Analysis: Israel's impasse
By Tobias Buck
Published: July 9 2008 03:00 | Last updated: July 9 2008 03:00
As the former head of Mossad, Israel's secret service, Danny Yatom is not a man
easily ruffled.
Yet halfway through his second term in the Israeli parliament, where he served
as a deputy for the Labour party, Mr Yatom found he could take no more.
Dismayed by the latest backroom deal to preserve the life of the current
government for another three months, he announced his decision to retire from
politics last week. "The leadership in Israel has made political survival its
only goal. Moral and ethical codes that were once fundamental have been
eroded," Mr Yatom declared.
While he placed the primary blame on Ehud Olmert, Israel's embattled prime
minister, Mr Yatom also took aim at his own party, which forms part of the
governing coalition: "Olmert failed . . . but he is not alone. As a Knesset
member in a coalition party, I feel as though I am a partner in the
deterioration when I vote in favour of the government."
Israel's former top spy is far from alone in voicing dismay at the state of
Israeli politics. According to polls, three out of five Israelis want Mr
Olmert, who is the target of an embarrassing corruption probe, to resign
immediately. Despite his personal travails and his chronically weak and
fractious coalition, the prime minister has shown no intention of heeding such
pleas: although he has agreed to hold primaries aimed at electing a new leader
of his Kadima party by September, no one is counting out Mr Olmert as he
continues his gravity-defying battle to stay in office.
Unpopular governments are hardly un-usual in Israel, where prime ministers have
repeatedly been hounded out of office only to be voted back into power again a
few years later. But a growing number of Israelis believe that the country
faces not so much another coalition collapse but something larger: a full-blown
crisis in the country's political system that is sapping the ability of
political leaders to tackle crucial challenges - from reaching a peace deal
with the Palestinians to facing down the threat of an increasingly hostile Iran.
The three symptoms of the country's political malaise are easy to spot:
exceedingly low levels of trust in politicians and democratic institutions, the
chronic instability of Israeli governments and the fragmentation of parliament
and political life in general.
Mr Olmert's turbulent tenure is a case in point: his botched war in Lebanon two
years ago and a string of corruption allegations have increased voter
disillusionment; at the same time, the fragmented nature of Israeli politics
forced him into an unwieldy coalition and left him exposed to constant
political blackmail. The need to satisfy the narrow and often contradictory
wishes of his coalition partners made it almost impossible for Mr Olmert to
pursue coherent policies and deliver on promises such as reaching a peace deal
with the Palestinians.
An example of the limitations placed on the prime minister is his inability to
negotiate the status of Jerusalem - one of the keys to resolving the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Shas, the biggest ultra-orthodox religious party
and a member of Mr Olmert's coalition, has warned repeatedly that it will pull
out of the government if he even discusses handing back occupied East Jerusalem
to the Palestinians.
One factor hindering political cohesion in the country is its electoral system,
which leads to a highly fragmented parliament. Unlike the winner-takes-all of
some western democracies such as the UK or the percentage threshold required by
others before a party can enter parliament, Israel elects its MPs through pure
proportional representation. Seats in parliament are allocated according to the
percentage that a party achieves. There are no direct run-offs in
constituencies and districts and candidates are selected by political party
lists.
Signs of voter disillusionment can be found everywhere, but a good starting
point is the country's annual Democracy Index, a survey published by the Israel
Democracy Institute. The most recent study found only 17 per cent of Israelis
have trust in the prime minister, while the Knesset fared little better with 29
per cent. Even the Supreme Court - hitherto seen by respondents as the body
that "best safeguards Israeli democracy" - saw its rating plunge by 12 points
to just 49 per cent.
Voter turnout at general elections has also fallen steadily, reaching a new low
of 63 per cent two years ago. Opinion polls, meanwhile, make grim reading not
just to Mr Olmert but to most of his political rivals as well - a reflection,
perhaps, of the fact that nine in 10 Israelis believe the country is "tainted
with corruption", according to the same survey from the Israel Democracy
Institute.
Such ratings, says Ari Shavit, a political analyst and commentator for Haaretz
newspaper, mean Mr Olmert has no chance of pulling off a peace agreement. "In
order to lead a nation through the risks involved in making a peace deal, we
need a leader with deep moral authority. Otherwise the nation will fall apart,"
he says.. "There is no one who thinks that a person with Ehud Olmert's moral
authority and gravitas can make peace."
Shlomo Avineri, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University and a
former director-general of Israel's foreign ministry, points out that the
problem goes far beyond trust in Mr Olmert: "The last few years have shown that
it is very difficult for the political system to come up with decisions on
crucial issues," he says.
