal carried significant structural and ideological outcomes (although the weakening of the party structures and the ideological erosion, which the return to parliamentarism sought to overcome, were unintended consequences whereas the reverse does not hold). The magnitude of the shock Labor experienced in 2001 explains the desire among its elite for organizational and ideological rejuvenation. As acting party chairman, Peres stated immediately after the debacle that the most urgent task was to strengthen “the management of the party as a democratic entity . . . to ensure the operation of its structures in a continuous and organized manner and the free discussion of the [national] agenda.”3 Similar views had been voiced in the Likud in the wake of its defeat in 1999 and even following Sharon’s victory.4 In brief, the repeal sought to strengthen the power of the prime minister in interparty relations while limiting his intraparty independence. Whether all these hopes can be realized by repealing the direct elections of the prime minister remains to be seen. It seems that the battle in the future will not be merely among the national parties but between them and the narrowly based ones. In this competition the former need not rely on a rekindling of party identification among the electorate who deserted them in the Knesset contests of

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the 1990s, but on partisan de-alignment and an increase in the floating vote that would be forced to choose the least of all evils. For the narrowly based parties, on the other hand, the test would be whether they can prevent such result, or at least minimize its extent, by building on attachments that the larger national parties can hardly hope to attain. The final chapter returns to this briefly, following some reflections on the applicability of some of the main themes discussed in this book to settings other than Israel.

Chapter 8

EPILOGUE: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

I. The Cases of India and France Research is akin to a journey of exploration into areas of a country that have hitherto been inadequately mapped. It is not necessarily limited however to first encounters with foreign lands such as those proclaimed by the mappa mundi to be the haunt of monsters and dragons. Often enough it examines a known terrain anew, almost as though it were itself a foreign land. The insights may thereafter aid other expeditions, enabling the surveyor to examine different times or countries with a less innocent eye. With such aims in mind, this book charted the transformations undergone by the Israeli party system during the 35 years preceding the end of the twentieth century. Three types of change were considered. The first grew out of deliberate decisions of political leaders to manipulate party structures either to set in motion such alterations as would bring about the restructuring of the party system or to prevent such a restructuring and maintain the prevailing balance of power. The second derived from the reactions of party elites to internal and external events and processes (such as war or demographic and economic shifts), which were not of their making. Party adaptations reflected either the desire to exploit the new circumstances or to avoid the erosion of ideologically determined goals and the electoral penalties meted to those who were obdurate in resisting adaptation. The third type of change was contrary to the second, stemming as it did from processes that were unexpectedly unleashed or newly created as a result of deliberate efforts to affect the structural consequences of electoral outcomes. The election of the prime minister by separate and direct popular suffrage was not intended to modify party structures, ideologies, or modes of campaigning but it resulted in a profound breakaway change in all the above, thus indicating the limitations of purposive engineering of party systems. Of the three, the first seems the most extraordinary. Not only did it impart the impulse for the transformation of the party system bequeathed from the prestate era, it also points to situations where political considerations assumed 231

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a far greater role in effecting party transformations than hitherto postulated by theories of party change. It is equally striking because such an autonomy of party politics proved to be temporary and determined by special conditions, so that in Israel the new forms were ephemeral and the party system was propelled under the pressure of circumstances into yet further metamorphoses. The initial changes thus served a role reminiscent of the little nail in the hoof of the horse that made it stumble, leading step by step to the loss of the kingdom. This raises the question whether the changes, including those of the 1990s, were the ripple effects of a particular situation that rendered Israel sui generis, namely, when at the helm there still were the heroic greater-than-life figures who had led the state to independence, although the heroic age itself was over and a degree of quiescence was prevailing. Significant similarities could however be found in other countries, especially where a government party or coalition that had won successive elections was confronted by two or more opposition parties that were consequently faced with the option of hanging together or hanging separately. One case in point is that of India that, notwithstanding vast differences from Israel, witnessed a comparable phenomenon in 1977, the very year Israeli Labor lost its dominance. Both countries won independence at about the same time and were ruled for the next 30 years or so by the parties that had presided over the transition. During these years both experienced analogous conditions. Mapai never enjoyed an outright majority, but its pivotal position enabled it to overcome a fragmented opposition. India, for its part, constituted an intriguing counterexample to the Duverger’s Law in that despite its first-past-the-post arrangements it featured a multiparty system within which Congress likewise never garnered 50 percent plus of the vote. Even more than its Israeli counterpart, it was a centrist party within which factions, ranging from the traditional and regional to the modern and nationwide, from left to right and numerous other variations, balanced one another. In this respect it reflected and coordinated the variety of forces characteristic of the subcontinent itself. The fact that it faced a disunited and regionally disparate opposition, comprised of more ideologically and demographically coherent parties, only served to highlight its catchall nature. This allowed it most of the time to become a Condorcet winner, able to prevail in pair-wise contests over any other party. However, as in Israel, the dominant party, under the successors of the founding fathers, lost elections to a recently formed umbrella party that brought together within a weak organizational structure a number of previously independent groups. The Janata consisted of five parties, four of which first coalesced under the name Janata Front to win a massive victory against Congress in the Gujarat Assembly elections that were conducted in June 1975 on the eve of the imposition of the state of emergency.1 With little in common, save the opposition to the Congress Party and its leader, Indira Gandhi, they found it virtually impossible to cobble together a coherent political platform, so that from the start

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the Janata constituted a centrist alternative, not dissimilar to Congress itself. In the 1977 elections, which were in effect a referendum on the 20-month emergency rule, it defined the main issue as the “choice between freedom and slavery” and campaigned on the slogans of “Bread and Freedom” and “Work for All within Ten Years.” As in Israel, such a cluster party proved to be highly susceptible to fragmentation. The larger the number of its components, the deeper and more numerous cleavages it had to bridge, and the policies of patronage underlying its factions rendered it even more mercurial. Ominous signs appeared even before the Janata government took office. The victory of the opposition, like that of the Likud, had come as a surprise. But whereas Begin’s leadership was undisputed (and in any case the proportional representation party-list system left no doubt as to who would become prime minister), in India what ensued was lack of agreement as to who would succeed Gandhi in office. The 81-year-old Morarji Desai was given the post not because he was the most forceful, experienced, or popular (party vote was bypassed for fear of what might ensue), but as a compromise candidate who was the most inoffensive to the other leaders. Predictably, the government that was formed on the basis of the relative strength of the factions operated with relative success as long as the agenda concentrated on the restoration of civil rights and the exposure of corruption alleged against the Congress Party and the Gandhi family. Difficulties came to the fore however once wider spheres had to be dealt with. In Israel, the crunch came with the Yom Kippur War, which brought in its wake old and new problems that could not be ignored. In India there was no comparable precipitating event but a steady worsening of basic enduring problems as rapid expansion of the population, slow economic growth, inflation, and the tendency to think in terms of religious or linguistic groups or of castes rather than of national interests. All this was accentuated by weak leadership, the squabbling for power among factional leaders, and the ideological contradictions and diverse interests that led to endemic friction between the factions, some of which sought external alliances on their failure to dominate the party. After only months of his tenure, Desai could already point to the Damocles sword dangling over his government’s head: “We have not become as cohesive as we should have been . . . there are pulls in different directions by different groups. Unless this is stopped I am afraid we will not be able to make much headway in whatever we want to do.”2 By the summer of 1979, industrial unrest, police strikes that were put down only after showdowns with the army, clashes between landlords and sharecroppers in the rural areas, and, worst of all, religious strife that pitted the largest Janata component, the Hindi revivalist Jan Sangh, against the secularist Socialist and Nationalist People’s (Bharatiya Lok Dal) components, brought about massive parliamentary desertions, and the resignation of the prime minister. Indira’s initial loss of power (including even her dismissal from the parliament), which had contributed to the

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melting of the glue holding her opponents together, was now reversed. Desai’s successor, the leader of the breakaway Lok Dal faction, could form a government only with the support of her loyalists, and the withdrawal of this support brought the government down within a month. The Lok Sabha elections of 1980 saw the return of Congress and Indira to government as a bulwark against the anarchic reign of the Janata.3 The lessons all this taught the national opposition parties were that clustering was the only way to replace the dominance of Congress by a competitive party system and that infighting was the surest route to electoral disaster. What befell the Janata Party pursuant on the breakup of its government simply reinforced these conclusions. In the elections of 1980 it was penalized for its disarray and poor record in office and reduced from the largest party in the 542 member parliament, commanding more than 200 seats, to a mere 31. The secession of the Jan Sangh, which reconstituted itself as the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), facilitated the efforts to remerge its breakaway factions, yet continued schisms between its components and frequent mergers and splits within them prevented it from regaining credibility as an alternative to Congress. Nor did negotiations among other opposition parties fare better. The latter part of 1983 witnessed the formation of two opposition clusters: the National Democratic Alliance was formed by the amalgamation of the BJP and the Lok Dal, while the Janata and three other parties grouped into the United Front. Both however were short lived, and the discredited opposition parties entered the 1984 campaign to face Congress separately. Sympathy over the assassination of Indira Gandhi could explain only in part the decimation of all the national oppositions. The Janata was reduced to 10 parliamentary seats, the non-Communist oppositions commanded together no more than 20, whereas even the largest opposition garnered only 30 Lok Sabha members. Reinvigoration of the efforts to forge a united centrist alternative to Congress was an inescapable inference, and it was further stimulated by Congress defeats in several states, the latest and most devastating of which took place in the 1988 Allahabad by-election. In advance of the 1989 parliamentary suffrage several parties and factions, including the truncated Janata and a new party formed by V. P. Singh, the winner of the Allahabad contest, amalgamated into the Janata Dal, which joined several regional parties to form the National Front. This in turn entered on electoral arrangements with the BJP on one side and with the Communists on the other, so that in the majority of the constituencies there has been a one-on-one competition between Congress and the Opposition. Even if the results fell short of expectations, they allowed V. P. Singh to form a minority government supported from the outside by the BJP and the Communists. Such a jumbled hodgepodge coalition was however short lived, and the career of the United Front government was even shorter than that of the Janata Party. Nevertheless, it contributed much to the persistent decline of Congress, which

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was accelerated by splits generated to no small degree by mutual recriminations within it. The upshot was the considerable fragmentation of the party system, a trend that was already evident in the National Front where even the Janata Dal acquired a largely regional character, having the bulk of its support in the North. Most of the subsequent governments have been unstable multimember coalitions. Significantly, the last government of the twentieth century, which came to office in 1999, consisted of the BJP and no less than 15 coalition partners. The contribution of clustering to the restructuring of the party system went hand in hand with its promotion of changes in the issues presented to the electorate. In Israel we have seen how the suppression of ideology by each cluster did not preclude the retention of ideologies by the factions within it. This was true of the Janata and even more so of the United Front. Because Congress was a centrist catchall party from its inception, the outcome was the catch-all nature of the tactics used by the main opponents in the Indian campaigns. Apropos of the discussion of the 1989 campaign, it is noteworthy that underlying it was the explosive question of Hindu-Moslem relations, especially connected with the sixteenth-century mosque in Uttar Pradesh, which the Hindus claimed to have been erected on the very spot where Rama was born. Among the main contenders, the clearest secular voice against the religious hysteria fanned by the BJP was that of its partner in the United Front, the Janata, and this explains the evasion of the religious issue and the turning of the campaign on questions of personality and corruption, and on Congress’s charge that the disunity of the opposition rendered it incapable of ruling. In later contests the fact that the opposition consisted of potential government parties headed by figures with governmental experience encouraged yet greater pragmatism, and that was true even of the BJP. However, the decline of the Congress system meant the unleashing of the religious genie to become one of the principle fault lines defining the party system. In this light, the coming into office of the BJP can be seen as marking not only a continuation of but at the same time a new chapter in Indian politics. The Indian case, then, presents two interesting similarities to Israel. First, the clustering of the opposition parties illustrates the underlying intention of simplifying the party system by the adoption of the two-pronged strategy of separately attracting factional stalwarts while netting collectively wider, less committed constituencies. Second, the changes that have overtaken the party system since 1977 illustrate the fragility and ephemerality of cluster parties. At the same time they show how they may serve as a fulcrum for the complete transformation of the party system. Unlike Israel, however, these changes did not involve adoption of clustering counterstrategy by the hitherto dominant party. What emerged was therefore not comparable with the party-bloc system that constituted the second phase in the transformation of the Israeli party system. Here France presents closer similarities. Especially in the latter part of the twentieth century its society, like that of Israel, has shown itself to be highly

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dynamic. Indeed, between the late 1950s and the mid-1970s it featured the highest economic growth rate in the industrial world with the exception of Japan. Again like Israel, French society is marked by multiple cleavages—class, clerical versus anticlerical, regional, ethnic, and linguistic—the continuity of which justifies the term the stalled society.4 Before 1958, these found expression in political families of roughly equal size that adopted a highly ideological style of competition. Nevertheless, the first 25 years of the Fifth Republic witnessed a steady movement of the party system toward bipolarization. As in our other examples, parties grouped to form two opposing alliances somewhere between party blocs and conglomerate parties, each presenting a programme of government and an electoral concorde. Although the fault line between them continued to be the left-right one, each contained a tendance represented by entities that pulled in their own way. This blurred the ideologies and reduced programmatic tensions between the main contestants, causing a centripetal convergence on the center and campaigns characterized by the utilization of catchall tactics. As in Israel and India, the result was the emergence of a highly competitive party system offering a clear choice between government and opposition, but the clusters that were the agents of the change were themselves subject to considerable instability leading to further changes in the system. Some of the forces behind the clustering were peculiar to France, notably the 1958 switch from proportional representation to the two-ballot majorityvoting system and the 1962 introduction of direct elections of presidents by a two-round general ballot. The former facilitated party alliances that enabled parties to preserve their separate identities and even compete against one another in the first round while forging alliances in the second. The latter encouraged parties fielding presidential candidates to enter cluster arrangements to project an all-inclusive image and avoid associating the candidate too closely with any social segment or party. Thus, even when the Gaullist party enjoyed an unprecedented parliamentary majority (1968–1973), Pompidou included in his coalition all the parties that had supported his campaign. Other factors are readily comparable to Israel and to India. Chief among these is the appearance of the Gaullist party as a disciplined, well-organized electoral vehicle that dominated the Fifth Republic to such a degree that other forces felt compelled to join it or to coalesce against it. Like the Israeli DMC in 1977, the Gaullist party, first named Union pour la Nouvelle Republique (UNR) and then a succession of names up to 1968 when it settled on Resemblement pour la Republique (RPR), was founded as a unitary amalgamated party fusing several groups and parties, each of which had had its own policy priorities and personal loyalties, but all backing de Gaulle and his constitutional reforms. These were later joined by further political forces, among them the Union des Democrats du Travail (UDT) and several Christian Democrats. In the absence of any proportional key or representation, these factions remained

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ill-defined. Nevertheless, they persisted as loose groupings based on leaders, and ideological differences were liable to provoke dissension especially when the threat from the opposition was relatively small. After de Gaulle’s resignation, some of these groupings organized themselves into distinct factions. Debré, Messmer, and others formed the New Gaullist Association to represent orthodox Gaullism, while the UDT reappeared as a distinct body, causing so much friction that its leader, Louis Vallon, was finally expelled from the party. This heterogeneity was reflected in the party’s calculated ideological ambiguity as expressed in its electoral programmes. Its appeal became general and pragmatic, directed to a broad cross-section of the electorate. In the words of a critic, “it had no ideology, represented no interest or class, was not a ‘militant-directed’ party with doctrinal goals to be pursued even if they were electorally unpopular; it was not simply an umbrella and electoral committee for a few notables.”5 This in turn had the effect of broadening the presidential majority, rendered the more necessary as the leftwing opposition engaged in clustering tactics, and the more appealing to independent centrist parties that were squeezed out as the two clusters converged. The first to join were the Independent Republicans under Giscard d’Estaing. The Centralists tried to resist the pressures of both clusters by adopting the Israeli DMC’s strategy, to wit, forming a third one under Jean Lecanuet. The failure of their attempts led some of them to join the Majorité under Pompidou’s presidency. The rest held out as the Reform movement, but finally gave up and joined the others in 1974. With them came also most of the deputies of the Popular Republican Party and the Radicals. The heterogeneity of the cluster was evidenced by the fact that the latter was traditionally classed as a party of the left, and this diversity was further accentuated with the crossing over of the Democratic Socialist Movement, a breakaway group of the socialists party. The parallel clustering of the opposition in the course of the first 15 years or so of the Fifth Republic is interesting not merely because it conforms to the pattern of change in Israel, but because as in India it was spurred by lessons learned by electoral defeats that brought home the price incurred by failure to engage in the strategy. In 1962, the socialists (Section Française de e’Internationale Ourrière, SFIO), Radicals, Christian Democrats, and Independents entered a third force electoral alliance. Sharing little in common except opposition to both Gaullism and Communism, it was known as the Cartel des nons. Following the steep electoral decline of all the Cartel parties, negotiations were set afoot in 1964 to unite the non-Communist left in a federation with a common program, as the first step toward amalgamation. Ideological and personal differences blocked the scheme, but several months later a less ambitious plan succeeded in joining the SFIO, the Radicals and the Convention des Institutions Republicans (CIR) to form the Féderation de la Gauche Démocratique et Socialiste (FGDS). Although it was a federation of autonomous parties with a nebulous policy program, it was a further step toward a fully fledged cluster party. The conclusion of

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a second ballot agreement with the Party Communist Français (PCF) also marked the beginning of popular front strategy. This was made possible because the PCF too was not immune to change. Its hard-line doctrinaire Stalinism of the 1950s had isolated it from all other French parties. Like the SFIO it lost heavily in the 1958 elections, and its limited recovery in the 1962 elections did not reduce the need for cooperation, especially because much of it was attributable to tacit withdrawal agreements with other parties in a number of constituencies. The effort to establish contacts led the PCF’s Central Committee to declare at the end of 1962 that disagreement over the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) did not hinder the cooperation with the socialists and that the enemy was not revisionism but dogmatism. This was followed in 1963 by an attack on monolithic single party regimes in the communist countries. Such flexibility increased after the forging of the electoral agreement with the FGDS and brought the PCF into the mainstream of French politics. Relative success in the 1967 elections could not prevent however the collapse of the Federation under the weight of ideological differences and mutual suspicions that were exacerbated by the 1968 upheavals, and the noneffective electoral agreements between the SFIO and the PCF in the legislative elections of the same year. In the presidential elections of 1969 the PCF and SFIO put up separate candidates, whereas the Radicals and Centrists supported Alain Poher. None of them reached the second ballot, and the socialist candidate netted only 5 percent in the first. The shock led to renewed efforts of aggregation and cooperation. In 1969 the Partie-Socialiste (PS) was founded as an amalgamation of the SFIO with a number of political clubs and in 1971 it expanded further to include the CIR. The party now drew up a constitution ensuring every faction a representation in party conventions and proportional representation in the executive bodies for those with at least 5 percent of the delegate votes. The crossing over of party lines, as in the case of Jacques Delors, further emphasized the new Proportional Amalgamated Party as, in Mitterrand’s words, “a vaste political grouping rich in internal contradictions.”6 In June 1972 the PS, PC, and those radicals who had not joined the Majorité formed the Union de Gauche by signing a common program of government and an electoral pact, thereby fulfilling the requirements of what we have defined as a conglomerate party. The common program testifies to the consequent watering down of ideology. It rejected class warfare, accepted free elections as the source of political legitimacy, and adopted the principle of majority rule even if it meant the electoral defeat of the left. Pledges to preserve and strengthen civic rights, to improve working conditions, and to de-centralize government—all had their parallels in the government coalition. The essential difference was the commitment to nine nationalizations, a far cry from the traditional demand for the total nationalization of the means of production. The characteristic of French politics, to evoke abstract concepts of justice and seek absolute standards of social relationships, did not wholly disappear, but

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ideological debate cut across the traditional left-right boundaries. As the rivalry between the clusters evolved into neck-and-neck races in the parliamentary elections of 1973 and 1978, the presidential elections of 1974, and the local election of 1976 and 1977, each side attempted to maximize its share of the diversified electorate, and this was reflected in campaign tactics. Unsurprisingly, already in the mid-seventies there were critics who regarded the term left-right as nothing more than convenient labels7 for the two broad movements that confronted each other. Following the first change of government in 1981 and the spate of socialist initiatives that predominated public debate such a judgment seemed premature. However, after severe economic repercussions, and socialist fears of a loss of party standing, the reformist approach was all but abandoned. The Communist partners left the government coalition and President Mitterrand became the spokesman for policies, which again blurred the distinctions between the socialists and the Center-Right opposition. The acceptance by both of the mixed economy was the basis of their similar approach to the steps necessary to meet the conditions set by the European Community (EC) for the adoption of the euro as common currency. Thus from the second part of the 1980s onward, both socialist and conservative-led governments pursued policies requiring tough economic measures, including cuts in governmental social expenditures. As with Israel and India, the closing of the gaps between the main rivals went hand in hand with the opening of the gaps within each. In 1978 the small centrist parties that opposed the Gaullists within the Majorité coalesced to create a cluster of their own, the Union des Democrates Pour la France (UDF). This step was taken not only to neutralize the dominance of the Gaullists within the bloc but also to further the agenda of the liberal tendance within it (e.g., free enterprise against the more statist approach of the Gaullists). Of equal importance was the backing given to the new party’s leader, then President Giscard d’Estaing, in his rivalry with Jacques Chirac. The rifts that ensued did much to create the expectation of an impending defeat in the 1978 elections. In the event, the Majorité achieved La Divine surprise, generated by the even greater rift within the Union de Gauche. As was so well illustrated by the difficulties faced by the Likud shortly after taking office (and at about the same time), the stability of a cluster is threatened by accession to power, especially when it contains factions tied to their ideologies. In the case of France, the very prospects of a victory led the PCF to press for a maximalist interpretation of the common platform and to demand in advance a full share of the positions in the government to come, demands that alienated many of the noncommitted prospective voters. The 1981 presidential elections had four candidates—two from the right and two from the left. The support of the defeated PCF for Mitterrand was not an outcome of a prior agreement but came as a surprise before the second ballot. At the same time, Chirac announced that he personally would vote for Giscard, but he left his followers to decide for themselves.

