March 20, 2015
When
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a snap parliamentary election
just two years into his four-year mandate, he believed the results would give
him a more stable governing coalition. Israelis seemed weary of him, but they
seemed exhausted of politicians in general. Salaries were down, the cost of
living was through the roof and they had just seen another major military
operation, calling up reserves twice in three years. Israel had been in the
grips of a leadership crisis for so long that people had become passively
accustomed to the lack of options.
Then
the election campaign began, and suddenly it seemed that Netanyahu might have
made a serious mistake. The polling numbers for his Likud party kept sinking. His
controversial March 3 speech to the United States Congress critical of
President Barack Obama’s nuclear negotiations with Iran did not provide the
bump in support he had anticipated. Instead, it elicited a backlash from voters
who were angry with the prime minister for having damaged Israel’s relationship
with its most important ally.
Meanwhile,
news interviews with people on the street reinforced the perception that the
average Israeli was far more worried about how to make ends meet than about
Iran’s nuclear program. The cost of living had soared so high that a dual
income professional couple with two children was struggling to pay rent. The center-left
Zionist Union and smaller parties campaigned on the economy, while the media
jeered at Netanyahu for focusing on Iran when the average Israeli could barely
afford a weekly trip to the supermarket.
What
was missing from the campaign agenda was the subject of Palestine. There was
some populist talk about never dividing Jerusalem, but politicians put forth no
suggestions for negotiating a withdrawal from the West Bank. And they spoke nothing
about Gaza. The omission isn’t entirely surprising. For most Israelis, the
occupation is irrelevant these days. Between the West Bank separation barrier,
the Palestinian Authority’s policing on behalf of the Israeli army, and the
settlement roads that circumvent the Arab towns and villages, the average
Israeli is barely aware that he lives among Palestinians.
The
economy shaped the election campaign, an issue that Netanyahu continued to
ignore even as his popular support continued to drop. Just one day before Israelis were due to vote on March 17, polls suggested
Netanyahu might not emerge as the victor. The Likud was polling at 20 seats and
the Zionist Union at 24. But by the time the last ballots were counted late
that night, Netanyahu had won 30 seats. Israeli media called it a landslide
victory. As one Israeli journalist noted, if you take out the ultra-Orthodox
and Arab Israeli voters, results show that one voter out of every three cast a
ballot for the Likud.
Why
were the polls so wrong? And why did one in three non-Orthodox Jewish voters cast
a ballot for the Likud, headed by a man who launched two major military
offensives in three years and whose economic policies reduced the middle class
to penury?
The
answers are complex and unquantifiable, but they boil down to tribalism and
fear. The Likud’s core voters are as loyal to the party as an Englishman is to
his soccer team. They respond to populism. The Likud sent out thousands of urgent
phone and text messages, calling upon party loyalists to vote in order to stave
off a left wing government that would trade away Jerusalem and withdraw from
the West Bank. On the day of the vote itself, Netanyahu uploaded a 30-second
video clip to his Facebook page in which he warned that “Arab voters are coming
out in droves to the polls,” transported in buses paid for by “leftists.” His
supporters listened.
The
alliance that these “droves of Arabs”—Israeli citizens—were turning out to vote
for is called the Joint List. In response to new legislation that raised the
minimum threshold a party needed to sit in the 120-seat Knesset to 3.25 percent
of the vote, or four seats, small parties representing Arab Israeli citizens
united to form the bloc. The Joint List combines Islamists and feminists,
secular Palestinian nationalists, Baathists and Jewish socialists, and is
headed by Ayman Odeh, a charismatic 40-year-old lawyer from Haifa. Its members
include at least one polygamist, and one open supporter of Hezbollah. But throughout
the campaign, Odeh kept the party’s platform focused on democracy and civil
rights. He succeeded in galvanizing the previously apathetic Arab vote and now
heads the third largest party in the Knesset, with fourteen seats.
While
Tuesday’s election results spell victory for Netanyahu, two factors foretell
change that will create challenges for Netanyahu’s government. First, the prime
minister has damaged relations with the Obama
administration so badly that it is difficult to imagine how he and the U.S.
president will work together over the next two years. Second, on the eve of the
vote Netanyahu announced that he will never allow an independent Palestinian
state, creating a storm of media attention in Israel.
The
rise of the Joint List and the emergence of a unified political voice among the
Arab Israeli citizenry will likely challenge Netanyahu’s Palestine policies. For
the past two decades, since the last Yitzhak Rabin government was dissolved in
1995, liberal Zionist parties have abided by a tacit taboo on bringing Arab
parties into a governing coalition. Netanyahu ignored the Joint List completely
during his campaign, only mentioning Arab citizens in the framework of race-baiting
on election day. As Arabs and as Israeli citizens, Joint List representatives
could be well poised to influence Israel-Palestine negotiations. What remains
to be seen is how effectively the alliance can exert political power in the
Knesset through legislation and committee participation.
Meanwhile,
Netanyahu’s hardline stance against a two-state solution has led to diplomatic
and possibly economic consequences. According to a European Union document
leaked to Haaretz in November, Europe,
Israel’s biggest trading partner, is considering economic sanctions against the
country if it willingly deters progress on a two-state solution. The Obama
administration also said this week that it would consider backing a United Nations
resolution that calls upon Israel to engage in talks aimed at withdrawal to the
1967 boundaries. Already feeling the shifting winds, Netanyahu backtracked on
his elective-eve pronouncement and reiterated support for a two-state solution.
His critics remain unconvinced.
For
the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the Israeli elections changed nothing.
But for the Arab citizens of Israel, the recent political awakening may have
strong implications for Israel’s government. Netanyahu has emerged as a victor
this week, but there is no more clarity about where Israel is headed. Instead,
the election raised more questions.
Lisa Goldman is a contributing editor at +972
Magazine and a fellow at the New America Foundation. On Twitter at: @lisang.