By Benjamin Kerstein
The protest movement that has dominated Israeli
politics and culture for the past month would seem to
have run its course. It has succeeded in changing the
public discourse, rearranging priorities across the
social and economic spectrum, bringing hundreds of
thousands into the streets, and garnering the support of
an overwhelming number of Israelis, according to some
reports, as much as 90 percent.
In terms of concrete accomplishments, however, not much
has happened. The Netanyahu government has put together
a blue-ribbon panel to examine the situation and
recommend reforms. According to Haaretz, there are some
good signs that the panel, unlike most similar bodies,
may actually intend to do something:
Netanyahu told Professor Manuel Trajtenberg, the head
of the panel of experts who will talk with protest
leaders, that he understood it was necessary to change
economic policy.
But Trajtenberg went further, telling Netanyahu he
had to change his fundamental positions. Netanyahu
agreed and said he had read a new book about how Herzl
adapted himself to changing circumstances.
"I understand my views need to change," Netanyahu
reportedly replied.
There is a strong possibility, however, that this is
simply a stalling tactic. Netanyahu may well be hoping
that, come the U.N. vote on Palestinian statehood in
September, the protests will be quickly forgotten and
things will return to normal. By the time the panel
issues its report, no one will care or even pay much
attention.
If true, this is likely wishful thinking on Netanyahu's
part. The objective economic factors that have driven
the protests - income inequality, high prices, shortage
of housing, under funded public services, etc. - will
not go away by themselves. Even if public sentiment is
moderated by concern over security issues, after a short
period of time it will likely return, angrier than ever,
to the issue of social justice. No god, the saying goes,
can stop a starving man.
There is no need, however, for Israel to wait on the
PM's panel. The process of reform can be undertaken
immediately, and on a non-partisan basis. At this very
moment, a viable right-left social justice bloc already
exists in the Knesset. It would be composed of the major
opposition parties Kadima and Labor, along with large
sections of the Likud and the religious parties.
Given the widespread sentiment across all sectors of
society in favor of reform, major legislation would also
likely be supported by Meretz, the religious nationalist
parties, and the Arab parties. Such an informal
coalition would compose well over half the Knesset. More
than enough to enact the reforms the public is demanding
so fervently.
This is the case because, in spite of its success over
the last few decades in remaking Israeli society, the
free market system favored by Netanyahu actually has
very little political support in Israel. At most, it is
fervently believed in by Netanyahu and a few of his
close advisors. Everyone else has gone along because it
seemed to be necessary and seemed to be working. Now, it
seems to be doing neither.
For most of Israel's neoliberal era, support or
acquiescence in free market policies was also driven by
two other factors: an acknowledgement of the historical
failure of socialism, and a fear of returning to the bad
old days of Israeli austerity and the domination of the
Labor Party. Neoliberalism appeared to be, under these
circumstances, the only viable policy.
There is already another option, however, and it may be
uniquely well-suited to Israeli society: the "third
way."
Third way economic policies have been described by
economist Joseph E. Stiglitz as a
system that
recognized the important, but limited, role of
government, that unfettered markets often did not work
well, but that government was not always able to
correct the limitations of markets.
A successful third way policy would be a synthesis of
the virtues of socialism and the free market system,
while using both systems to ameliorate each other's
flaws. It would involve, for example, a country in which
businesses are encouraged to flourish and grow, but the
tax revenues garnered by this growth are then channeled
into the public sector in order to provide for a more
equitable distribution of wealth and a strong foundation
of basic services like education and health care.
In a small, tightly-knit, socially conscious, but also
dynamic and innovate nation like Israel, a third way
policy would likely be both successful and garner
widespread political support.
The third way is often linked to two other
political-economic concepts: the "radical center" and communitarianism. A
radical center stresses the importance of a pragmatic
middle way between more extreme ideological poles, while
communitarianism emphasizes the importance of
recognizing the non-political binds that unite various
communities within a larger nation, as well as a
recognition of the responsibility of these communities
to their members and the state's responsibility, in
turn, to these communities.
In many ways, Israel is already a communitarian
society, with a highly fractured society composed of
many different ethnic and cultural groups, most of which
are nonetheless united on certain basic principles. The
state, moreover, grants substantial rights and autonomy
to many of these groups and recognizes the importance of
their communal bonds.
The radical center has had a rough time of it in Israel
as late, but there are strong indications that it also
exists, albeit in latent form. The 90-something percent
of Israelis who support the protests come, must come,
from many different groups and sectors in Israeli
society. It is highly unlikely that this massive
majority supports the more extreme demands of the
protest leaders. They come, must come, from Israel's
beleaguered middle class. They want radical change, but
they want that change to be neither socialist nor
neoliberal in nature. They must be, in other words,
radical centrists.
Squeezed between the radical socialists and anarchists
who are attempting - quite unsuccessfully - to hijack
the current discontent to their own ends, and a small
but powerful neoliberal establishment, this radical
center needs and deserves a third way, and the Knesset
should act immediately to satisfy its demands.
It should do so by informally establishing the social
justice bloc I mentioned above. This bloc should then
propose legislation that deals solely with social and
economic reform, avoiding the fraught and irrelevant
issues that have driven Israeli politics to its current
impasse.
Israel has reached another historic moment. The failure
of neoliberalism has been far less severe than that of
socialism, and the human cost has been hardly
comparable, but it has failed nonetheless. If Israel
wants to avoid the terrible consequences of that failure
that have now engulfed most of the rest of the world, it
must act and act soon.
Israel is lucky in that all the tool to do so are
readily available. There is a third way and there is the
political means to enact it. The radical center in the
streets has found the will to act. It is time for the
radical center in the Knesset to do the same.