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For all practical purposes, then, the old formations seemed to have come to an end, leaving behind them a three-party competitive system with a much weakened PCF as an increasingly marginalized fourth contender. Nevertheless, the Gaullists and UDF joined forces in following elections and formed coalitions on winning office in 1986 and 1993. After Chirac’s victory in the presidential elections of 1995 Giscard began to withdraw from politics, and the more radical component of the UDF seceded to form a party of its own. The result was that the rifts between the Gaullists and their partners again began to close and in 1998 they formed the Alliance pour la France, which seems to point in the direction of a future merger. The PS, for its part, allied in 1997 with the PCF and the Greens to win the parliamentary elections, and PCF ministers sit in the government of Jospin. Their ability to present common party lists in most of the regions was among the most important factors contributing to the left wing gains in the Senate elections of September 2001.8 The socialist national election secretary’s conclusion that “The left wins when it stands together” and should therefore “resolve to … be united during elections”9 was rudely reinforced some eight months later in the first round of the presidential elections. Following the dispersal of leftwing-votes among candidates representing the socialists, Greens, and several small left-wing parties, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin lost his bid to rival President Chirac in the runoff elections. Worse still, the place was won by none other than Jean-Marie LePen, the candidate of the far right National Front. France offers a pregnant example not only of clustering and of the formation of party blocs, but also of the third type of change that had overtaken the Israeli party system, that deriving from electoral reform. From a bird’s-eye view one could say that the order of change was reversed. In Israel, clustering introduced a degree of instability leading to gridlock and thence to electoral reform; in France, Gaullism initiated an electoral reform that succeeded in stabilizing the party system leading to clustering on both sides of the government-opposition divide. The 1958 reversal to the single-member constituency second-ballot system, the prevailing format of the Third Republic, was intended to strengthen the executive and put an end to the rapid secession of governments—no less than 18 in the dozen years of the Fourth Republic. But what the reform achieved in addition was the promotion of centrist parties that could draw voters from the various sectors of the electorates and form alliances with the parties representing them. The elections of 1958 already indicated how suited Gaullism the party was to the electoral reform brought in by de Gaulle the man. As a cluster with both left and right of center tendencies it appealed to anti-Communist voters in constituencies where the left was strong and to anti-leftist electorates where the right dominated while competing directly with the parties of the center. The result, as noted previously, was the appearance of Gaullism as the largest party in the Assembly, forcing rivals into joining it or clustering against it.

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If this cursory glance at electoral reform and its consequences in France is offered, it is mainly because it serves as a background to the discussion of party clustering while illustrating the manner so marked in Israel in which forms of party and party system change may lead to one another. Examples of such changes issuing from alterations in the electoral formula, especially shifts from proportional representation to first-past-the-post systems, are numerous. Nor is this type of political engineering found only in established Western democracies. In Nigeria, for instance, a tiered winner-take-all electoral system was employed after the death of General Sani Abacha to ease the return to civilian rule in a country plagued by a long history of ethnic and regional rivalry, pervasive political corruption, and military governments, which had banned all parties apart from artificial entities that disclaimed any critique of the dictatorship. At the end of 1998, newly formed parties with national organizations were allowed to compete in 774 local contests. The three that scored the largest number of victories were allowed to compete at the state and national levels, and of these, two (the All People’s Party and the Alliance for Democracy) formed an alliance to compete more effectively for the top post with the largest winner (the People’s Democratic Party, which won half the local elections). Although whether the country has taken the high road to national reconciliation and genuine democratic development is still debatable, there can be little doubt that the formation of a two-party competitive system at the national level has significantly strengthened the legitimacy of the administration headed by Obasanjo who received well in excess of 60 percent of the national vote. Similar results in the Israeli prime ministerial elections of 1996, 1999, and 2001 were less foreseeable, however, in view of the double-ballot system assumed by Duverger and others10 to favor multipartyism. All three direct contests evolved into one-on-one races between the candidates of the two main parties. Other candidates appeared only in 1999, and even then withdrew before the vote itself. This seems to lend support to Ray’s notion that the “ballot structure constitutes a rather weak variable . . . much less important than electoral formula.” But the same is not true of his assumption that an even greater effect is exerted by “the sociopolitical forces which underlie party competition.”11 What explains the simplification of the Israeli prime ministerial competition was the higher priority given by voters to pressing collective problems and the sense that a vote for candidates representing narrow interests involved forfeiting influence as to who should lead the next government. Furthermore, the appearance of candidates representing narrowly defined segments of the population was hampered by the new space won by parties aggregating such interests in the Knesset competition. The first-past-the-post system did not replace the one based on proportional representation wholly or, as in Italy, in part. Rather, it was added to it and applied only to the executive. In effect, the new electoral formula did not create a hybrid

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but disentangled one, replacing it by two parallel systems, each working according to a different logic. The earlier proportional representation system was centered around the two contestants whose rivalry dominated the game. By separating the competition over the executive and removing it from that over the seats in the Knesset the reform purged the proportional system in the latter contest from this distortion. As far as it involved the Knesset, then, Duverger’s Law was confirmed, namely, that the tendency of proportional representation is to produce multiple parties. The rise of parties aggregating the interests of narrowly defined ideological, cultural, or ethnic electorates simply confirmed what was well tested elsewhere. In brief, the unusual features of the changes in Israel were not the result of what took most of the framers of the electoral reform aback, namely, the eruption of long-suppressed socioeconomic, ethnic, and religious needs and the surge of parties representing them. Rather, it was the translation into reality of some of what they had had in mind, to wit, the simplification of the prime ministerial competition. Even more peculiar was the concurrence and linkage between the two matches, and the fact that some of the contestants found themselves competing in both. There are many cases of countries passing from one electoral system to another, but hitherto none had attempted the schizophrenic move in both directions at once.

II. A Note on the Future of Change At this point we circle back to the problem noted in chapter 1. Case studies conducted with comparative aims in mind must forfeit the consideration of much detail, yet fully to appreciate the particular case and its significance, it must be analyzed against the background of the unique features of the time and place. This study has attempted to steer a midcourse. By considering the development of the main Israeli parties from a hitherto largely neglected perspective it hoped to throw light on a complex and mercurial system. By eliminating as many particulars as possible it sought to allow a clearer view of party and party-system change in multiparty democracies. It is perhaps in place therefore to end this study by rounding off the account of the Israeli scene with a few reflections about the possible long-term transformation of its parties and party system, in the hope that this in turn may prove not wholly irrelevant to the comparative aspect of the undertaking. Our discussion of the Israeli developments ended with the nullification of the direct election of the prime minister. A good deal of similarity was noted between the intentions underpinning the institution of parlia-presidentialism and its repeal. It was also pointed out that a reversion to the party constellation that anteceded the reform, or to any format familiar from the past, should not be taken for granted. This is not only because of the obvious changes in circumstances or because the restoration of proportional representation was accompanied by

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changes in the law governing elections; rather, the most important source of uncertainty lies in the context in which the gambit was played. Conditions and their perception by the voters impinge directly on the processes that connect reforms launched by party leaders and the electoral consequences that lead to party and party-system change. Irrespective of intentions, the alterations caused by the direct election of the prime minister amounted to a profound transformation of the party system. This was not restricted to elements of its institutional profile such as the number of contenders, their absolute and relative size, or linkage with segments of the electorate and ideological positions. It equally extended to the organization and conduct of the competition and to the issues on which it was waged. All these forced the electorate to consider new information and to readjust its assumptions, calculations, and preferences. In brief, the electoral reform brought about changes in the electorate that may not be easily erased. As a result, the Israeli party system has entered into a period of flux from which it is by no means clear when and in what form it will emerge. At this point it is best to forego any attempt to extend the analysis into a forecast. In any case, what will happen will hinge to no small degree on conditions that will prevail in the future, and in a country such as Israel efforts to extrapolate from present directions are prone to miss their mark. Instead of offering any predictions, it is safer therefore to exploit the well-known science fiction device of parallel worlds by which critical junctions open up alternative universes with each corresponding to the rest in all except the different path taken and the consequences it engenders. Assuming that the initial conditions are constant with those at the time of writing, lessons culled from the foregoing analysis of party and party-system changes in Israel and other countries suggest three “pure” situations that may develop in the long run and a range of combinations among them. Similar aspects are found in all three, especially relating to the status of the prime minister and its effects on the larger parties. With the return to the listbased proportional system as the only mode of national elections, prime ministers will lose the quasi-presidential power that was a source of tension between them and the subordinate party echelons; nor will they be able to count on extraparty support, or hope to win office by a majority vote. The trade off will be their improved ability to unite the party behind them. Party cohesion is of course a matter of degree, and no return to the unified parties of the Yishuv and early decades of the state is foreseeable. However, assuming that the process of decay that reached its apogee in the first elections of the millennium will be arrested is plausible. A balance will be struck between continued concentration of power at the top and the dependence on secondary party ranks to secure a wide following, resulting in a greater degree of party democracy. Related changes will be noticeable in the organization, strategy, and conduct of the main parties’ electoral campaigns. Parties base their game plans on their perceptions of voter expectations and of their comparative strengths and

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weaknesses, factors that tend to be context specific. Yet electoral systems define the relevant electorate as well as the meaning of winning and hence shape the nature of what is perceivable. Direct elections for the premier were all-or-nothing contests in which success hinged on the ability to garner at least half the popular vote. With their abolition, success once more becomes relative, measured by the ability to increase the party’s share of the vote. This limits the incentive to blur programs and converge in the center. The centripetal competition between the two main contenders for office will have therefore to be balanced by their need to engender the loyalty of their electoral base and repel the threat of its erosion. This calls for tightrope walking between giving stalwarts as well as the broader public a sense of what the party stands for and broadening the appeal sufficiently to win over the uncommitted, the floating voters, and deserters from other parties. As for the reliance on commercial media experts and campaign entrepreneurs: although this is probably irreversible, the elimination of the discrepancy between the strategies necessitated for the prime ministerial and the Knesset contests would mean that their intimate relation with and exclusive responsibility to the top leader will be converted as they become advisors to the party as a whole.12 Where the scenarios differ is in the degree to which future elections will enhance the power of the main contenders at the expense of their minor rivals. The first opens up from the realization of the primary aim behind the nullification of the electoral reform, that of curbing the tremendous power gained by the narrowly based parties in the Jewish sector. The return to the categorical voting system, one may remember, was designed to prevent these parties from cooperating with the larger ones at the prime ministerial level while competing with them for the Knesset seats. Direct all-out contests, it was assumed, would enable the latter to recapture the votes they had lost to these allies, resuppressing in the bargain the needs these had brought out into the open. Evidence from other advanced industrial countries as well as from Israel’s own past suggest that such a purposive-action reform aiming at the reversal of changes rooted in socialstructure factors has a plausible chance of success. As the editors of a recent study of party-system change point out, the social-structure approach “in its traditional form is no longer a fruitful explanatory device” because in most European countries “cleavage systems have been (or are being) replaced by more open, flexible, and changeable structures of party competition.”13 In Israel too, despite the fractured nature of its society, it was only the institution of the double vote that allowed narrowly based parties to flourish to the extent they did. Especially if divisive national issues preoccupy the electorate, one may consequently expect such parties to hemorrhage heavily, and the main focus of the competition to shift back to the vying for power among the national contestants, Likud and Labor (or their next incarnations). In this contest the small ideological parties of the left and the right, being unable to extend their appeal beyond their spatially proximate rivals would have

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only an auxiliary function. They would however take the position of what we referred to as blackmail parties, threatening tacitly or explicitly to draw voters away from the larger parties should these move excessively toward the center. The centrifugal tendencies generated by the rivalry among the communitarian parties will thereby be replaced by the pulls of the left-right divide that has shown remarkable staying power. As noted by Arian and Shamir, irrespective of the major realignment undergone by the party system in the wake of the direct election of the prime minister “the division into identificational bloc . . . is alive, well and vigorous.”14 In short, the result will be the reinstitution of the party-bloc system. Particularly if the losses suffered by the communitarian parties will not be distributed symmetrically among the larger parties but will be decisively skewed to one direction one can imagine the winning bloc able to form a coalition of its own. Within such a coalition the rump of the communitarian parties will have to suffice with playing an ancillary role. However, where no party bloc can muster a comfortable majority of Knesset seats, these same parties will acquire a pivotal position. The main parties will have to bargain with them and, as kingmakers, they will be able to extract government positions, resources, and policy promises disproportionate to their size. If we recall that public outrage over such behavior was among the primary arguments for electoral reform, one may expect a critical point to be reached when pressures for solution will be renewed leading eventually to yet another round of electoral reforms and party system changes. The second scenario starts from the failure of the abrogation of the direct election of the prime minister to induce large scale shifts in the balance of power between the broadly and narrowly based parties. This too may be explained by a comparison with what had happened in other advanced industrial countries and in Israel itself. Following World War II, Western Europe had undergone a long period in which tensions relaxed and social or historical divisions gradually blurred before the unfreezing of the patterns of voter alignment became noticeable and party systems became more fluid.15 Israel had experienced comparable economic and technological developments, and the focus on the issues of the Occupied Territories and national security served to blunt further the pursuit of sectional interests. Yet blunting is not synonymous with eliminating, and what happened in the half decade preceding the rescission of the direct election of the prime minister amounted to more than the rekindling of subjective voter awareness of existing cleavages or the appearance of more viable means for their political expression. The success of communitarian parties in the pursuit of their sectional interests brought about countermobilization among other sections and a degree of polarization that renders any comparison with Europe, or even with previous Israeli political systems, highly questionable. This is all the more so in view of the electoral blows sustained by the larger parties. In earlier decades, the dominance of Mapai followed by the imperfect

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two-partism served to contain the growth of narrowly based parties. But the Knesset ended the millennium without any large party. Nor does the switch to the electoral regime that preceded the reform guarantee in itself the reduction of factionalism. As Duverger noted, proportional representation “maintains virtually without change the party system existing at the time of its adoption.”16 Whereas assuming that a minor party such as that of the Histadrut affiliated workers would return to Labor’s fold is plausible, the same cannot be stated with regard to a party such as Shas, which is almost equal in size to the Likud itself.17 The contest then will continue to be waged between midsize centrist parties over the right to head multimembered and motley coalitions, and Shas, as the third midsize contender, would be guaranteed a virtually permanent place in office. Such a scenario seems at first blush to mean simply no change at all. However, the mutation of a party system could involve factors other than or additional to voter volatility. Constituting as it does the combination of its components and their interactions, its alteration may be the cumulative effect of modifications in these. One source of such changes is likely to be the pressure exacted in this scenario on the national parties to seek voter maximalization by conducting their campaign in the center, thus encroaching on the electoral turf of the communitarian parties. Because these have a limited support base, they are liable to be confronted with the threat of gradual erosion of their vote. The view of parties as adaptive organizations that devise strategies in response to environmental pressures leads us to expect such parties to defend themselves by undertaking transformations that will enable them to extend their appeal to broader cross-sections of the electorate. This need not involve distancing themselves from their roots. Communitarian parties seeking to preserve their independence may find a more plausible solution in the adoption of positions that could transcend narrow community interests. In the early 1990s, the Italian Northern League, for instance, substituted the call for regional autonomy and economic liberalization for its original anti-Southern rhetoric, in a bid to “transform Italy’s north/south cleavage from a cultural conflict into an economic conflict between private sector and public sector values.”18 Additional ideas emphasized toward the elections of 2001 were clearly intended to tap into all-Italian globalization resentments. For example, the party leader, Umberto Bossi, called for the construction of a wall along the border with Slovenia to keep out illegal immigrants and warned of the danger of the European Union becoming the “Soviet Union of the West.”19 Of the Israeli communitarian parties it is especially Shas that seems poised to engage in such a cleavage-bridging strategy. As one critic persuasively argued, its success in recruiting a large non-Orthodox following is largely attributable to its effort to forge a new traditional and religious Jewish-Israeli identity that would counterpose the dominant secular and Western conception and “allow its constituency of poor mizrahim to at least feel that they are located at the center of Israeli society.” In so doing, the party provided its electorate with “an