A key reason for this widely shared view is the instability and fragmentation
of Israeli politics. Since the state was founded in 1948, voters have seen
governments come and go on average every two years. Somewhat ironically, this
makes Mr Olmert's teetering coalition - Israel's 31st government, according to
the official count - one of the more lasting ones.
But as the past two years have shown, even prime ministerial staying power is
no guarantee of stability. As Mr Olmert's government lurched from one crisis to
the next, it took on new coalition partners, only to lose them again a year
later. New min-isterial portfolios were created and dissolved, while others,
such as the all-important defence brief, had to be reshuffled.
The constant churn in government is mirrored in the Knesset, where parties pop
up, enjoy a brief political flowering in the legislature only to wither and die
at the next election. In the current Knesset, this role is performed to
perfection by the Pensioners party, which won seven of the chamber's 120 seats
two years ago, and joined Mr Olmert's coalition government. Yet with little to
show for its efforts, the group has split and polls say it has no chance of
being returned at the next general elections in 2010.
With other fringe parties certain to take its place, it is a fair bet that the
Israeli parliament will continue being a lively place.. The current chamber
includes 13 parties; the largest, Mr Olmert's Kadima, controls fewer than
one-quarter of the seats. Even a combination of the three biggest parties -
spanning the political left, right and centre and boasting the current prime
minister and two of his predecessors - would fall one deputy short of a
majority in the Knesset.
Barring a surprise, any future government will again need the support of
several smaller coalition allies to form a majority. There are plenty to choose
from, with the current Knesset including eight parties with less than 10 seats.
Israel's biggest minority groups - Arabs and ultraorthodox Jews - are
represented by no fewer than five parties. All of them are virtually guaranteed
seats in the Knesset thanks to the country's electoral regime.
Gideon Doron, a professor of political science at Tel Aviv University, says the
system "sharpens and reinforces" the already stark divisions between Israel's
social groups because it ensures that votes for minority parties are rewarded
with seats in the Knesset. It has, he argues, helped cement the influence of
special interest parties that place the welfare of their constituents - such as
ultra-orthodox Jews,Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank or Israeli Arabs
- above the broader national interest.
Reform of the electoral system - in particular a higher threshold for smaller
parties to enter the Knesset - has been on the agenda for much of Israel's
history. But chances of a successful overhaul are seen as slim, not least
because of the entrenched position of the parties that have most to fear from
such a reform - in particular the ultra-orthodox groups.
Prof Avineri dismisses electoral reform as "snake-oil medicine" that has no
chance of being implemented and that may end up doing more harm than good. "If
you go with the British system, you will end up with a party taking 25 per cent
of the vote but controlling 60-65 per cent of the Knesset. That is very
problematic," he says, pointing to the absence of cohesive political blocks in
Israel.
Instead of abandoning the current voting regime, Prof Avineri argues in favour
of reforming the way that parties select their candidates for the Knesset,
which he believes gives too much sway to party activists. "It's a populist
beauty contest," he says. "This is a country bursting with talent but one
reason why people don't go into politics is that they don't want to go through
the primary grind, which is demeaning and expensive. People need a lot of
money. Once elected, a politician has to spend three, four, five nights a week
attending bar mitzvahs or weddings - not of close friends but of people whose
votes he wants."
Ultimately, however, Prof Avineri believes the country's dysfunctional politics
mirror the dis-agreements and divisions that haunt Israeli society at large.
After more than a decade of diplomatic setbacks, Israeli voters are torn
between their desire for a peace agreement and their mistrust of both Israeli
and Palestinian leaders. At the same time, Israel's mosaic society of
immigrants, secularists, ultra-orthodox Jews, settlers and Arabs is
increasingly splitting along sectarian lines.
"The problem is that this is a very complex country in terms of its politics
and social structure and that makes it very difficult to govern. The country is
divided," says Prof Avineri.
Prof Doron, too, is sceptical of any marked improvement in the near term. He
compares Israel's current situation with France's tumultuous Fourth Republic,
which saw more than 20 prime ministers come and go between 1946 and 1958. That
period ended with the return of Charles de Gaulle and the creation of a strong
presidency to guarantee political stability.
"The Fourth Republic was muddling through from one crisis to the next - just
like we are doing now. Maybe we should move to a presidential system, like in
France," Prof Doron says. For such a change to happen, however, Israel would
have to experience a huge crisis, like the Algerian war that put paid to
France's Fourth Republic, he adds. Anything less dramatic will not be enough:
"We are no longer impressed by small crises."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/622c70fe-4d5d-11dd-8143-000077b07658.html
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