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integrative, rather than a separatist principle of political organizing.”20 Its long service in the central social ministries under the Likud, One Israel, and national unity governments could well inspire the expansion of this ideology to oppose the privatization of the health and welfare services, and to advocate state interventionism, social sensitivity, and the traditional values of mutual responsibility. This could serve to bolster the power of the Shas-held ministries. It could also widen its electoral appeal, especially in view of the ideological space that opened once the designations of left and right had lost their socioeconomic meanings and both Labor and the Likud advocated pro-market policies.21 Whether an ultraorthodox party could attract many additional voters on such a basis is doubtful. Can it promise or deliver material incentives to new recruits sufficient to cause them to change their allegiance? Nevertheless, the consequence is likely to be the intensification of the Knesset competition as the midsize parties, Shas, the Likud, and Labor, all try to ensnare more voters at each other’s expense. Nor is it logically necessary to assume that such intensification will be restricted to the midsize rivals, seeing that Shas may not be the only communitarian party to opt for similar strategies of overcoming the barriers set by the social divides. Be that as it may, the result is likely to be conducive to voter volatility and the broadening of the spectrum of electoral alternatives. At the same time one can expect that championing by communitarian parties of interests that are not exclusively associated with their core constituencies could reduce in the long run the acerbity of the intercleavage relationships and the centrifugal pulls they exert on the party system. What happened in Israel and such disparate countries such as India and France suggests a third scenario. Irrespective of the vast differences in their regime types, cultural patterns, and socioeconomic development, the three shared multicleavaged systems in which fractionalism was sharply reduced following the formation of party clusters. The adoption of a similar strategy by the current main Israeli contenders could restore their numbers through interelite agreements rather than through the test of the ballot box. This would assuage their fear of a vicious circle where electoral competitions without the benefit of large size that would encourage voters to cast strategic ballots in their favor will only serve to entrench their status as midsize competitors. Moreover, especially if the conclusion is reached that cleavages that had been deepened by parliapresidentialism are not likely to be smoothed over in the near future, cooperation rather than competition with communitarian rivals will enhance the suprasectional appeal of such parties as Labor and the Likud. This was the logic behind the formation of One Israel, and its recurrence could enable the larger parties to avert the risky and potentially destabilizing alternative of resurrecting their socioeconomic identities or forging new ones as a way of readapting themselves to the categorical list-based proportional voting system. Even the price of clustering is likely to be relatively low. Unlike the parties that clustered in the 1960s there

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will be few ideological differences between the partners. Most of what will be required will be the formalization of arrangements for “representation as presence”22 which will enhance the image of responsiveness and flexibility. The cluster alternative will likewise offer an appealing alternative for communitarian and single issue parties that had failed to establish an ideology of their own and that would otherwise have to compete in the volatile center of the ideological party spectrum. In addition to guaranteed survival and a share in power, being part of a large catchall party, and especially one in office, could help in widening their appeal, thus supplementing the programmatic transcendence of narrow sectional interests.23 In view of such a confluence of interests between the main contenders and smaller parties, it is not surprising that barely three months after his victory, prime minister Sharon was able to present before his colleagues a plan for the expansion of the Likud through the absorption of other parties and factions. The newcomers will be allowed to retain their separate organizational identities but will share the party platform and be assured positions on the joined candidate list for the next elections. The negative reaction points to a problem that would have to be surmounted if clustering is to become feasible. The accommodation of new factions will require the downgrading of the party’s representatives on the joint electoral candidate list. But in parties that had significantly shrunk, this is likely to be feared by members required to make the sacrifice as a political death sentence. The leaders of the mid-1960s and early 1970s had equally to consider the reaction of the lower ranks of the party leadership, as did Netanyahu in 1996 and Barak in 1999. Nevertheless, the earlier generation enjoyed the prestige and authority of founding fathers whereas the latter generation derived power from their semipresidential position. Prime ministers in the future are liable to lack either.24 Once this difficulty is overcome, the new clusters will sooner or later have to face the problem of cluster-party stability. Common to all the clusters considered in this book, not only in Israel or during the 1970s and 1980s,25 was their precarious nature reflecting the tension between the aim of collectively expanding the party’s electoral base and furthering specific interests. In the cases discussed hitherto, the incentive for party clustering was either the existence of a dominant party or the clustering of opposition parties seeking to overcome it. This is not the aim of the clustering under discussion, in which the shift of votes sought is between major and minor parties. However, the logic underlying the internal dynamics of cluster parties stays unaltered, and the unavoidable personalist dimension of factional rivalry is liable to foster the perception that it all comes down to jockeying for positions among power-hungry politicians. The consequence might then be a voter backlash that would penalize the party in power and destabilize the system anew. The aim of all this was not to exhaust the alternatives. Rather, it was to project what has been learned from the past onto the wide screen of future

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possibilities. Whether history will eventually favor one or several scenarios in combination, or whether additional ones will become thinkable, is a question best left to clairvoyants and visionary politicians. One forecast that can however be made with less timidity is that the next permutation will not be the last and that both party and party system change will continue to take place. Despite the high drama and fast pace of change in Israel, its position is by no means unique. As Marcus Aurelius put it so long ago, “time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and its current is strong; no sooner does anything appear than it is swept away and another comes in its place, and will be swept away too.”

NOTES

Chapter 1 1. Interview with the author, February 2, 1980. 2. The parties were the left-wing Citizens’ Rights Movement and the rightist Ariel Sharon’s Sholmzion. Both attempts broke down largely because of personal incompatibilities. 3. Haim Ramon, quoted in Clyde Haberman, “Meet a New (and Younger) Breed of Israelis,” New York Times, January 12, 1995. 4. For Mapai’s pivotal position and its consequences see, among others, Amitai Ezioni, “Alternative Ways to Democracy: The Example of Israel,” Political Science Quarterly 74 (1959): 194–214. 5. Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis (London: Cambridge University Press, 1976), pp. 121–215. 6. Ibid. For Israel, see Giovanni Sartori, “European Political Parties: The Case of Polarized Pluralism,” in Political Parties and Political Development, ed. J. LaPalombara and M. Weiner (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966), esp. p. 160. 7. Douglas Ray, The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws, 2nd ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971), p. 126. 8. Leon T. Hadar, “Reforming Israel—Before It’s Too Late,” Foreign Policy 81 (1990–91): 118–119; for a study of such negotiations and the tensions they generated see Ziva Flamhaft, Israel on the Road to Peace: Accepting the Unacceptable (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1996). 9. For a discussion of the diaspora intervention in the 2001 election see Eliahu Salpeter, “Will the Entire Jewish People Decide?” Ha’aretz, January 10, 2001; for the endorsement of Barak by Palestinian Authority leaders see Ha’aretz, January 28, 2001 and esp. January 30, 2001. 10. On the problematics of defining party change where it is assumed that specific aspects of party organization and behavior undergo a continual process of adaptation, see Peter Mair, “The Problem of Party System Change,” Journal of Theoretical Politics 1 (1989): 251–276. 11. Especially in the United States, where two large parties constituting umbrella coalitions of numerous groups divide most of the vote, experts have pointed out that party 250

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identifications are nourished by socialization and are passed on from one generation to the next. This reinforces groups loyalties, serves to stabilize the party system, and protects parties from sudden voter fluctuations. See Angus Campbell, Philip Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes, The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1964). On the applicability of party identification to West European party systems see, among others, Bradley M. Richardson, “European Party Loyalties Revisited,” American Political Science Review 85 (1991): 751–775; Eric Schickler and Donald P. Green, “The Stability of Party Identification in Western Democracies,” Comparative Political Studies 30 (1997): 450–483. 12. Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross National Perspectives (New York: Free Press, 1967), p. 50. 13. Ronald Inglehart, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977); Ronald Inglehart, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990); Paul R. Abramson and Ronald Inglehart, Value Change in Global Perspective (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995). 14. Steven B. Wolinetz, “Introduction,” in Parties and Party Systems in Liberal Democracies, ed. S. B. Wolinetz (London: Routledge, 1988), p. 7. 15. Otto Kirchheimer, “The Transformation of the Western-European Party System,” in Political Parties and Political Development, ed. J. LaPalombara and M. Weiner (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968). 16. For the distinction between mass and cadre parties, see Maurice Duverger, Political Parties (London: Methuen, 1955), pp. 63–71. For a more recent formulation of the thesis, see Peter Mair, “Continuity, Change and Vulnerability of Party,” West European Politics 12 (1999): 183. 17. Leon D. Epstein, Political Parties in Western Democracies (New York: Praeger, 1967), pp. 257–260. 18. Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair, “Three Faces of Party Organization: Adaption and Change,” EPRU Working Paper 4 (1990), Victoria University of Manchester; R. S. Katz and P. Mair, eds., Party Organizations (London: Sage, 1992), esp. p. 18. 19. Frank L. Wilson, “Sources of Party Transformation: The Case of France,” in Western European Party Systems: Trends and Prospects, ed. P. Merkl (New York: Free Press, 1980), p. 544. See also Frank L. Wilson, “The Sources of Party Change: The Social Democratic Parties of Britain, France, Germany, and Spain,” in How Political Parties Work, Perspectives from Within, ed. K. Lawson (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994), pp. 263–283. 20. Angelo Panebianco, Political Parties: Organization and Power (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 240–261. 21. Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda, “An Integrated Theory of Party Goals and Party Change,” Journal of Theoretical Politics 6 (1994): 259–287. 22. Ibid., p. 268.

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Notes 23. Panebianco, Political Parties Organization and Power, p. 244. 24. Wilson, “The Sources of Party Change,” p. 281.

25. Robert Harmel, Uk Hero, Alexander Tan and Kenneth Janda, “Performance, Leadership, Factions and Party Change: An Empirical Analysis,” West European Politics 8 (1995): 1–33. See also Kenneth Janda, Robert Harmel, Christine Edens and Patricia Goff, “Changes in Party Identity: Evidence from Party Manifestos” Party Politics 1 (1995): 171–196. 26. Leon Epstein, “Political Parties in Western Democratic Systems,” in Political Parties, ed. R. Macridis (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), pp. 145–148; Epstein, Political Parties in Western Democracies, p. 19. 27. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties, pp. 217, 239. See also his reassessment, Maurice Duverger, “Duverger’s Law: Forty Years Later,” in Electoral Laws and Their Political Consequences ed. B. Grofman and A. Lijphart (New York: Agathon Press, 1986), pp. 69–84. 28. See for example, Octavio A. Neto and Gary W. Cox, “Electoral Institutions, Cleavage Structures, and the Number of Parties,” American Journal of Political Science 41 (1997): 149–174, and Rein Taagepera, “The Number of Parties as a Function of Heterogeneity and Electoral System,” Comparative Political Studies 32 (1999): 531–548. 29. Yael Yishai, “‘New’ versus ‘Old’ Politics in the 1996 Elections,” in The Elections in Israel 1996, ed. A. Arian and M. Shamir, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), pp. 137–162. 30. Asher Arian and Michal Shamir, “Candidates, Parties and Blocs,” Party Politics 7 (2001): 705. 31. Another form of such a party is the organization expressing the interests of regional communities, for example, the Italian Northern League. Probably because of its size and the all-embracing nature of its problems, parties of this kind never competed in Israeli national elections. For the concept of Communitarian party, see Kay Lawson and Peter H. Merkl, “Alternative Organizations: Environmental, Supplementary, Communitarian and Authoritarian,” in When Parties Fail ed. K. Lawson and P. Merkl (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 8–9. 32. Yediot Aharonot, October 1, 1999. See also Minister Ben Eliezer’s comments, Ibid., September 30, 1999. 33. Ibid., October 10, 1999.

Chapter 2 1. Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, bk. 1, chap. 3, passim; “History,” Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. III, in The Works of Thomas Carlyle in Thirty Volumes, ed. H. D. Traill (London: Chapman and Hall, 1907).

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2. For a mid-1950s assessment, see Benjamin Akzin, “Party Role in the Israeli Democracy,” in The Social Structure of Israel, ed. S. Eisenstadt, H. Adler, R. Bar-Yosef and R. Cahana (Jerusalem: Academon, 1969), p. 124. For later figures see pp. 100–101. 3. For the concept of new society see Louis Hartz, The Founding of New Societies (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964). For Israel as a new society, see Daniel J. Elazar, Israel: Building a New Society (Bloomingdale: Indiana University Press, 1986), and Joel S. Migdal, Through the Lens of Israel: Explorations in State and Society (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), pp. 123–146. 4. For a discussion see Giora Goldberg, Political Parties in Israel: From Mass Parties to Electoral Parties (Tel Aviv: Ramot, Tel Aviv University Press, 1992), pp. 23–28; Myron J. Aronoff, “Israel under Labor and the Likud: The Role of Dominance Considered,” in Uncommon Democracies: The One Party Dominant Regimes ed. T. J. Pempel (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 260–262. 5. T. John Pempel, “Introduction,” Uncommon Democracies, ed. T. J. Pempel, pp. 2–5, passim. 6. Michael Shalev, “The Political Economy of Labor-Party Dominance and Decline in Israel,” Ibid., p. 92. 7. Aronoff, “Israel under Labor and the Likud,” p. 263. As Maurice Duverger, the first political scientist to define dominance put it, a central feature is the identification of a party “with an epoch . . . its doctrines, ideas, methods, its style, so to speak, coincide with those of an epoch.” See his Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State, trans. B. North and R. North (London: Methuen, 1967), pp. 308–309. 8. Some have noted, however, that the term Mamlachtiut cannot be wholly equated with statism because the state, in Ben-Gurion’s philosophy, was a tool rather than an end in itself (as with Mussolini, for instance). Some have therefore been suggested that civic-mindedness may come closer to Ben-Gurion’s concept. See Peter Medding, The Founding of Israeli Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 135, and Alan Dowty, “Zionism’s Greatest Conceit,” Israel Studies 1 (1998): 10. 9. Herut Election Platform, 1961. 10. Quoted in Michell Cohen, Zion and State (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987), p. 139. 11. Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion: A Biography, trans. P. Kidron (Jerusalem: Steimatzky, 1978), p. 73. 12. Ariel Levite and Sidney Tarrow, “The Legitimation of Excluded Parties in Dominant Party Systems: A Comparison of Israel and Italy,” Comparative Politics 15 (1983): 295–327. 13. Moshe Lissak, Social Mobility in the Israeli Society (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1969), pp. 76–80; Moshe Lissak, “Continuity and Change in the Voting Patterns of Oriental Jews,” in The Elections in Israel 1969, ed. A. Arian (Jerusalem: Academic Press, 1972), pp. 264–277.

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Notes

14. Jonathan Shapiro, The Road to Power: Herut Party in Israel (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), pp. 78, 86–89. 15. Fareed Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” Foreign Affairs 76 (1997): 22–43. 16. Shapiro, The Road to Power, pp. 9–62. 17. Minutes of Herut Central Committee Meeting, December 16, 1955, Jabotinsky Archives (Tel Aviv, Metzudat Ze’ev). 18. Ariah Avineri, The Liberal Connection (Tel Aviv: Zemora-Bitan, 1984), pp. 70–71. 19. Ibid., p. 75. 20. Interview with Moshe Kol, Ha’aretz, February 7, 1965; interview with Pinchas Rosen, Ma’ariv, February 26, 1965. 21. Ha’aretz, November 26, 1963. 22. Quoted in Amnon Dror, “A Liberal-Herut Union on the Horizon,” Lamerhav, November 19, 1993. 23. Quoted in Avineri, The Liberal Connection, p. 76. 24. Minutes of the Herut Party Caucus Meeting, February 17, 1965, Jabotinsky Archives (Tel Aviv, Metzudat Ze’ev). 25. Quoted in Dror, “A Liberal-Herut Union on the Horizon.” 26. Yehuda Sha’ari, “The Liberals Will Not Abandon Their Duty,” Ha’aretz, November 25, 1964. 27. Amnon Barzilai, “Interview with Elimelech Rimalt,” Ha’aretz, February 5, 1965. 28. Yizhak Artzi, “Why the Negation with a Capital N,” Haboker, February 28, 1965. 29. Mordechai Stern, “Unity and Uniqueness,” Ha’aretz, December 4, 1964. 30. Hillel Seidel, “The Right-Wing Alliance—The Right-Wing Threat,” Yediot Aharonot, March 26, 1965. See also Yehuda Sha’ari, “The Right-Wing Alliance Will Not Constitute an Alternative,” Ha’aretz, March 10, 1965. 31. See for example, Dov Johans, “The ‘Janus’ Party,” Ha’aretz, March 15, 1965. 32. In the Herut Party Caucus Meeting of February 2, 1965, for example, some argued that anything less than a full merger with the Liberals, which will be based on Herut’s principles, should be rejected. “The Herut movement presented itself as an alternative, not only to the government but to the ideas that it disseminates. The formation of an alliance of the kind which is being proposed constitutes a betrayal of our mission. . . . Let us not lose our uniqueness. We offer an alternative—not just replacement of [people in] government.” 33. Stern, “Unity and Uniqueness.” 34. Elimelech Rimalt, quoted in Yeshaayahu Ben Port, “The Liberals Are Seeking Their Way,” Yediot Aharonot, January 20, 1965; Elimelech Rimalt, interview, Ha’aretz, February 5, 1965.

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35. Yehuda Sha’ari, “The Liberals Will Not Abandon Their Duty”; Herut Party Caucus Meeting, February 2, 1965. See also Herut Party Caucus Meeting, February 2 and 17, 1965. For expressions of the same sentiment during earlier periods of merger negotiations see, for example, Herut Central Committee, July 27, 1955. 36. Menachem Begin, “Motherland and Liberty,” The Herut Movement (Tel Aviv: Shoham, 1948), pp. 3–6. 37. David Sha’ari, “Herut and the Liberals,” Ha’aretz, November 25, 1964. 38. See Shapiro, The Road to Power, pp. 116–118. 39. Herut Electoral Platform, 1961. 40. Menachem Begin, The Policy of a National-Liberal Government (Tel Aviv: Herut Party Information Office, 1963). 41. Betar, the Revisionist youth movement, actually demanded its members to observe religious practices and adopted the vision of messianic redemption. See Shapiro, The Road to Power, pp. 40–41. 42. Begin, “The Principles of the Herut Movement,” The Herut Movement, p. 12. 43. Herut Knesset Draft Resolution, quoted in Shapiro, The Road to Power, p. 87. 44. Sha’ari, “The Liberals Will Not Abandon Their Duty.” 45. Begin, “Motherland and Liberty,” pp. 6, 10–11. 46. See Minutes of the Herut Party Caucus Meetings, January 18, 1965, and February 2, 1965. See also Yohanan Bader, The Knesset and I (Jerusalem: Idanim, 1979), pp. 171–172. 47. Ma’ariv, September 21, 1965. 48. The Gahal Agreement, (Tel Aviv: Gahal Information Office, 1965) 49. Al Hamishmar, January 20, 1963. 50. Davar, January 20, 1963. 51. Lamerhav, January 18, 1963. 52. See Amnon Dror, “Mapam between Vision and Reality,” Lamerhav, April 16, 1963. See also Ze’ev Tzoor, “We Are All in the Same Boat,” Ibid., April 26, 1963. 53. Lamerhav, March 10, 1963. 54. Lamerhav, March 19, 1963; Davar, March 17, 1963. 55. Lamerhav, October 8, 1963. 56. Ibid., March 1, 1964. 57. Yosef Almogi, Total Commitment (New York: Cornwall, 1982), p. 235. For the formation of Rafi see Natan Yanai, Split at the Top (Tel Aviv: Lewin-Epstein, 1969). 58. Haboker, March 6, 1964.

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Notes 59. Ma’ariv, September 30, 1964. 60. Ahdut Ha’avoda Electoral Platform, (Tel Aviv: Ahdut Ha’avoda, October

1959.) 61. Ibid. For a comparison of Herut and Ahdut Ha’avoda’s positions see Samuel J. Roberts, Party and Policy in Israel: The Battle between Hawks and Doves (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1990), pp. 19–24. 62. Ibid. Ahdut Ha’avoda Electoral Platform, 1959.

Chapter 3 1. Panebianco, Political Parties: Organization and Power, p. 4. 2. Such a theory was indeed promulgated by Anthony Downs in his now-classic An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1957). In a sense this could be taken as a fore-runner of the adaptive organizational approach. 3. See for example, William N. Chambers, “Party Development and Party Action: The American Origins,” History and Theory 3 (1963): 91–120; William N. Chambers, “Politics and Nation Building in America,” in Political Parties and Political Development, ed. LaPalombara and Weiner, pp. 79–106; V. O. Key, Southern Politics in State and Nation (New York: Knopf, 1949), pp. 298–318; V. O. Key, Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups (New York: Crowell, 1968), p. 325. 4. For Italy see, among others, Raphael Zariski, “Interparty-Party Conflict in a Dominant Party: The Experience of Italian Christian Democracy,” Journal of Politics 27 (1965): 3–34; Alan Zuckerman, Political Clienteles in Power: Party Factions and Cabinet Coalitions in Italy (Beverly Hills, Cahf.: Sage, 1975); Samuel H. Barnes, Party Democracy: The Politics of an Italian Socialist Federation (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977). For the Japanese case see, among others, Haruhiro Fukui, “Japan: Factionalism in a Dominant Party System,” in Faction Politics: Political Parties and Factionalism in Comparative Perspective, ed. F. P. Belloni and D. C. Beller (Oxford: Clio Press, 1978), pp. 43–72. 5. See, among others, Ralph W. Nicholas, “Factions: A Comparative Analysis,” in Political Systems and the Distribution of Power, ed. M. Banton, (London: Tavistock, 1968), pp. 21–26; Frederick G. Baily, Strategies and Spoils (London: Blackwell, 1969). 6. See for example, Efraim Torgovnik, “The Election Campaign: Party Needs and Voter Concern,” in The Elections in Israel 1973, ed. A. Arian (Jerusalem: Academic Press, 1975), pp. 59–94; Raphael Zariski, “Party Factions and Comparative Politics: Some Preliminary Observations,” Midwest Journal of Political Science 4 (1960): 27–51. 7. See Duverger, Political Parties, esp. p. 175. 8. For example, Raymond Firth, “Factions in India and Overseas Indian Societies,” British Journal of Sociology 8 (1957): 291–294; Lewis Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1956), p. 118.

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9. Belloni and Beller eds., Faction Politics; Frank P. Belloni and Dennis C. Beller, “The Study of Party Factions as Competitive Political Organization,” Western Political Quarterly 29 (1975): 531–549; Jonathan Mendilow, “Party Cluster Formations in MultiParty Systems,” Political Studies 30 (1982): 485–505. 10. The data were generated according to the following procedures: (a) campaign ads were reviewed independently by two checkers and categorized according to predetermined content categories prepared by the author; (b) in cases of disagreement, the author served as judge; (c) where all three failed to include the ad under any of the content categories, the ad was listed under the category of “others.” 11. For a detailed analysis of the policy consequences of the formation of the Mapai-Ahdut Ha’avoda-Rafi cluster with special attention to the territorial issue see Yossi Beilin, The Price of Unity, the Labor Party up to the Yom Kippur War (Tel Aviv: Revivim, 1985). For the period between the formation of the cluster and the collapse of the national unity government, see esp. pp. 49–116. 12. Alan Arian, Michael Gurevitch, Emanuel Gutmann, and Louis Guttman, Israel, Elections Study 1969 (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, Department of Political Science, Summer 1971), pp. 20–23. 13. Israeli Institute for Applied Social Research, Israel: Elections Study 1973, Findings (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, Department of Political Science, Summer 1977). 14. In the socioeconomic sphere 64 percent saw great (17 percent) or certain differences (47 percent), versus 25 percent who saw them as small (17 percent) or nonexistent (8 percent). On the issue of the Territories, 40 percent perceived great differences and 42 percent certain differences among the parties. Ibid., pp. 16, 19. 15. Ibid., pp. 9–11. These answers did not change substantially during the campaign itself. Thus, on the differences in the first issue, 42 percent saw little or no differences versus 43 percent who regarded the differences as big or very big; on the second issue it was 47 percent versus 43 percent, see p. 56. 16. Ibid., p. 24. 17. The Labor Alignment Agreement, p. 12. 18. Israel: Elections Study 1973, Findings, pp. 73–74. 19. Ibid., p. 77. 20. Yediot Aharonot, February 2, 1980. 21. Kol Ha’ir, July 17, 1984; Nachman Orieli and Amnon Barzilai, The Rise and Fall of the DMC (Tel Aviv: Reshafim, 1982). 22. For an analysis of the DMC’s formation, goals and impact, see Efraim Torgovnik, “A Movement for Change in a Stable System,” in The Elections in Israel 1977, ed. A. Arian (Jerusalem: Academic Press, 1980), pp. 75–98. 23. Kirchheimer, “The Transformation of the West European Party System,” p. 200.

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24. Michael Gurevitch, “Television in the Election Campaign: Its Audience and Functions,” in The Elections in Israel 1969, ed. A. Arian (Jerusalem: Academic Press, 1972), p. 224. 25. Ibid., p. 235. 26. Robert Michels, Political Parties (New York: Heart’s International Library, 1915). 27. See Richard Joslyn, Mass Media and Elections (New York: Random House, 1984), pp. 273–296. 28. Asher Arian, Politics in Israel: The Second Generation (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1985), pp. 105–164; Jonathan Mendilow, “Public Party Funding and the Schemes of Mice and Men,” Party Politics 2 (1996): 332. Following the introduction of primary elections and membership drives the numbers rose again. See Menachem Hofnung, “Public Financing, Party Membership and Internal Party Competition,” European Journal of Political Research 29 (1996): 73–86, and Asher Arian, The Second Republic: Politics in Israel (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1998), pp. 160–161. For a comparison of the effects of primaries in Israel and the United States and a discussion of the role of party public funding on party participation see Jonathan Mendilow and Frank Rusciano, “ The Effects of Public Funding on Party Participation,” in Foundations for Democracy, ed. K. H. Nassmacher (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2001), pp. 222–239. One should note however that much of the registration for the primaries turned out to be deceitful. See Yael Yishai, “Bringing Society Back In,” Party Politics 7 (2001): 675. 29. See Jonathan Mendilow, “Party Financing in Israel: Experience and Experimentation, 1968–85,” in Comparative Political Finance in the 1980’s, ed. H. E. Alexander (Cambridge, G.B: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 124–152. Such a measure, one of the very first of its kind, was based on a distinction between expenses incurred by a party in connection with its electoral campaign and all other expenditures (“current expenditure”). To cover these parties were allotted monthly allowances (“current financing unit”) multiplied by the number of their Knesset representatives. In addition, each party could add up to 50 percent from its own resources. These arrangements, with the figures updated periodically, persisted with relatively minor changes up to 1992 when an important element to be discussed later affected the entire funding system. 30. Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair, “Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party,” Party Politics 1 (1995): 15. 31. Ibid. p. 16. 32. Epstein, Political Parties in Western Democracies, pp. 257–260. 33. Israel, Elections Study 1969, pp. 25–26. 34. Israel, Elections Study 1973, p. 71. 35. Norman Nie, Sydney Verba and John Petrocik, The Changing American Voter (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 289.

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36. Ma’ariv, September 9, 1973: October 4, 1973. 37. Interview with Yoram Peri, June 8, 1974. 38. Interview with Eliyahu Ben-Elishar, June 8, 1974. 39. Ilan Peleg and Ofira Seliktar, eds., The Emergence of Binational New Israel: The Second Republic in the Making (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1988). 40. Jonathan Shapiro, “The End of a Dominant Party System,” in The Elections in Israel 1977, ed. A. Arian pp. 23–38. 41. Shapiro, The Road to Power, p. 165. 42. The Labor Alignment Electoral Platform, sec. 5; The Likud Electoral Platform, March 1977. 43. Shimon Shorr, ed., The Partnership between Mapam and Labor (Ha’Kibbuz Ha’artzi: Education Department, October 1974), pp. 1–2, 11, 6. 44. Hanoch Smith, “Issues Most Salient for the Voters,” Ma’ariv, May 15, 1977. 45. On the role of commercial firms in the elections see Alex Ansky, The Selling of the Likud (Tel Aviv: Zemora-Bitan and Modan, 1978). For a content analysis of the election appeal see Judith Elizur, Elihu Katz, “The Media in the Israel Election of 1977,” in The Elections in Israel 1977, ed. A. Arian pp. 189–211. 46. Epstein, Political Parties in Western Democracies, p. 19 47. For the application of Giorgio Galli’s concept to the Israeli context see Reuven Y. Hazan, “Party System Change in Israel, 1948–98: A Conceptual and Typological Border-Stretching of Europe?” in Comparing Party System Change, eds. P. Pennings and J. Lane (New York: Routledge, 1998), pp. 158–159.

Chapter 4 1. Hillel Siedel, Letter to Menachem Begin, September 24, 1979. 2. Adi Pesach, “The Voter’s Estimate of Foreign and Domestic Policy of the Likud and the Alignment, July 1980 Survey,” News of the Israeli Institute of Applied Social Research (Jerusalem, 1981), pp. 18–19. 3. Survey conducted by Mina Zemach, January 1981, quoted in Eliyahu Hasin, “The Israeli Democracy: The Beginning of the End?” Monitin 30 (1981): 73–75. 4. Haim Hacham, “The Differences between Moshe Dayan and Yigal Hurwitz,” Ma’ariv, April 1, 1981. 5. Shlomo Ahronson, “The Uniqueness of Dayan’s Plan,” Ha’aretz, March 11, 1981. 6. Moshe Segal, “Adversaries,” Jerusalem Post, weekend magazine, May 19, 1981.

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7. Although the literature on coalitions is vast, the tendency has always been to study their formation rather than their disintegration, and even less attention has been paid to the day-to-day interplay that marks their existence. See Michael Laver and Kenneth A. Shepsle, “Coalitions and Cabinet Government,” American Political Science Review 84 (1990): 873–890. The same lacuna is repeated in the study of parties. Whereas much has been devoted to the birth of new parties, very little indeed deals with their disappearance or stillbirth. As one student of party coalitions noted, “the sordid tales of bargaining failure are rarely told. But if our interest is in coalition bargaining itself . . . [this] results in selection bias.” See Kaare Strom, “The Presthers Debacle: Intraparty Politics and Bargaining Failure in Norway,” American Political Science Review 88 (1994): 112–113. 8. In 1961 the Liberals and Herut gained 27.4 percent of the general vote. In 1965 Gahal won 21.3 percent and together with the Independent Liberals, 25.1 percent. This almost brought the combined power of the three to what they won in 1959, 24.3 percent. The majority of those voters who transferred their vote to the Liberals in protest against the debacle in Mapai apparently returned to it, or else transferred their vote to Rafi. 9. Yosef Sapir, “Gahal Wants a New Face,” Ha’aretz, December 9, 1965. 10. Quoted in Shapiro, The Road to Power, p. 141. 11. An instance of intrafactional debate that did not spill over into an interfactional conflict relates to Gahal’s decision in 1970 to leave the national unity government. Ezer Weizman led pragmatists within Herut in opposition to the move. His failure to carry his point led him to challenge Begin for the leadership toward the end of 1972; the penalty exacted was his exclusion from all party activity lasting until his rehabilitation in 1977. Those Liberals who likewise were opposed to leaving the government decided nevertheless (by a narrow margin of the Knesset caucus) against a party breakup, mainly out of fear of losses in the forthcoming elections. 12. William Riker, The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1962). 13. Yediot Aharonot, February 2, 1980. 14. Yediot Aharonot, March 7, 1980; Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Radio), March 7, 1980. 15. Hillel Seidel, Letter to the Likud MKs, May 5, 1980. 16. Ehud Sprinzak, The Ascendance of Israel’s Radical Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 5. See also Colin Shindler, Israel, Likud and the Zionist Dream (London: Tauris, 1995), pp. 88–108. As he phrased it, “the realities of decisionmaking and forging of policy—particularly in the context of . . . peace—showed that the Likud functioned primarily as a disparate anti-Labour coalition,” p. 94. 17. Pamphlet on Economic Policy, February 20, 1980. 18. John May, “Opinion Structure of Political Parties: The Special Law of Curvilinear Disparity,” Political Studies 21 (1973): 135–151. 19. A good deal of overlapping is to be expected. National leaders cannot treat the party merely as means to secure them in office, whereas the subleadership must account

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for the pragmatic need to compete in the electoral market. For the criticism see Pippa Norris, “May’s Law of Curvilinear Disparity Revisited: Leaders, Officers, Members and Voters in British Political Parties,” Party Politics 1 (1995): 29–48. 20. Such justification may take different forms: that in accordance with the circumstances of each case at issue the leadership is doing its utmost to pursue the factional interests; that the course of action followed will provide the faction with positions of power that, although seemingly at the expense of immediate satisfactions, will ensure the promotion of factional interests in the future; or, negatively, that the failure to compromise will harm irreparably not merely the cluster party but also the faction itself. To be credible, even this last claim will hinge on the ability of the leaders to convince the subleaders that specific factional interests are being furthered or at least maintained. 21. MK Y. Berman, quoted in Ha’aretz, January 9, 1979. 22. See interview with Yosef Tamir, Yediot Aharonot, December 12, 1979. 23. Elimelech Rimalt, quoted in Ha’aretz, June 22, 1981. 24. Interview with MK Dekel, December 1983. 25. Interview with MK Sarid, January 12, 1980. 26. Ha’aretz, May 10, 1981. 27. Michal Shamir and Asher Arian, “The Ethnic Vote in Israel’s 1981 Elections,” in The Elections in Israel 1981, ed. A. Arian (Tel Aviv: Ramot, 1983), pp. 91–112. See also Asher Arian, “Elections 1981: Competitiveness and Polarization,” Jerusalem Quarterly (1981): 3–27. 28. Ha’aretz, November 12, 1992. 29. Interview with MK M. Harish, December 16, 1982. 30. Zeev Sternhell, “To Begin from the Beginning,” Ha’aretz, June 6, 1983. 31. Eliuhu Speiser, “To Dismantle the Alignment,” Yediot Aharonot, July 27, 1982; Mark Segal, “Party in Waiting,” Jerusalem Post, January 28, 1983; interview with MK E. Speiser, December 6, 1983. 32. Sternhell, “To Begin from the Beginning.” 33. Sara Honig, “Groundswell in Labor for Alignment Break-up,” Jerusalem Post, May 7, 1982. 34. Shevah Weiss, “Unity and Survival,” Jerusalem Post, May 25, 1983. 35. Segal, “Party in Waiting.” 36. Mark Segal and Roy Isacowitz, “Anatomy of the Body Politic,” Jerusalem Post, August 3, 1984; Alex Berlyne, “Invisible Man,” Jerusalem Post, July 6, 1984. 37. An exception was the Hanoch and Rafi Smith polls that reported 7 percent undecided voters in May 1983, 7.5 percent in December 1983, and 6 percent in April

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1984. See Hanoch and Rafi Smith, “Undecided Vote Is Far Lower than in 1981,” Jerusalem Post, April 20, 1984. 38. I would like to thank the Alignment Election Headquarters for permission to use these statistics. 39. Among the supporters of this line were the heads of the United Kibbutz Movement and MK Abba Eban, Israel’s most widely known and respected diplomat. See Segal and Isacowitz, “Anatomy of the Body Politic,” and Ma’ariv, June 22, 1984. 40. Ma’ariv, June 22, 1984. 41. Interview with Benny Temkin (CRM), September 15, 1984. 42. Ma’ariv, June 22, 1994; Mark Segal, “Some Like It Hot,” Jerusalem Post, June 22, 1994. 43. Ibid. 44. Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television), June 28, 1984. 45. Interview with MK Moshe Nissim, August 17, 1984. 46. MK Meir Shitrit, in Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television), July 13, 1984. 47. Interview with Yitzhak Peretz, Jerusalem Post, August 3, 1984

Chapter 5 1. With the exception of the National Religious Party, which refused to enter any coalition save that of national unity. 2. For an analysis and a comparison between the national unity governments of 1977 and 1984, see Natan Yanai, “The Resumption of a Communal Coalition Tradition,” in Israel’s Odd Couple, ed. D. Elazar and S. Sandler (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1990), pp. 169–192. 3. Donald Stokes, “Spatial Models of Party Competition,” in Elections and the Political Order, ed. A. Campbell, P. E. Converse, W. E. Miller and D. Stokes, (New York: Wiley, 1966), p. 171. 4. Ha’aretz, October 3, 1987. 5. Jerusalem Post, December 19, 1987. 6. Moshe Arens, “From Unrest to Peace,” Jerusalem Post, April 23, 1988; Yizhak Shamir, quoted in Jerusalem Post, international ed., week ending March 11, 1988. 7. Yizhak Shamir, quoted in Ha’aretz, November 3, 1987; Shimon Peres, quoted in Ha’aretz, January 5, 1988. For an analysis of the main issues in the campaign see Hanna Herzog, “Was It on the Agenda? The Hidden Agenda of the 1988 Campaign,” in The Elections in Israel 1988, ed. A. Arian and M. Shamir (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1990), pp. 37–62.

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8. Jerusalem Post, April 2, 1988. 9. Ibid., October 28, 1987. 10. Ha’aretz, September 23, 1988. 11. Arik Nehemkin, quoted in Eyal Erlich, “Historical Mapai,” Ha’aretz, weekly magazine, May 5, 1988; Gideon Samet, “The Coming Surprise,” Ha’aretz, international ed., January 1, 1988. 12. The sympathy of the faction lay with Yizhak Rabin, number two in the party leadership, who disapproved of Egypt’s suggestion for settlement freeze. See Ma’ariv, January 22, 1988, and interview with Rabin, McNeil-Lehrer News Hour, January 29, 1988. 13. Quoted in Yael Makcus, “Is the State Burning?” Ha’aretz, June 15, 1988. 14. See Ma’ariv, January 15, 1988; Jerusalem Post, January 16, 1988, January 12, 1988. 15. Jerusalem Post, June 28, 1988. 16. Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television), October 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, and 29, 1988. 17. The Jerusalem Post, international ed., week ending October 8, 1988. 18. Interview with MK Micha Goldman, Ma’ariv, November 26, 1988. 19. Ha’aretz, May 6, 1988; The Jerusalem Post, August 19, 1988; and August 26, 1988. For an analysis of the short- and long-term effects of the intifada see Gad Barzilai, “National Security Crises and Voting Behavior: The Intifada and the 1988 Elections,” in The Elections in Israel 1988, ed. Arian and Shamir, pp. 65–76. 20. Jerusalem Post, international ed., February 20, 1988; Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television), October 25, 1988. 21. Quoted in Glenn Frankel, “In a Tight Israeli Election Arab Voters Don’t Like Either Choice,” Washington Post National Weekly, October 17–23, 1988. 22. See Roth Rodner, “The Options before the Arab Voter,” Ha’aretz, October 28, 1988. For an analysis of the Arab vote in 1984 and 1988 see Ian Lustick, “The Changing Political Role of Israeli Arabs,” The Elections in Israel 1988, ed. Arian and Shamir, pp. 115–131. 23. Labor Party, Propaganda Strategy, 1988 (Tel Aviv: Labor Press, n.d.). See also Ha’aretz, October 15, 1988. 24. Interview with Abraham Shohat, October 22, 1988. 25. Yoel Marcus, “Cameras Don’t Lie,” Ha’aretz, October 13, 1988. 26. Yosi Ahimeir (Head of Prime Minister Shamir’s Bureau), personal communication with the author, October 1, 1990. 27. Yediot Aharonot, July 13, 1984; see also Hanna Herzog, “Minor Parties: The Relevancy Perspective,” Comparative Politics 19 (1987): 324–325.

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28. The Desima polls, commissioned by Labor, predicted on the day before the bus attack 42 Labor seats and on the day after the bus attack 39 (the number actually won). The poll was released on election eve by NBC News, but suppressed by the party in Israel itself. The Smith polls predicted 40 before the attack and 38 after, and similar predictions were offered by the Israeli Institute of Applied Social Research. See Ma’ariv, November 4, 1988, and October 28, 1988. 29. Cf. Labor Alignment, Propaganda Strategy, p. 3, and the Israeli Institute of Applied Social Research polls, Jerusalem Post, October 14, 1988; October 16, 1988. 30. Israeli Institute of Applied Social Research, reported in Elihu Katz, “Terror Served the Right at the Polls,” Yediot Aharonot, November 2, 1988. 31. Quoted in Jerusalem Post, November 25, 1988. 32. Israeli Institute of Applied Social Research polls, Jerusalem Post, international ed., week ending October 16, 1988. 33. Ha’aretz, international ed., October 16, 1988. 34. Yosi Ahsmeir, personal communication. 35. See Yediot Aharonot, June 28, 1988, and July 30, 1988, and Ha’aretz, international ed., October 14, 1988; Shlomo Hillel, quoted in Jerusalem Post, November 4, 1988. 36. See Robert O. Freedman, “Religion, Politics, and the Israeli Elections of 1988,” Middle East Journal 43 (1989); 406–422. 37. This is especially evident in the development towns. In 1984 the Likud won in these 44 percent. In 1988 its percentage declined to 37.9. The ultraorthodox, by contrast, rose from 4.8 percent to 11.9 percent. See Central Bureau of Statistics, The Results of the Elections for the Twelfth Knesset, special issue (Jerusalem: Central Bureau of Statistics, 1988). 38. Quoted in Jerusalem Post, November 4, 1988. 39. Ha’aretz, international ed., October 14, 1988. 40. Der Spiegel, February 26, 1988; Yediot Aharonot, November 4, 1988. 41. Gallup poll, Jerusalem Post, June 12, 1992; see also Geocartography and Teleseker polls, Yediot Aharonot, June 12, 1992. 42. Smith polls, Ma’ariv, June 12, 1992. 43. See for example, Ma’ariv, June 19, 1992. 44. MK Ben-Eliezer, quoted in Ma’ariv, June 23, 1992. 45. Meron Benvenisti, “An Autistic System,” Ha’aretz, June 14, 1992; Yariv BenAliezer, quoted in Michal Gershon, “Everybody is Shooting Everywhere,” Ma’ariv Election Supplement, June 22, 1992; Shlomo Avineri, quoted in Jerusalem Post, June 10, 1992; David Tamir, quoted in Gershon, “Everybody Is Shooting Everywhere.” 46. Ma’ariv, June 22, 1992.

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47. See Michal Shamir, “Realignment in the Israeli Party System,” in The Elections in Israel 1984, ed. A. Arian and M. Shamir (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1986). 48. See Efrain Inbar, War and Peace in Israeli Politics: Labor Party Positions on National Security (Boulder, Colo.: Riener, 1992), pp. 26–28, 49–56. 49. MK Michael Bar-Zohar, quoted in Sarah Honig, “Right Gets Righter, Left Gets Lefter,” Jerusalem Post, international ed., week ending January 5, 1992. 50. Quoted in Yeshayahu Ben-Porat, “Despicableness,” Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, April 10, 1992. 51. Hanoch Smith polls, Jerusalem Post, January 24, 1992. See also Mina Zemach’s polls, Sarah Honig, “Grim, Party-Pooping Polls Rain on Labor Parade,” Jerusalem Post, international ed., week ending November 30, 1991. 52. See Alihu Katz and Hanan Levinsohn, “Too Good to Be True: Notes on the Israeli Elections of 1988,” International Journal of Public Opinion Research 1 (1989): 111–123. 53. Tazpit Polls, Jerusalem Post, January 31, 1992. See Aharon Fein, “Voting Trends of Recent Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union,” in The Elections in Israel 1992, ed. A. Arian and M. Shamir (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), esp. pp. 168–173. 54. For example, a Smith poll found that in January 1992, 63 percent thought Rabin would draw more votes for Labor, versus 14 percent who thought that Peres would be the more popular. The same poll also indicated that Labor led by Peres would gain 28 percent of the vote as against the Likud’s 33 percent, but under Rabin the figures would be 36.5 percent versus 28 percent, Jerusalem Post, January 24, 1992. 55. Tazpit Polls, Jerusalem Post, January 31, 1992; Ma’ariv, May 8, 1992. 56. Asher Wallfish, “Poisonous Politics Are becoming Passe,” Jerusalem Post, international ed., week ending January 11, 1992. 57. See Yosef Goell, “How Labor Could Win Next Time,” Jerusalem Post, international ed., week ending January 18, 1992. 58. MK Uzi Baram, interview in Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, February 21, 1992. 59. Jerusalem Post, international ed., week ending February 15, 1992; April 25, 1992. 60. Hadashot, May 4, 1991. 61. Ibid., May 11, 1992. 62. Hadashot, June 1, 1992. 63. Ha’aretz, June 1, 1992. 64. An interesting indication of this situation was given by private advertisements, published in the national press by nonparty groups such as the Peace Now movement or even by concerned individuals such as industrialist Steff Wertheimer, calling on the

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electorate to examine the party positions on crucial issues before casting their vote. Wertheimer’s advertisement, for instance, ran: “all [the parties] have forgotten the essentials. . . . Don’t waste your vote on irrelevancies. I am not running for the Knesset, but I am suggesting you base your choice on . . . [a list of issues that should be examined by the voter],” Ha’aretz, June 17, 1992. For the Peace Now ad, see, for example, Ha’aretz, June 8, 1992. 65. Ma’ariv, June 2, 1992. 66. MK Haim Ramon, quoted in Ma’ariv, June 23, 1992. 67. Smith polls, Ma’ariv, June 5, 1992; June 12, 1992. 68. Interview with Benni Temkin, August 17, 1992. I would like to thank the Ratz faction secretary-general, MK Benny Temkin, and the CRM campaign headquarters for permission to make use of their figures and analyses. 69. MK Micha Harish, quoted in Ha’aretz, June 8, 1992. 70. Interview with Ariel Rotenberg, Hadashot, June 26, 1992. 71. Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, “The Backyard,” Ma’ariv, June 20, 1992. 72. Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television), June 5, 1992. 73. Ibid., June 20, 1992. 74. Ibid., June 21, 1992. 75. Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Radio), June 18, 1992; June 21, 1992. 76. For example, Amnon Abramovitch, “The Floating Votes Are Drifting Ashore,” Ma’ariv, weekend supplement, June 19, 1992. 77. Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television), June 8, 1992; 20, 1992. 78. The Stands Taken by Young Voters in the Election, unpublished polls conducted by Yochanan Peres and Dafna Peres for Meretz, April 11, 1992. I wish to thank MK Temkin for permission to use this material. 79. Hadashot, May 11, 1992. 80. See Etti Sand, “Electoral Strategy, 92,” Davar, June 26, 1992. 81. Samuel Shnitzer, “The Floating Votes and Drifting Ashore,” Ma’ariv, June 19, 1992; Orit Shohat, “The Right-Wing Has Disappeared All of a Sudden,” Ha’aretz, June 26, 1992. 82. Ha’aretz, June 8, 1992; June 20, 1992. 83. Eric Silver, “The Rise of Raful,” Jerusalem Report, July 16, 1992, Hadashot, June 20, 1992. 84. Hadashot, June 20, 1992. 85. Meron Benvenisti, “The Prosaic Sobriety of the Voter,” Ha’aretz, June 19, 1992.

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86. Yosef Goel, “Voters Have Punished the Likud,” Jerusalem Post, June 26, 1992. 87. Interview with Benni Temkin, August 17, 1992. This belated explanation conforms with the strong demands the party youth headquarters made several days before the elections day to “launch an immediate attack on Tzomet with a view to exposing its hypocrisy and the hawkishness of Raful [its founder-leader],” MK Ron Cohen, quoted in Ha’aretz, June 14, 1992.

Chapter 6 1. For an analysis of pre-1992 failed attempts at reform see Hanna Diskin, Abraham Diskin, “The Politics of Electoral Reform in Israel,” International Political Science Review 16 (1995): 31–45. For an analysis of the pressures leading to the reform see Gideon Rahat, “The Politics of Reform in Israel: How the Israeli Mixed System Came to Be,” in Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds? ed. M.S. Shugart and M. P. Wattenberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 123–151, especially pp. 135–149. 2. As Steven Reed and Michael Thies pointed out, electoral reform may reflect an “act-contingent” rationality, when “the vote for reform is in the politician’s best interest even if he does not prefer the new system over the status quo.” This seems to fit several of the labor parliamentarians who had grave doubts about the reform but could not put their career at risk by opposing a popular bill on the eve of the party primaries. See Steven R. Reed and Michael F. Thies, “The Causes of Electoral Reform in Japan,” in MixedMember Electoral Systems, ed. Shugart and Wattenberg, p. 153, and Rahat “The Politics of Reform in Israel,” Ibid., pp. 146–147. For the links between the extraparliamentary reform campaign and the voters’ perceptions see Tamar Hermann, “The Rise of Instrumental Voting: The Campaign for Political Reform,” Arian and Shamir, The Elections in Israel 1992, pp. 275–297. For an analysis of the various parties’ stands on the issue of the 1992 reform and of its timing, see Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, “Strategic and Nonpolicy Voting: A Coalitional Analysis of Israeli Electoral Reform,” Comparative Politics 33 (2000): 63–80. For the Likud position see Gideon Doron and Michael Harris, Public Policy and Electoral Reform (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2000), pp. 80–81. 3. As Pippa Norris noted, the electoral reform should be seen as a product of compromises, rather than the fulfillment of a complete plan. The mix between tradition and innovation “allowed supporters to claim that the traditional aspect of inclusiveness— via proportionality in the Knesset elections—would be preserved, while governability, a traditional problem, would be enhanced.” As such, the argument ran, the special mix was “specifically designed to fit the Israeli political tradition.” Pippa Norris, “Introduction: The Politics of Electoral Reform,” International Political Science Review 16 (1995): 3–8. 4. For a detailed analysis see Reuven Y. Hazan, “Presidential Parliamentarism: Direct Popular Election of the Prime Minister, Israel’s New Electoral and Political System,” Electoral Studies 15 (1997): 21–37. 5. See Steven R. Reed, “Strategic Voting in the 1996 Japanese General Elections,” Comparative Political Studies 32 (1999): 257–270. For the Italian case see, among others,

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Richard S. Katz, “Reforming the Italian Electoral Law, 1993,” in Mixed-Member Electoral Systems, ed. Shugart and Wattenberg, pp. 96–122. 6. The amendment to the Basic Law: The government furthermore provided that the Knesset and prime ministerial elections will be conducted simultaneously. Maurice Duverger first offered the idea that the destiny of the executive and legislature will be thus tied together as a solution for the instability of the French fourth Republic. See his “Réformer Le Régime I. Un Systéme Prèsidentiel II. Un Véritable régime Parlementaire,” Le Monde, April 12–13, 1956. The Israeli reform strayed from such a concept by providing for “special elections” held only for the prime minister. However, the tenure of the winner in such a contest will end with the next general elections (i.e., when the next Knesset elections is held). The presidential features of the system were further accentuated on the eve of the 2001 special elections, when a last-minute legislation permitted individuals who are not Knesset members to run as candidates in prime ministerial elections. 7. For an analysis of the results as against the aims of the reform see Doron, Hanis, Public Policy and Electoral Reform, pp. 81–87. The damages suffered by the larger parties had a financial dimension as well. Because the public funding of parties and campaigns is determined by the number of Knesset seats and is coupled with stringent restrictions on the sources and amounts of private donations, electoral losses meant the reduction of resources. This in turn translated into lessened capacity to maintain party activities and wage future competitions. Especially in the 1999 campaign, the second contest held under the new rules of the game, there was every incentive to electionfunding abuses, resulting in a major scandal that came to light in the opening months of the millennium. 8. William Riker, “Duverger’s Law Revisited,” in Electoral Laws and Their Political Consequences ed. B. Grofman and A. Lijphart (New York: Agathon Press, 1986), pp. 19–42; Giovanni Sartori, “The Influence of Electoral Systems: Faulty Laws or Faulty Method?”; ibid., pp. 43–68. 9. Richard Rose, “Electoral Systems: A Question of Degree or of Principle?” in Choosing an Electoral System ed. A. Lijphart and B. Grofman, (New York: Praeger, 1984), p. 78. 10. See Gideon Doron, Rebecca Kook, “Religion and the Politics of Inclusion: The Success of the Ultra-Orthodox Parties,” in The Elections in Israel 1996, ed. Arian and Shamir, pp. 67–83. 11. Tamar Horowitz, “Determining Factors of the Vote among Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union,” ibid., p. 135. 12. Reuven Hazan and Gideon Rahat, “Representation, Electoral Reform, and Democracy,” Comparative Political Studies 33 (2000): 1320. 13. Ray, The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws, p. 126. 14. This of course is not unique to the main contestants in the Israeli parliapresidential system. According to the office-seeking theory of party behavior, the greatest impact on intraparty decision making is exerted by office holders, or candidates for

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elected offices, and hence the determining calculations will tend to be those of gaining or holding on to elected offices. See Joseph A. Schlesinger, “On the Theory of Party Organization,” Journal of Politics 46 (1984): 369–400. 15. For the Likud see Yediot Aharonot, April 24, 1999; April 28, 1999; April 30, 1999; for Labor see ibid., April 25, 1999. 16. Meir Schnitzer, “Finkelstein ad nauseam,” Ma’ariv, weekend supplement, April 30, 1999. 17. In this context it is interesting to note that Finkelstein defined Sharon’s victory in the premiership contest of February 2001 as “the revenge of Finkelstein” for “his” 1999 defeat. Quoted in Adam Nagourney, “American Consultant Makes His Own Comeback in Israel,” New York Times, February 8, 2001. For an excellent discussion, see Adam Nagourney, “Sound Bites over Jerusalem,” New York Times Magazine, April 25, 1999, pp. 42–47, 61, 70. 18. Including the Center Party, which did not hire U.S. consultants but nevertheless followed the recipe. 19. See Peter Y. Medding, “From Government by Party to Government Despite Party,” in Parties Elections and Cleavages: Israel in Comparative and Theoretical Perspectives ed. R. Hazan and M. Maor (London: Frank Cass, 2000), esp. pp. 182–192. 20. Sarah Netanyahu served her husband as a close advisor in the 1999 campaign headquarters, which also saw the close cooperation between the Barak team and his brother-in-law, founder of a nonprofit organization capable of coordinating the work of some 18,000 volunteers. In 2001 both of Sharon’s sons took a central role in their father’s campaign, and one of them headed his personal headquarters. 21. Ha’aretz, March 24, 1999. 22. A different case is that of Arab candidate for the premiership, whose goal was to hammer out a deal with the candidates of Labor of the Center Party by which his withdrawal would be paid for by signed commitments to ameliorate the conditions of the Arab minority in the country. As he put it, “in a 50–50 race the Arabs can tip the scales. Why should I be in anyone’s [party] without trying to have an impact?” New York Times, March 25, 1999. A different purpose was apparently behind Benni Begin’s candidature. After leaving the Likud, he attempted to force it into a more definite ideological position if it was to avoid losing voters to its right, thus extending the role of the “blackmail party” into the prime ministerial contest. 23. Although the period stretching between 1996, when the reform first came into effect, and the campaign of 1999 is so limited, examining to what degree the result could constitute a variation of May’s “Special Law of Curvilinear Disparity” might be worthwhile. According to this, a regular feature of party dynamics are discords that one may expect to set in between the national leaders and the subleadership, namely the branch officers, members, and constituency activists. The former are prone to be sensitive to the issue of electability on which their careers depend and hence will tend to be less dogmatic. The subleaders are for the most part volunteers and occupy themselves mainly

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with the details of day-to-day party activity. They are more likely therefore to give weight to party ideals, whereas the non-leaders, the occasional and less enthusiastic supporters, tend once more to be more moderate. In Israel however the fault lines within the party had shifted following the reform. MKs whose careers hinge on the success of the party in the proportionaly based electoral contest may now in turn demand greater attention to questions of principle. 24. For an analysis of the term center versus middle, see Reuven Y. Hazan, “Does Center Equal Middle? Towards a Conceptual Delineation with Application to West European Party Systems,” Party Politics, 2 (1996), pp. 209–228. 25. Myron Aronoff and Yael Aronoff, “A Cultural Approach to Explaining Domestic Influences on Current Israeli Foreign Policy: The Peace Negotiations,” Brown Journal of World Affairs 3 (1996): 86–87. 26. The Jerusalem Post, international ed., week ending October 30, 1993; Yerach Tal, “Death Alone Can Release from the Platform,” Ha’aretz, October 19, 1993. 27. Ha’aretz, October 21, 1993. 28. An abortive effort to establish a channel of communication with the PLO in 1987 ended in the expulsion of the initiator from the party. See his article following the internal debate in 1993–1994. Moshe Amirav, “The PLO Is Seeking the Likud,” Ma’ariv, June 18, 1994. 29. Yizhak Ali, “Address to the Likud Party Center,” Private Circulation, 1993. 30. Ha’aretz, October 20, 1993. 31. Yerach Tal, “Interview with Benjamin Netanyahu,” Ha’aretz, October 19, 1993. For an analysis of Netanyahu’s pre-Oslo views and his reaction to the agreement itself see Ilan Peleg, “The Likud under Rabin II: Between Ideological Purity and Pragmatic Readjustment” in Israel under Rabin ed. R. O. Freedman (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1995), esp. pp. 151–163. 32. Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Radio 1), July 20, 1996. 33. Bina Barzel, “Likud in a Trap,” Yediot Aharonot, August 1, 1994. 34. Ibid. See also Israeli Broadcasting Authority (TV. 1) August 1, 1996. 35. Barzel, “Likud in a Trap.” 36. For example, Dahaf polls, Yediot Aharonot, December 30, 1994. 37. Ha’aretz, October 13, 1994. 38. Knesset Minutes, July 24, 1995. 39. A few posters may give something of the atmosphere. In one the caption reads: “Israel expects a different peace,” accompanied by a picture consisting of an index finger adorned with a PLO ring pressing the trigger of a gun aimed at the spectator against the background of the dove of peace. Another shows the famous handshake between Arafat and Rabin, with Peres replacing Clinton in the center. The caption reads “Partners in

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Murder.” Yet another example is the picture of Rabin wearing Arafat’s special trademark headdress, with the caption “The Liar” above and the call for “Elections Now” below. 40. Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television 2), August 4, 1995. 41. Amnon Barsilai, Interview with Dan Meridor, Ha’aretz, July 7, 1994. 42. Jerusalem Post, international ed., week ending October 14, 1995. 43. Keren Neubach, Campaign 96 (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, Chemed Books, 1966), p. 180. 44. Yediot Aharonot, December 12, 1995. 45. Quoted in Leslie Susser, “Stuck with Bibi,” Jerusalem Report, December 14, 1995. 46. Nachum Barnea, Interview with Dan Meridor, Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, February 16, 1996; Jerusalem Post, November 25, 1995. 47. Quoted in Sara Honig, “Packaging Bibi for the Masses,” Jerusalem Post, international ed., week ending February 10, 1996. 48. Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television 2), February 3, 1996. 49. Dahaf polls conducted immediately after the merger was announced showed that support for Netanyahu rose from 30 percent to 36 percent. The strength of LikudTzoment was estimated at 36 Knesset seats. A week earlier the Likud reached in the Dahaf poll 37 Knesset seats, with 6 for Tzomet. See Yediot Aharonot, February 2, 1996, and February 9, 1996. According to the merger agreement, Tzoment was guaranteed 7 slots out of the first 40 on the combined list. 50. Ha’aretz, February 18, 1996. 51. Zeev Benjamin Begin, “On the Acceptance of Reality,” Ma’ariv, weekend supplement, February 2, 1996. 52. Ha’aretz, February 18, 1996. Even Natanyahu seemed to be in two minds. As noted earlier he agreed that a Likud government would conduct final status negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. But his address before the Forum for National Firmness implied the reverse. The aim of the forum was to explore the dangers inherent in the Oslo Accords and in “the fraudulent claim that [they] are merely a continuation of the Camp David and Madrid process” (The Forum for National Firmness, A Catastrophe Known in Advance: The “Interim Accords” and the Dangers of a Palestinian State ([Tel Aviv: Private Press, 1996], p. 3.) Netanyahu’s contribution was the warning that in the absence of sincere Palestinian peace intentions and secure borders, “the fundamental problem is the Oslo Accords . . . [they would] lead to a Palestinian state comprising the whole of Judia and Samaria with half of Jerusalem as its capital.” Ha’aretz, February 19, 1996. 53. Lily Galilee, Interview with Limor Livnat, Ha’aretz, February 20, 1996. 54. Gallup polls conducted on behalf of the Likud show a 5 percent rise in Netanyahu’s popularity but a drop in Levi’s ratings and a 2 percent rise in Peres’s ratings between the February 16 and February 22. See Ma’ariv, February 23, 1996. Other polls

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registered a virtually unchanged gap with Peres’s 50 percent against Netanyahu’s 38 percent. See Neubach, Campaign 1996, p. 47. 55. Serge Schmemann, “Dull Israeli Elections Masks a Race against Terror,” New York Times, May 16, 1996. 56. The agreement was however incomplete. For dissenting opinions within the leadership see for example, MK Uzi Landau in Yediot Aharonot, April 24, 1996 and Benny Begin in Yediot Aharonot, April 26, 1996. 57. Hemi Shalev, “All Is Open,” Ma’ariv, weekend supplement, May 10, 1996. 58. Neubach, Campaign 96, p. 82. 59. Gallup Polls, Ma’ariv, March 8, 1996. 60. Neubach, Campaign 96, p. 125. 61. Ma’ariv, April 21, 1996. 62. Ma’ariv, April 22, 1996. 63. Serge Schmemann, Interview with Ariel Sharon, New York Times, May 25, 1996. 64. Ma’ariv, May 5, 1996. 65. Ibid., April 22, 1996. 66. Quoted in Shalom Yerushalmi, “Netanyahu’s Grand Message,” Ma’ariv, February 8, 1996. 67. Shaul Schiff, Interview with Benjamin Netanyahu, Hazofeh, May 23, 1996. 68. For example, Ma’ariv, May 2, 1996. 69. Zvi Singer, “Champagne to Treat the Autists,” Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, May 23, 1996. 70. Quoted in Ariela Ringel-Hoffmann, “How Arafat became the Star of the Elections,” Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, May 23, 1996. 71. Quoted in Leslie Susser, “Conflicting Views of a Likud Future,” Jerusalem Report, March 7, 1996. 72. Shalom Yerushalmi, “The Toothless Prince,” Ma’ariv, holiday supplement, April 9, 1996. 73. Quoted in Shalom Yerushalmi, “Looking for a Good Place in the Center,” Ma’ariv, weekend supplement, April 26, 1996. 74. Zeev Benjamin Begin, “A ‘Strong Israel’ with a ‘Secure Peace,’” Ma’ariv, April 25, 1996. 75. Schmemann, Interview with Ariel Sharon. 76. Ariel Sharon, “In Plain Hebrew,” Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, May 10, 1996.

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Chapter 7 1. A brief anecdote may serve to illustrate the persistence of such considerations even after the initial months. When the minister of information asked leading party activists rhetorically whether the party existed in office to provide them jobs, the response was a thundering “Yes!” 2. Yediot Aharonot, October 23, 1998. 3. Thomas Friedman, “A Dangerous Peace,” New York Times, January 12, 1999. 4. Yediot Aharonot, November 21, 1997. 5. Ibid. 6. Thus, growth in the business sector slackened from 1.9 percent in 1977 to 0.9 percent in 1998, whereas the gross national product sank below the demographic growth to 1.6 percent. But the most sensitive figures related to the rise in unemployment from 6.6 percent in June 1996 to 8.7 percent at the start of the 1999 campaign. See Central Bureau of Statistics, 1997, 1998; Ma’ariv, April 30, 1999. 7. New York Times, January 7, 1998. 8. Yediot Aharonot, May 13, 1998. 9. Ma’ariv, May 23, 1998. 10. Secretariat of Yesha in the Likud, A Call to the Members of the Likud Party Center (Tel Aviv: Private Circulation, 1998). 11. Ori Azulai-Katz, “The Man Who Won against Himself,” Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, May 20, 1999. 12. Jerusalem Post and Yediot Aharonot, April 10, 1998. 13. New York Times, October 23, 1998, November 20, 1998; Ma’ariv, October 23, 1998. 14. New York Times, October 26, 1998; Ma’ariv, October 29, 1998. 15. For a discussion of the attempts to secure a government majority see Chanan Crystal and Ilan Kfir, The Sixth Commendation: 1999 Elections—The Full Story (Tel Aviv: Keter, 1999), pp. 33–56. 16. Yediot Aharonot, January 8, 1999. 17. Yosi Verter, “This Is Not the Same Ehud,” Ha’aretz, January 10, 1999. 18. See Crystal and Kfir, The Sixth Commendation, pp. 35–40. 19. Quoted in Daniel Ben-Simon, A Different Country: The Victory of the Extremes—How the Left Collapsed and the Right Came to Power (Tel Aviv: Modan, 1997), p. 279; see also p. 280. 20. Quoted in Leslie Susser, “Barak’s Uphill Battle,” Jerusalem Report, January 18, 1999.

274

Notes 21. Ehud Barak, Interview, Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, December 5, 1997.

22. The One Israel agreement gave Levi the third slot on the candidate list, a senior ministry in any government formed by One Israel and a place in the inner cabinet. In addition, Gesher candidates were nominated to the 18, 29, 39, and 45 slots on the candidate list. Maimad was given a ministerial position and in addition the slots 17, 33, and 38 in the joint candidate list. 23. Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television 1), March 22, 1999. 24. Deborah Sontag, “The Outsider,” New York Times Magazine, March 28, 1999, p. 66. 25. Dan Meridor, quoted in Ari Shavit, “Windows 99,” Ha’aretz, weekend supplement, January 1, 1999. 26. Deborah Sontag, “New Party Trying to Be in the Middle of Israeli Politics,” New York Times, March 12, 1999. 27. Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television 1), March 23, 1999. 28. For polling data see Hemi Shalev, “The Blossoming of the Cherry Tree,” Ma’ariv, weekend supplement, January 1, 1999; Vered Levi-Barzilai, “In the Shadow of a Giant,” Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, October 30, 1998; Crystal and Kfir, The Sixth Commendation, pp. 91, 98. 29. The Likud was now left with a mere 19 MKs, among whom were members such as Landau who openly criticized Netanyahu on ideological grounds and Livnat who seemed to be undecided whether to leave the party altogether. Symptomatically, in the internal elections for the nomination of the party’s premiership candidacy held on January 25, only 35 percent of the members bothered to participate, about half of the number in 1993. Netanyahu’s argument that this was because everyone took it for granted that he would be elected is at best unpersuasive. See Nehama Duweik, “The Members Voted with Their Feet,” Yediot Aharonot, January 26, 1999. 30. Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Radio 1), July 7, 1999. 31. Ha’aretz, November 22, 1998. 32. Ma’ariv, August 1, 1999. 33. Shalom Yerushalmi, “One Man’s Campaign: The Activists Stay at Home,” Ma’ariv, weekend supplement, April 26, 1999. 34. Binyamin Netanyahu, “Vote for Me Because I Can Ensure that a Genuine Peace Prevails,” Jerusalem Report, May 24, 1999. 35. Binyamin Netanyahu, “The Real Struggle,” Yediot Aharonet, weekend supplement, December 31, 1998. 36. Ibid. 37. Netanyahu, “Vote for Me.”

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38. Milton Lodge, Marco R. Steenbergen and Shawn Brau, “The Responsive Voter: Campaign Information and the Dynamics of Candidate Evolution,” American Political Science Review 89 (January 1995): 310–311. 39. Binyamin Netanyahu, “Looking Forward,” Jerusalem Post, April 20, 1999. 40. Jerusalem Post, March 23, 1999. 41. Yediot Aharonot, December 28, 1998. 42. Ha’aretz, April 5, 1999. 43. William Safire, “Meanwhile, In Israel,” New York Times, April 4, 1999. 44. Netanyahu, “The Real Struggle.” 45. Yediot Aharonot, May 7, 1999. 46. Ibid., May 4, 1999. 47. Ibid., May 10, 1999. 48. Aryeh Dean Cohen, “Poll: Russian Immigrants Believe Prime Minister Caves in to Haredin, While Barak Will Support Secular Rights,” Jerusalem Post, May 12, 1999. 49. For example, Ha’aretz, May 10, 1999; May 12, 1999; Yediot Aharonot, May 12, 1999. 50. Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television 2), February 6, 2001. 51. For a succinct treatment of the principles underlying Barak’s policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians on the one hand and the Israeli public on the other see Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, “Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors,” New York Review of Books 48, August 9, 2001, p. 59. They maintain that Barak’s “binary cost-benefit analysis” led him to conclude not only that the electorate would “ratify an agreement with the Palestinians, even one that entailed far-reaching concessions, so long as it was final,” but also that the best way to ensure this was “to minimize any political friction along the way.” Determined not to repeat Rabin’s mistake of prematurely alienating the Israeli right wing, “a government that believed it enjoyed considerable latitude concerning the terms of the ultimate deal felt remarkably constrained on the steps it could take to get there.” One may add that what caused the ill-prepared meeting in Camp David was the mid-May 2000 leak to the Israeli media of the existence and the substance of what became known as “the Stockholm track”: negotiations secretly held in Sweden and elsewhere to discuss the final status issues. Under the fear that the revelation will fracture the government the “track” was aborted, the time table was accelerated, and the Camp David summit convened with the hope of finalizing a deal before a government collapse. 52. In addition to the NRP and the Russian immigrant party, Israel Ba’aliya, these were Shas and the Ashkenazi ultraorthodox United Torah Judaism. The latter bolted the coalition in September 1999 over the transport of oversized electric equipment of Friday nights. 53. For an analysis of the instability of Barak’s coalition see Don Peres, “Barak’s Israel,” Current History 100 (2001): 21–26.

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Notes 54. Moshe Arens, “The Likud Is Coming to Life,” Ha’aretz, August 8, 2000.

55. In of itself, Barak’s defiant self-defense went to the root of the change in the political system: “the coalition did not elect me. The people did . . . some 1.8 million citizens have given me a mandate to bring a new future to the state of Israel, and no parliamentary trick will stop the majority from deciding its stand.” New York Times, March 2, 2000. Of a similar nature is the assertion that “nothing that occurs in the Parliament can move this government from the mission that was imposed on it by the nation of Israel” made in the context of a Knesset debate over the inclusion of the work of a Palestinian poet in the high school curriculum. See New York Times, March 14, 2000. It is noteworthy however that his 1999 campaign avoided any peace plan and that he actually denied accusations that he would offer precisely the compromises he did. In effect, what was claimed was that the personal mandate of the prime minister gave him free rein to initiate whatever policies he chose, regardless of Knesset approval. 56. In this context one can discern maneuvers that remind of what can be expected in the United States, where cross-party coalitions must be amassed on ad hoc bases by presidents whose parties do not necessarily control Congress. It is interesting, for instance, that even after Shas bolted the coalition it continued to receive government funding whereas the Shas parliamentary power was fully mobilized against the government only when and to the degree that it was ensured from life-threatening defeats. 57. Barak explained that he arrived at his choice in agonizing family discussions and that it was driven by the need to renew his personal mandate. See Interview with Tzadok Israeli and Anat Tal-shir, Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, February 9, 2001. Critics, however, universally assumed additional reasons, not the least among them the wish to prevent Netanyahu who was not a Knesset member from putting himself up as a candidate, thus forcing the Likud to field Ariel Sharon as the challenger. Tainted as he was by the Lebanese fiasco, most analysts considered him to be a nonthreatening placeholder for a resurgent Netanyahu, and this motivated many of the latter’s supporters to vote for him in the primaries that followed the party’s 1999 defeat. Moreover, he consistently encouraged settlement in the Occupied Territories and resisted any peace initiative that would come at its expense. As such he embodied a vision that had progressively lost touch with prevailing sentiments. Irrespective of the violence and the widespread frustration with Barak, polls persistently showed that an absolute majority still supported the dismantling of settlements in return for peace. But a Sharon candidature could carry an additional dividend. What presumably spurred the Palestinians to violence was the hope of improving their standing in the negotiations over the permanent-status issues. If so, the threat of a Sharon win would pressure them to compromise and finalize an accord in time to prevent risking all that they could gain in addition to a confrontation with a hard-line government. 58. Interview with T. Israeli and A. Tal-Shir, Yediot Aharonot. 59. Gallup polls, Ma’ariv, December 19, 2000. 60. Lili Galili, “Rage, Rage into that Election Day,” Ha’aretz, February 6, 2001.

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61. Amos Oz, “Let Palestinians Govern Palestinians—Now,” New York Times, January 6, 2001. See also David Grossman, “To Imagine the Return,” Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, January 6, 2001. 62. Interview with T. Israeli and A. Tal-Shir, Yediot Aharonot. 63. New York Times, February 8, 2001. See also the report on the Labor Knesset caucus meeting following the elections, Jerusalem Post, February 9, 2001. 64. National Bureau of Statistics figures show that during the first nine months of Barak’s tenure the unemployment rate increased to 9 percent, some 10,000 more than in the final days of the Netanyahu government. Other data shows that the lowest strata had widened and that poverty had increased in tandem. Jerusalem, National Bureau of Statistics, November 10, 2000; Ha’aretz, December 19, 2000. 65. Interview with T. Israeli and A.Tal-Shir, Yediot Aharonot. 66. Ariella Ringle-Hoffman and Uzi Dayan, “The Street Battles of the Left,” Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, January 19, 2001. 67. One day before the vote itself Nina Zemach’s polls found that left-leaning voters still preferred Peres (48 percent) over Barak (16 percent) in significant numbers. See Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television 2), February 5, 2001. 68. Quoted in New York Times, January 11, 2001. 69. Quoted in Deboreth Sontag, “Israel in the Homestretch: Still Surreal,” New York Times, January 31, 2001. 70. Almost a month earlier, in a highly unusual move, the attorney general gave public expression to his concern that “even if those involved in the negotiations were the ministering angels themselves, it is doubtful whether at a time of decisions certain considerations would not come into play—all the more so when there is a minority government and a prime minister who had resigned.” Quoted in Jewish Chronicle (London), January 5, 2001. As for the Taba negotiations, his opinion (again, made public) was that whereas their conduct was not explicitly forbidden by the laws regulating caretaker governments, these were intended to keep government functioning in transition periods rather than “authorize fateful decision making that could emanate from finalstatus negotiations.” New York Times, January 2, 2001. 71. See Smith polls, Jerusalem Post, December 27, 2001; Gallup and Dahaf polls, Ma’ariv, December 29, 2001; Ha’aretz, January 22, 2001. 72. Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television 2), January 16, 2001. 73. The relatively short period of time devoted to this category reflects the fact that Barak did not consult his party, which included the religious faction, Maimad, which promptly threatened to pull out of the One Israel fold. To prevent such a catastrophic event just before voting day, Barak dropped the subject altogether. However, the assurance by Maimad sources that they were explicitly promised that “Barak had no intention of going ahead with his civil reforms and the statements are made for election purposes only” did not necessarily boost Barak’s credibility. See Ha’aretz, January 21, 2001.

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74. Adam Nagourney, “American Consultant Makes His Own Comeback in Israel,” New York Times, February 8, 2001. 75. As a gesture of a goodwill Sharon sent a message to Arafat on the Id-al-Fiter holiday containing the “blessing for a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, so that our peoples can live in peace, security, and financial prosperity.” See Ma’ariv, January 5, 2001. It is a testimony to the new prevailing consensus that Sharon explicitly promised to avoid building any new settlements in the Occupied Territories. This was not featured in the television campaign, but it served to render irrelevant the attacks on him as a warmonger and an ideologue who, to quote the Barak slogan, “is too extreme for Israel.” 76. The very existence of the jingle underscores the difference between the two campaigns. Barak did not have a jingle, a deviation from the norm that may be emblematic of the very nature of his strategy. Sharon’s jingle featured not only at the beginning of his broadcasts but also in the middle, with the words accompanying scenes of the country and faces of ordinary citizens representing the various population groups. The (intended) consequence was to reduce the time left for airing the actual contents. This largely explains the difference in columns A and B in Table 7.4 between the net broadcasting time (T) available to the contestants. 77. Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy. 78. Such projections also gave a context and served as a basis for interpretations of current expressions by Sharon and leaders of parties allied with him, which in turn could lend support to the contentions based on his past. One such was the untimely publication in the popular New Yorker of an in-depth interview that took place in November before he knew that he would become the Likud’s candidate in a race for the premiership. In it he defined Arafat as “a bitter enemy,” “a murderer and a liar,” and peace with the Palestinians as impossible, definitions that stood in direct contradiction with his campaign slogan “Only Sharon Will Bring Peace.” See Jeffrey Goldberg, “Arafat’s Gift: The Return of Ariel Sharon,” New Yorker, January 29, 2001, p. 67; see also pp. 54–57. Another was a statement by the NRP leader that Sharon was deceiving the public with his pledge to bring peace. Yet other cases involved belligerent declarations by leaders of the far right, one of whom envisioned a regional war with Israeli missiles landing on Teheran and the Aswan Dam, another threatening to topple the future Sharon government if it offered any territorial concessions to the Palestinians. See Ha’aretz, January 22, 2001. Other statements made by the same two included that “there is no such thing as a secure peace” (MK Avigdor Liberman) and the suggestions to deny Israeli Arabs the vote and penalize the Palestinians by cutting off their water and electricity supplies (MK Rehavam Zeevi), Ha’aretz, January 28, 2001. 79. Zadock Yechezkeli and Anat Tal-Shir, “Finkelstein Speaks,” Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, February 16, 2001. 80. See ibid. For the attempt to shield Sharon from the media see for example, Mordechai Gilat, “Sharon’s Right to Silence,” Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, February 2, 2001. 81. Yediot Aharonot, January 18, 2000.

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82. See for example, Ofer Shelach, “Playing on the Margin,” Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, February 2, 2001; Ze’ev Segal, “The Candidates Must Confront Each Other,” Ha’aretz, January 29, 2001. 83. See Sever Plozki, “No Voter Moves,” Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, January 26, 2001. Final Dahaf polls, for instance, revealed that Barak was trailing Sharon by 21 percent. The widest gap was with the Smith Institute polls, which showed only 16 percent, but some 25 percent undecided. Yediot Aharonot, February 2, 2001, Jerusalem Post, February 2, 2001. The early crystallization of opinions and refusal to entertain changes has been especially noted in the Arab sector. 84. Including apologies from Barak as well as Peres for the death of 13 Arab demonstrators in October 2000. See Israeli Broadcasting Authority (Television 2), January 18, 2001; Jerusalem Post, January 22, 2001. Arab turnout reached mere 18 percent. 85. The same figures may be examined from a different vantage point. Sharon’s triumph was effected by the support of 37.69 percent of the country’s eligible voters, versus Barak’s 53.08 percent in 1999. The number of eligible voters should be reduced by some 10 percent, to reflect the registered voters estimated to live abroad. But even after doing so we find that Sharon garnered less than 42 percent of the voters living in the country, compared to Barak’s 58.8 percent in 1999, only 9 percent more than the number of those who decided to abstain. 86. For the magnitude of reforms and the level of uncertainty see Doron and Harris, Public Policy and Electoral Reform, pp. 14–28. 87. The new version of the Basic Law—The Government differs in several regards from the pre-1992 one. According to the amended Law no-confidence motion necessitates an absolute majority (61 MKs) to succeed and the opposition must present an alternative prime minister able to muster a Knesset majority; the premier’s power to call early elections is maintained and failure to pass the budget for the current year by the end of March would entail an automatic dissolution of the Knesset. 88. Ha’aretz, March 23, 2001. 89. See for example, Uzi Landau, “Wither the Likud?” Yediot Aharonot, weekend supplement, October 15, 1999. Similar sentiments were voiced by Sharon himself in his analysis of the elections of 2001 as a repudiation of both parties. See Ha’aretz, February 11, 2001.

Chapter 8 1. See Ghanshyan Shah, “ The 1975 Gujarat Assembly Elections in India,” Asian Survey 16 (1976): 270–282. The parties were the Congress (o), the Jana Sangh, the Bharatiya Lok Dal, and the Socialist Party. The fifth partner was the Congress for Democracy, newly formed by Congress defector Jagjivan Ram, which formally merged with the Janata Party only after the electoral victory. The five entered electoral alliances with the Communist Party (Marxist) and with regional parties in Tamil Nadu and the

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Punjab. For detail and an analysis of the campaign see Brahm Dutt, Five Headed Monster (New Delhi: Surge, 1978). 2. New York Times, September 27, 1977. 3. See among others, James Manor, “The Electoral Process amid Awakening and Decay: Reflections on the Indian General Election of 1980,” in Transfer and Transformation: Political Institutions in the New Commonwealth ed. R. Lyon and J. Manor (Leicester U.K.: Leicester University Press, 1983), pp. 87–116. 4. Michel Crozier, The Stalled Society (New York: Viking, 1973). 5. J. R. Frears, Political Parties and Elections in the French Fifth Republic (New York: St. Martin, 1977), p. 45. 6. Quoted in Howard Machin, Vincent Wright, “The French Left Under the Fifth Republic: The Search for Identity in Unity,” Comparative Politics 10 (1977): 35. See Nancy I. Lieber, “Ideology and Tactics of the French Socialist Party,” Government and Opposition 12 (1977): 454–73, and Bruce A. Campbell and Sue Ellen M. Charlton, “The Ambiguity of Faction: Fragmentation and Bipolarization in France,” in Faction Politics: Political Parties and Factionalism in Comparative Perspectives ed. F. P. Belloni and D. C. Beller, (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC Clio, 1978), pp. 141 ff. 7. For example, Roy C. Macridis, French Politics in Transition, the Years After de Gaulle (Cambridge, Mass.: Winthrop, 1975), p. 125. 8. The left also benefited from the introduction of proportional representation in the smaller constituencies. 9. Financial Times, September 24, 2001. 10. For example, Riker, “Duverger’s Law Revisited,” p. 29. 11. Ray, The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws, p. 129. 12. The alternative scenarios are similar also in that all feature a direct and positive relationship between the greater cohesion of the prime minister’s party and the effective management of government. This is no surprise because resentment among party MKs compounded the difficulties and imperiled the parliamentary base of Netanyahu and Barak, leading in the case of the former to the collapse of his government. Nevertheless, in no scenario is the problem of governability wholly resolved. What compensated for the prime minister’s narrow party base and dependence on the communitarian parties was his wide personal legitimacy and exceptional freedom to shape the national agenda. With the return to the list-based proportional representation system the status and special powers of the popularly elected executive were annulled. The prime minister became once more simply the leader of the party with the largest number of seats in parliament. Especially in the scenario in which the communitarian parties retain much of their strength, this could well mean the elimination of the strong component in the weak-strong prime minister equation but the retention of the weakness, the premier being a leader of a midsized party forced to depend on a motley coalition in danger of being crippled by cross pressures. An additional problem in all the scenarios is that of government responsibility. The

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semipresidential format had a clearly identifiable responsibility, which cost both Netanyahu and Barak their jobs. Downgrading the prime minister’s power releases him from such personal accountability and the more numerous the number of coalition partners and the less stable the government the more difficult attributing responsibility to any of its components becomes. 13. Comparing Party System Change ed. P. Pennings and J. Lane, (New York: Routledge, 1998), p. 13; see also Svante Ersson and Jan-Erik Lane, “Electoral Instability and Party System Change in Western Europe,” ibid., pp. 23–39. 14. Arian and Shamir, “Candidates, Parties and Blocs,” p. 705. 15. Nor has the change been dramatic. Rokkan and Lipset’s “freezing” argument was still largely accepted in the last decade of the twentieth century. See for example, Sefano Bartolini and Peter Mair, Identity, Competition and Electoral Availability: The Stabilization of European Electorates, 1885–1985 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), and Peter Mair, “Myths of Electoral Change and the Survival of Traditional Parties,” European Journal of Political Research 24 (1993): 121–133. Mair’s later research acknowledges realignment but demonstrates its limited extent. See his Party System Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). 16. Duverger, “Duverger’s Law: Forty Years Later,” in Electoral Laws and Their Political Consequences, ed. Grofman, Lijphart, p. 78. 17. Yael Yishai made an important relevant point in her “Bringing Society Back In,” pp. 667–687. The decline of the larger parties, she argues, was not only a result of the double vote afforded by the direct election of the prime minister, but also of the failure of the cartel parties to provide an answer to deep cultural needs. As with many of their counterparts in the West, Israelis “are deeply engaged in introspection and self discovery.” Pure individualism, however, “is alien to Israeli citizens socialized into adhering to collective identities. Identity politics may therefore provide a solution for many Israelis tired of the ideological and political cartel, and reluctant to wander alone in the individual terrain” (pp. 682–683). This explains the rise of what Yishai calls postcartel parties, which retain the advantages of the cartel while adopting the strategies to penetrate society. The postcartel party “rediscovered the people, not as individuals but as members of social and identity groups” (p. 683). Such developments can be traced also in the larger parties (p. 681) but for obvious reasons sectarian parties enjoy a clear advantage. For the efforts of Likud and Labor to extend their platforms to repenetrate wider constituencies see Ami Pedhazur and Dafna Canetti, “Electoral Platforms as a Reflection of the Changes in the Scope of Party Performance in Israel: The Likud and Labor between State and Society,” Politika 7 (2001): 15–31. 18. See Livianna Tossutti, “From Communitarian Institutionalization,” Party Politics 2 (1996): 439; see also p. 451.

Protest

towards

19. New York Times, May 12, 2001. 20. Yoav Peled, “Roar of the Lion: Shas and the Challenge to Israeli Identity,” Israeli Studies Bulletin 16 (2001): 11.

282

Notes

21. Some critics already discern first signs that “Shas, in a shrewd move by an avant-garde movement well aware that there is such a thing as society” is busy “offering a social alternative—from within the government.” Avirama Golan, “Shas Socialism—A Left-Wing Alternative,” Ha’aretz, March 22, 2001. 22. Hazan and Rahat, “Representation, Electoral Reform, and Democracy,” Comparative Political Studies, pp. 1310–1336. 23. Again the example of the Northern League comes to mind. By joining Berlusconi’s Forze Italia and the neofascists within the framework of the Freedom Alliance, it helped oust the Christian Democrats in 1994 and won national power again in 2001. 24. Sharon had indeed to assure his colleagues that “there is no danger that our assets will, God forbid, fall into the hands of strangers” and to express the “hope that the members will not expend unnecessary energy on a struggle that does not exist.” Yossi Verter, “Likud Bristles at Plan for Party Expansion,” Ha’aretz, May 8, 2001. A vicious circle is liable to be established: individual resistance to change fueled by fear of electoral stagnation might thwart establishment of the old “imperfect two-partism.” In short, such fears may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 25. This was equally true for the clusterlike alliances in Italy. The first Berlusconi government collapsed only seven months after its inception. In fact, signs of the impending collapse may be said to have begun immediately on the confirmation of victory and the invitation by the president to form a government. Umberto Bossi, the League’s leader, declared that a coalition with the “murderous thugs” of the neofascists was an impossibility, whereas a nomination of Berlusconi, the “berluskaiser,” would spark such a clash of interests that it would endanger democracy itself. Bossi therefore modestly put himself forward as the only possible choice for the premiership. For his part, Berlusconi defined the Northern League leader as a traitor, whereas Fini, the neofascist, called him a “bizarre man, to say the least.” New York Times, April 2, 1994, and April 7, 1994. The evolution of the Northern League away from its call for the independence of northern Italy facilitated the formulation, some eight months before the 2001 campaign, of the outline of a joint program acceptable to all the members of the Polo (which now included also the tiny Fiamma Tricolore). In essence the campaigns run by the centerright and center-left (Olive Tree) were similar with both Berlusconi and Rutelli vowing a curb on illegal immigration, strengthening of law and order, lower taxes, and further economic liberalization. One of the reasons for the Polo victory was the disarray in the center-left government and its resulting lack of effectiveness. For the general political landscape see Vittorio Bufacchi, “The Coming of Age of Italian Democracy: Literature on Italian Elections 1992–1994,” Government and Opposition 31 (1996): 323–346.

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INDEX

Achdut, 1, 3, 101, 102, 103. See also Begin, Menachem: and Hillel Seidel Adaptive-organizational approach, 14, 16, 19, 21, 22, 59, 88, 156. See also Party system change Agudat Israel, 30, 32. See also Ultraorthodox parties Ahdut Ha’avoda: as Alignment component, 71–72, 102; and Alignment government, 70; and Alignment negotiations, 16, 51, 53–55, 56, 58; and call for labor unity, 51, 52–53; and electoral reform, 55, 158; formation of, 50; platform of, 51, 57; relations with Mapai, 7, 44, 55, 57, 60, 63 Alignment (Labor Alignment): Agreement of, 56–58, 63, 71; Ben-Gurion and, 55–56; coalition of, 2, 66, 100; components of, 71, 73, 102–3; dissention in, 92, 100, 103–4, 105, 110–11; and the election of 1965, 64–65; and the election of 1973, 73, 80–82; and the election of 1977, 82–87, 95, 158, 202; and the election of 1981, 94–95, 101, 105–9, 129; and the election of 1984, 113–21, 123, 124, 129, 134; formation of, 64, 66, 67, 73, 158; and Israeli-Arabs, 132; in opposition, 104, 110–12; and the opposition, 71, 97; party platform, 56–58, 64, 68–69, 71–72, 74, 85, 105, 109, 112, 128, 196–97 Alon, Igal, 68 Altalena, 36 American style. See Americanization Americanization (American style), 15, 80, 165, 171 Arab parties, 25, 132, 218–19 Arad, Eyal, 180 Arafat, Yasir: 215; calls for Jihad, 174 and Hamas bombings, 188; and Likud electoral propaganda, 115–16, 182, 184; and peace negotiations, 177, 181, 187, 190, 192

Arens, Moshe, 116, 209, 216 Aronoff, Mayron, 172 Aronoff, Yael, 172 Atid, 200 Barak, Ehud: coalition constraints on, 25, 215, 218–19 credibility of, 171, 194, 210, 216, 218–19; and the elections of 1999, 165, 171, 197–200, 204, 206, 208, 211, 213, 215, 248; and the elections of 2001, 9, 167, 169, 171, 219–27; and government of national unity, 193, 216; and Labor Party, 166; and media consultants, 165, 194; and peace negotiations, 215, 217, 220; as prime minister, 169–71, 217–18; and the transformation of Labor, 22–23, 195–96 Bareket, Aharon, 54 Begin, Benny, 146, 178, 185, 187, 188, 193, 203, 206 Begin, Menachem: and Alignment propaganda, 64, 92; Ben-Gurion and, 36; call for alliance with Liberals, 47, 53; charisma of, 76, 99, 105, 115, 233; and the elections of 1981, 108; government of, 103–4; and Herut, 3, 16, 110; and Hillel Seidel, 1–2, 7, 23, 44, 63; image of, 98; and intraparty rivalry, 72, 97–98, 101, 120, 135; and media consultants, 164; and the national unity government, 67, 69; and negotiations with Liberals, 38–42, 51; and Palestinian autonomy, 183; and party ideology, 34, 46, 48, 61, 101, 146; and party system change, 6, 17, 79, 158, 196; and Tehiya, 104; withdrawal from politics, 112 Beilin-Abu Mazan plan, 211 Ben-Aharon, Yitzhak, 51–52, 61, 86, 128 Ben-Ami, Shlomo, 193 Ben-Gurion, David: Ariel Sharon and, 224; charismatic leader, 76, 86; and electoral

293

294

Index

Ben-Gurion, David (continued) reform, 55, 158; first prime minister, 33; and formation of Mapai, 33; and leaders of the opposition, 35–36, 87, 98; and Rafi, 58, 70, 72; and the rift within Mapai, 16, 53–57, 43, 55, 57 Ben-Zvi, Rachel Yanait, 68 Bernstein, Peretz, 39 Bishara, Azmi, 211 Blackmail party, 24, 104, 123, 155 Burg, Abrum, 198

Cluster party system; demise of, 6, 123, 154, 156; effects of, 74, 90, 95; formation of, 20, 66, 87; and media consultants, 164 Communist Party, 17, 30, 36 Communitarian party: effects of, 21, 164; emergence of, 25, 161; and government coalitions, 189; and national parties, 22, 39, 163, 170, 194, 206, 246; rivalry among, 245; strategy of, 247, 248; weakening of, 229, 246 Conglomerate party, 62–63, 71, 72, 96, 236, 238

Cader party, 12, 63 Camp David, 101, 104, 130, 178, 183 Campaign financing (funding), 77–78, 89, 201, 206–7. See also Public party funding Campaign funding. See Campaign financing Campaign strategy. See Electoral strategy Cartel Party, 78–79 Carville, James, 165 Catchall party, 12, 14, 15, 19–20, 61, 72, 79, 125, 248. See also Catchall tactics Catchall style. See Catchall tactics Catchall tactics (style): adoption of, 19, 76, 79, 170; in the campaign of 1973, 82; in the campaign of 1981, 106; in the campaign of 1984, 116, 119; in the campaign of 1992, 129, 136, 138; cluster parties and, 88, 101; consequences of, 20, 75, 21, 156; and party competition, 22, 80, 125; relevant electorate, 143, 163. See also Catchall party Center Party: destiny of, 95; formation of, 170, 193, 197, 200–1, 203; and the election of 1999, 170, 201–4, 208, 201–3, 206; program of, 170, 201; voters of, 206 Central Stream, 128–29, 136. See also Labor Party Citizens’ Rights Movement (CRM) 73, 104, 111, 115, 121, 132, 137, 142. See also Meretz Clinton, Bill, 187, 190, 214 Cluster. See Cluster party Cluster party (cluster): characteristics of, 7, 59, 61–64, 201; competition between, 4, 16, 94, 158; effects of, 6, 64, 160, 162; and the election of 1973, 82; formation of, 4, 15–17, 22, 73, 77, 154, 166, 196–97, 228, 247; ideological convergence of, 4, 18, 70–71, 88, 93; and narrowly based parties, 16, 248; party activists, 74, 76–77; stability of, 95–105, 110–12, 121, 239, 248; transformation of, 5, 18, 19, 109, 156 and voter perceptions, 69, 72–73, 79, 86

Darousha, Abdel Wahab, 132, 135, 138 Dayan, Moshe, 54, 56, 57, 67, 70, 93, 95, 103 Deri, Ariah, 205 DMC (Democratic Movement for Change), 73–74, 83, 85–87, 89, 93–95, 109, 202, 236, 237 Downs, Anthony, 21–22, 224 Duverger, Maurice, 161, 241, 246 Duverger’s Law, 18, 161, 232, 242 Eban, Abba, 116 Ehrlich, Simha, 98, 101 Eiten, Rafael, 151, 166 Electoral reform: debate over, 55–56, 145; demand for, 54, 74, 245; effects of, 21, 24, 25, 162, 242, 243; efforts at, 158–59; and party system change, 158, 240; reform of 1992, 3, 154, 228, 244 Electoral strategy (campaign strategy): 7, 24, 155; aims of, 163, 224, 225; change in, 243; neutrality of, 221; and party elites, 156, 161, 166–67, 168, 170; results of, 11 Electoral tactics, 24, 88, 164 End of ideology thesis, 20, 61 Epstein, Leon, 11–12, 14–15, 19–20, 60 Eshkol-Gallili agreement, 56 Eshkol, Levi, 43, 53–55, 56, 66–67, 70 Etzel (National Military Organization), 35–36, 38. See also Revisionist Party Faction: cluster parties and, 62–63, 88, 101–3; compared to parties, 61–62, 96; differences between, 4; and environmental challenges, 104, 156; fusion of, 18, 19, 62, 63, 102–4, 155; and government, 100, 104; ideology of, 99, 114; interests of, 89, 96–97, 102; intrafactional relations, 97–99, 113; intraparty conflict (disagreement, argument, feud, competition, friction), 16, 18, 19, 55, 70, 82,

Index 86, 92, 96, 98–99, 102–6, 110–11, 128, 137, 155, 239, 248; Labor Party as, 166; leadership of, 102–3, 105, 113; Mapam as, 64; structure of, 62, 64, 98–99, 102–3 Falwell, Jerry, 9 Finkelization, 164 Finkelstein, Arthur, 164–65, 194, 205, 224–25 France: 231, 235–41, 247; catch all tactics, 236; Chirac, Jacques, 239, 240; Christian Democrats, 236, 237; CIR (Convention des Institutions Republicans), 237, 238; cluster party, 240; clusters, 237; de Gaulle, Charles, 236–37, 240; electoral reform, 240–41; FGDS (féderation de la Gauche Démocratique et socialiste), 237, 238; Gaullist Party, 236, 239 (see also RPR); Gaullism, 237, 240; Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry, 237, 239, 240; Greens, 240; Independent Republicans, 237; Jospin, Lionel, 240; Lecanuet, Jean, 237; Majorité, 237, 238, 239; Mitterrand, Francois, 238, 239; party blocs, 236, 240; party clustering, 236, 240, 241; party faction, 236, 238; party Platform, 239; Party Socialiste (PS), 238, 240; party system change, 240; PCF (Party Communist Français), 238, 239, 240; Pompidou, Georges, 236, 237; proportional representation, 236; RPR (Resemblement Pour la Republique), 236; Radical Party, 237; SFIO (Section Française de e’Internationale Ourrière), 237, 238; Socialist Party, 237; Union de Gauche, 238, 239; (UDT) Union des Democrats du Travil, 236, 237; UDF (Union des Democrats Pour la France), 239; UNR (Union pour la Nouvelle Republique) Free Center, 72, 78, 97. See also Herut Friedman, Thomas, 188 Gahal (Herut-Liberal Bloc): call for, 42–44; electoral appeals of, 64–65; electoral results of, 66, 97; extension of, 72; internal strife, 99; and national unity government, 67–69, 85, 105: negotiations on, 49, 55; program (platform) of, 47, 49–50, 61, 64, 68–69, 97–98; voter perception of, 67, 69–71, 97 Gallili, Israel, 56, 70 General Zionists: electoral appeals of, 64–65; and electoral reform, 55; and Herut, 39–40, 42, 50; ideology of, 45–49; and

295

Mapai, 40, 42, 55; in the pre-state era, 30, 31. See also Liberal Party Germany, 45, 47, 70, 159 Gesher, 177, 187, 189–90, 197–98, 215 Greenberg, Stanley, 165, 217, 219 Gush Emunim, 84 Hacohen, Menachem, 138 Hagana, 35–36 Hanegbi, Zahi, 190, 205 Ha’olam Haze, 104 Harmel, Robert, 12–14 Herut: alternative to Mapai, 17, 34, 36, 37, 89; and Begin, 3, 5, 16, 97; cluster component, 5, 19, 85, 103, 105, 108; effort to break out of isolation, 6, 37–43, 60, 67, 70; electoral appeals of, 64–65, 116, 118; and electoral reform, 56, 158; formation of, 16, 36; ideology of, 5, 34, 36, 45–49, 57, 61, 85, 97, 101, 104, 114, 194; internal dissent, 72, 97–98, 99, 101; isolation of, 4, 36–37; and Liberal party, 4, 16, 49, 50, 85, 99, 103, 105, 109, 113; and Likud-led government, 100, 101, 104, 109, 156; and national unity government, 67–68, 105; size of, 17, 37–38, 49, 55, 160. See also National unity government; Revisionist Party Histadrut: affiliated workers, 246; and Ahdut Ha’avoda, 57–58; and the Alignment, 72; enterprises of, 32, 127, 138; functions of, 4, 32; Labor Party, 128–29, 130, 139; and Likud propaganda, 141; and Mapai, 4, 33; non-labor parties in, 1, 39, 42–43, 48–49; right wing opposition to, 35, 50 Hussein, King of Jordan, 115, 126, 131, 136. See also Jordanian option Ideological change, 13–15, 21–23, 38, 48, 128–29, 131, 133, 136 Ideological compromise, 40–41, 49–50, 86 Ideological convergence, 67, 69, 221, 229, 244 Independent Liberal party, 1, 2, 73, 111 India, 231, 232–35, 236, 237, 239, 247; Bharatiya Lok Dal, 233, 234; BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), 234, 235 (see also Jan Sangh); cluster parties in, 233–35; Communist Party, 234; Congress Party, 232–35; Desai, Morarji, 233–34; Gandhi, Indira, 232–33, 234; Jan Sangh, 233, 234 (see also BJP); Janata, 232–34, 235; Janata Dal, 234, 235; Janata

296

Index

India (continued) Front, 232; National Democratic Alliance, 234; National Front, 234, 235; party clustering in, 235; party factions in, 232–35; party system change in, 231–32, 235; Singh, V.P., 234; Socialist Party, 233; United Front, 234, 235 Ingleheart, Ronald, 10, 21 Intifada, 126–27, 130, 131, 132, 135, 137, 185; Al-Aksa Intifada, 217, 219–20 Israel Ba’aliya, 160, 162, 197, 213, 215. See also Russian immigrants Italy, 159, 241, 246; Bossi, Umberto, 246; Northern League, 246 Jabotinsky, Zeev, 34, 35, 36, 46, 47, 57, 104 Janda, Kenneth, 12–14 Japan, 259 Jewish Agency, 4 Jibril, Ahmed, 115 Jordan, Hashemite kingdom of, 126, 131–32, 173–74 Jordanian option, 126, 128, 132 Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, 132 Kach, 121, 122 Kahalani, Avigdor, 190, 211, 213 Kahana, Meir, 121 Katzav, Moshe, 150 Katz, Richard, 12, 78–79 Kirchheimer, Otto, 11–12, 14–15, 18, 19–20, 22, 60, 75, 156: Obverse of thesis, 156 Knesset, 36, 54, 104, 128, 192: Alignment and, 71, 72; centrifugal trends in, 215, 228; competition for, 4, 6, 20, 22, 80, 93, 162–64, 177, 185, 194, 219, 228, 241, 244, 245; composition of, 55, 75, 160, 218, 246; dissolution of, 193, 217; elections for, 3, 121, 142; and electoral system, 242; factions in, 173–74, 206; and government, 129, 160, 166, 190; laws of, 31, 145; majority in, 56, 174, 216; and party funding and, 201, 206; and prime ministerial candidates, 166, 203; and prime ministerial elections, 5, 23; representation in, 8, 73, 106, 110, 121, 229; seats in, 21, 37, 79, 94, 132, 135, 144, 162, 165, 226, 245 Kreisky, Bruno, 115 La’am, 2, 72, 101, 102, 103 Labor Alignment. See Alignment

Labor Party: appeal of, 247; candidates of, 165–66; and the election of 1988, 124, 128–38; and the election of 1992, 126, 139–53; and the elections of 1996, 164, 165, 168–69, 179–80, 185, 186, 195; and the election of 1999, 161, 201, 202, 209; electoral losses of, 160–61, 221, 229; and electoral reform, 156, 158–59; as faction, 110, 215; formation of, 22, 102, 121; government of, 172, 176, 210; loss of dominance, 232, 156; national unity government, 122–23, 126–27; as opposition, 163, 187, 191–93, 216; secessionists from, 2, 161, 246; strategy of, 25, 123–25; transformation of, 156, 196–97, 200. See also National unity government Land of Israel Front, 187, 191 Landau, Uzi, 185 Lebanon, 110, 112, 118–19, 222, 224 Levi, David, 116, 127, 142, 143, 145, 166, 177, 189, 192, 215 Liberal Party: control of economic ministries, 100; debate on clustering, 43–44, 55–56; electoral performance of, 16; and electoral reform, 56, 158; Herut call for alliance with, 60 (see also Herut: and Liberal party); and Herut dissenters, 98 (see also Likud: and internal friction); ideology of, 45–49, 70; internal friction, 99, 113; Liberal Workers Movement, 56; and Mapai, 4, 50, 89; negotiations with Herut, 41–43; position on the territorial issue, 82, 85, 98–99, 101; and Rafi, 98, 101; and religious demands, 109; strength as a faction, 72, 85, 97, 98, 105, 109, 113; structure of, 99, 103. See also General Zionists; Progressive Party Likud: and Begin, 1–3, 105 (see also Herut: and Begin); candidates of, 160, 165–66, 169; DMC and, 74; and the election of 1973, 80–82; and the election of 1977, 82–87, 129; and the election of 1981, 95, 101, 106–9, 129; and the election of 1984, 114–21, 129; and the election of 1988, 125, 126–32, 134–38; and the election of 1992, 139–51, 153, 202, 204–9; and the elections of 1996, 22, 168–69, 178, 182, 185, 196 (see also Netanyahu: and the election of 1996); and the election of 1999, 163, 198, 203–10, 212–14, 222, 225, 229 (see also Netanyahu: and the elections of 1999); electoral decline of, 160, 215, 221, 246; and electoral reform, 159; expansion of, 1, 248; formation

Index of, 72; government of, 92, 99, 100, 105, 111, 187, 188, 190, 247; ideology of, 19, 72–73, 169, 172–73, 176–77, 181, 184, 194–95, 214; image of, 3 , 72, 93, 247; internal friction, 92, 95, 103, 104, 113, 155, 156, 186–88, 190–91, 193, 239 (see also Faction: and intraparty conflict); national contests, 244; partnership with One Israel, 225; party leaders, 164, 175, 186, 188, 203, 214, 216; platform of, 169, 172–75, 177, 183, 185; prime minister of, 123–24; relative cohesion of, 99, 102, 105, 110–11; secessions from, 19, 111, 124, 188, 189–90, 215; standing in polls, 112; strategy of, 25, 175–76, 178–80, 212 Lipset, Seymour Martin, 10 Livnat, Limor, 178, 184, 209 Madrid agreements, 178 Madrid conference, 141, 143 Magen, David, 175 Mair, Peter, 12, 78–79 Mapai: As Alignment faction, 71–72, 82, 100; Alignment negotiations, 44, 51, 53–54 (see also Ahdut Ha’avoda: relations with Mapai); and the call for labor unity, 60 (see also Ahdut Ha’avoda: and call for labor unity); coalitions of 2, 4, 16, 17, 38, 39, 42, 50, 55, 57, 89, 118; demise of 19; dominant party, 2, 3–4, 31–33, 35, 36, 56, 57, 232, 245; electoral appeals of, 64–65; formation of 32; and Mapam, 50, 53, 63, 82; platform of, 55, 57; positions on peace negotiations and borders, 43, 46–47, 67, 70; relations with Germany, 47, 70; strategy against, 41. See also Herut: alternative to Mapai Mapam: and Alignment governments, 82, 100; Alignment membership of, 64, 71–72, 86, 103–4, 111, 135; and Alignment negotiations, 56, 63; and Alignment propaganda, 118; alternative to Mapai, 50 (see also Mapai: and Mapam); and Arab sector, 132; coalition negotiations, 53–54; debate over Alignment break-up, 111, 121; electoral reform, 158; ideology of, 50, 52, 53, 110; as independent party, 123, 124, 135; Likud propaganda and, 115–16, 119; radicalism of, 51, 104, 122, 142; secession of, 100, 121, 124, 128, 155 Mass parties, 60, 79, 103, 109 May, John, 102

297

Media advisors (experts) 129, 164–65, 169, 244 Media experts. See Media advisors Meimad, 166, 197–98. See also One Israel: formation of Meir, Golda, 53, 70, 83, 86 Meretz, 142, 147, 150–52, 153, 187, 195, 215–16 Meridor, Dan, 175–77, 179, 188, 191, 193, 197, 200–1, 203–4 Michels, Robert, 76 Milo, Roni, 188, 200 Minor party, 1, 16, 88, 246 Mizrahi, 30, 32. See also National Religious Party (NRP) Moked, 104 Moledet, 142, 175, 187 Morasha, 120 Mordechai, Yitzhak, 170, 190, 192, 198, 200–4, 213 National Religious Party (NRP), 73, 120, 166, 184, 187, 190, 215. See also Mizrahi National Union, 204, 206 National unity coalition. See National unity government National unity government (national unity coalition), and the elections of 1967, 66–69, 92, 98, 105; and the elections of 1984, 121, 132, 159; and the elections of 2001, 224–27; negotiations on, 191, 216; Netanyahu’s plea for, 192; Shas’s membership in, 247; voter reaction to, 134. See also Herut and national unity government; Labor and national unity government; Netanyahu, Benjamin, and government of national unity National Workers’ Federation, 35, 48, 49, 97. See also Herut Navon, Yitzhak, 118, 132 Netanyahu, Benjamin: coalition constrains on, 167, 170–71, 188, 216; credibility of, 170, 185, 188, 191; defeat of, 23–24; and the elections of 1996, 22, 163–65, 169, 178–86, 195, 206; and the elections of 1999, 167, 169–70, 194, 196–202, 207–14, 222; government of, 169, 188–90; and government of national unity, 191–92, 216; and intraparty relations, 175–77, 179, 188, 190–94, 204; and peace negotiations, 187–88, 190, 192; positions on peace process, 173–74, 177, 180; weakness of, 215

298

Index

New Zionist Organization, 35, 47. See also Revisionist Party Nigeria, 241; Abacha, Sani, 241; All People’s Party, 241; Alliance for Democracy, 241; Obasanjo, Olusegun, 241 Nissim, Moshe, 116 Occupied Territories (Territories): destiny (fate) of, debate over the, 2, 5, 86, 116, 128, 141, 153, 245; and electoral propaganda, 125, 144, 146, 150; government policy, 69, 16, 149, 174; Jordan and, 131; party positions on, 68, 74, 132, 152, 153; and peace process, 101, 126; settlers in, 84, 85, 109, 118, 140, 148, 149, 215; U.S.A demands, 144; violence in, 217, 220. See also West Bank Olmert, Ehud, 188, 209 Ometz, 120 One Israel: and the election of 1999, 170, 197–203, 206, 208–10, 212–13; and the election of 2001, 219, 224; formation of, 23, 166, 196, 247; government of, 247, 215; partnership with Likud, 225. See also Gesher; Levi, David; Meimad Oslo Accords (agreements), 168–69, 172–74, 176–77, 180–81, 183–85, 187, 192–94, 198, 207 Oslo agreements. See Oslo Accords Oslo process, 219 Palestinian Authority, 9, 192 Palestinian autonomy in, 127, 177 Panebianco, Angelo, 12–13 Parlia-Presidential system: abolition of, 23; aims of, 228, 242; characteristics of, 6, 7; and coalition forming, 163; logic of, 164, 167–68; and the major parties, 169, 219; outcomes of, 171, 229, 247; and party change, 6 Party bloc: characteristics of, 7, 23; components of, 161–62; effects of, 6, 20, 124, 162; formation of, 5, 18, 156; and socio-political cleavages, 160. See also Party bloc system Party bloc system, 6, 20, 92, 154, 161, 168, 228, 235, 245 Party change (transformation, modification): aims of, 22–23, 246; effects of, 167; future of, 249; in Israel 15–25, 36, 61, 155, 243; literature on, 7–15; in multiparty democracies, 242; and party elites, 7, 22–23,

60; and party system change, 6, 36, 87, 241; theories of, 9–15, 23, 59, 60, 88, 89. See also Party system change Party clustering, 36, 37, 50, 74, 79, 84, 89, 101, 156, 240, 247–48 Party modification. See Party change Party platform (program): blurring of, 60, 229; cluster parties and, 88, 155; DMC, 74; and electoral contest, 221, 224–25; Herut, 46–47 (see also Herut, ideology of); and party structure, 63, 248; plan for labor alliance and, 52; Television and, 75. See also Ahdut Ha’avoda, program of; Gahal: platform of; Mapai: platform of Party program. See Party platform Party system change (restructure, transformation): causes of, 87–88, 89, 228, 235, 243; effects of, 75, 79, 167; future of, 245, 249; in Israel, 15–25, 66, 84, 87, 121, 134, 156; literature on, 7–15, 88, 232, 244; in multiparty democracies, 242; structural dimensions of, 160, 164. See also Party change Party transformation. See Party change Peace Now, 119, 128 Peres, Shimon: and the election of 1984, 114, 118; and the election of 1988, 126–33, 136–38; and the election of 1996, 165, 168, 178–81, 183–84, 192, 196, 208, 217; image of, 144–45; and Netanyahu, 192; party chairman, 113, 229; presidential candidacy of, 216; prime minister, 122, 176, 195; prime ministerial candidacy of, 219–20, 226–27; recruitment of, 57; tensions with Barak, 193, 219 PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization): and the campaign of 1996, 209–19; exclusion from negotiations, 126; intervention in Israeli elections, 131; in Likud propaganda, 115, 119, 131, 147, 184; peace negotiations 2, 181, 185, 192; recognition of, 168, 172; strongholds of, 183. See also Arafat, Yasir Position issue, 123, 125, 139, 143, 153 Primaries, 142, 144, 166, 188 Progressive Party 17, 41–42, 45–49. See also Liberal Party Proportional representation: candidate slate, 1; effects of, 3, 18, 31, 246; and electoral reform, 241; logic of, 6; and mixed electoral systems, 159–60, 162, 241; and the reform

Index of 1992, 5, 20, 241–42; restoration of, 24, 242, 243, 247 Proportionally amalgamated party, 63, 238. See also Cluster party Public party funding, 78–79, 89, 156, 165. See also Campaign financing Purposive-action approach, 12, 14, 16, 17, 19, 59, 88, 156, 228, 244. See Party system change Rabin, Yitzhak: assassination of, 36, 168, 176–77, 178, 194; and the election of 1984, 116; and the election of 1988, 130, 132, 138; and the election of 1992, 125, 139, 141, 143–46, 149, 152, 154, 197; image of, 144, 145; prime minister, 174; Rabin-Peres government, 212 Rabin-Philosoph, Dalia, 203 Rafi, 43, 54, 58, 67, 70, 71–72, 86, 93, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103, 105 Ray, Douglas, 241 Revisionist Party, 34–35, 126. See also Herut Riker, William, 98 Rimalt, Elimelech, 105 Rokkan, Stein, 10 Rose, Richard, 161 Ross, Dennis, 190 Russian immigrants, 25, 160, 162, 189, 198, 205, 211, 213; Russian party, 160, 162, 197, 206, 215; Russian vote, 198, 206. See also Israel Ba’aliya Sadat, Anwar, 101 Safire, William, 211 Samsonov, Gil, 185 Sapir, Yosef, 98 Sarid, Yossi, 115, 116 Sartori, Giovanni, 4, 5 Seidel, Hillel, 1, 2, 7, 23, 44, 63, 101 Serlin, Yosef, 55 Shahak, Amnon, 197, 200–2 Shamir, Yitzhak: appeal to new immigrants, 150; break with Netanyahu, 191, 204; coalition of, 141, 144; and the election of 1984, 115, 118; and electoral reform, 145; head of hawkish camp, 142–43; and party ideology, 177; and the peace process, 126, 130, 173–74; and public opinion polls, 137; rotation agreement, 122, 126; succession of Begin, 113

299

Sharansky, Natan, 213 Sharet, Moshe, 53, 57 Sharon, Ariel: and the election of 1996, 181, 184–85; and the election of 1999, 209, 211, 214; and the election of 2001, 171, 217–27, 229; head of hawkish camp, 142–43; in the polls, 203; prime minister, 248; stands on peace process, 173, 177, 190–91; and the war in Lebanon, 118–19 Shas: coalition membership of, 122, 189, 215–16, 222, 247; and the elections of 1999, 213; electoral appeal of, 247; and Likud vote, 204–6, 138; program of, 120; and social cleavages, 160, 162, 194, 196, 215; success of, 246–47. See also Ultraorthodox parties Shem Tov, Victor, 115 Shinui, 115, 120, 121, 142, 151, 161–62 Shrum, Robert, 165 Six Day War, 15, 46, 66, 84, 197 Social structure perspective, 14, 15, 17, 18, 59, 229 Speizer, Eliyahu, 138 Sprinzak, Ehud, 101 State List, 72, 93. See also Rafi Stern, Abraham, 35. See also Etzel Syria, 174, 177, 207, 215 Tamir, Yosef, 105 Tehiya, 104, 122, 123, 142, 153 Telem, 93–95 Territories. See Occupied Territories Third Way, 190 Tsur, Ya’akov, 126 Tzoment, 151–52, 153, 166, 177 Ultraorthodox parties, 25, 30, 124, 138, 152, 189, 200, 201, 205, 224–25, 247. See also Agudat Israel; Shas Unitary-amalgamated party, 63, 100. See also Cluster party United States: media consultants, 217; and Middle East negotiations 9, 69, 126–27, 131, 141, 187, 188, 190; politics in, 12, 75, 95, 163, 167, 206; strains with, 143–45, 189, 191–92; voting behavior in, 80 Valence issue, 123, 125, 139–141, 147, 150, 153 Weak-strong prime minister syndrome, 171, 221, 228

300

Index

Weizman, Ezer, 67, 87, 101, 120, 124, 131, 132, 135, 138 West Bank: argument over settlements in, 127, 128; land of the Jews, 194; Netanyahu’s tour of, 187; party positions on, 57, 68, 93; and peace process, 67, 168–69, 174, 183, 192; settlers in, 70, 195, 200, 215; violence in, 136, 186, 213. See also Occupied Territories Wilson, Frank, 12–13 World Zionist Organization (WZO), 29, 31–33, 35 Wye agreement (memorandum), 187, 192, 195, 207. See also Wye summit

Wye conference. See Wye summit Wye memorandum. See Wye agreement Wye summit (conference), 190–91, 203, 209, 217. See also Wye agreement Ya’ari, Meir, 53 Yadin, Yigael, 74, 93 Yahad, 120 Yishuv, 29–36, 45, 100, 243 Yom Kippur War (1973 War), 4, 19, 66, 70, 80, 84, 119, 222, 233 Yosef, Ovadia, 138, 205, 213. See also Shas