Roger A. Gerber

On March 28th, Israel held its fourth national election in only seven years, and the inconclusive results portend further political instability. Despite Olmert's claim, echoed by much of the media, that Israel's voters gave his Kadima party a mandate in support of Olmert's so-called convergence plan, entailing the expulsion of tens of thousands of Jewish citizens from the West Bank, the fact is that no such mandate exists. It is likely that another election will be required well before the end of the term of the recently elected 17th Knesset which was sworn in on April 17th.

As has been widely noted, the apparent lack of appeal of the three principal candidates for prime minister resulted in the lowest voter turnout in Israel's history (62.3%), which might seem surprising considering the crucial political crossroad at which Israel finds itself. The results of the Gaza "disengagement" are hardly inspiring; the increased tempo of rockets fired from Gaza now threatens the life of Israeli communities in the Gaza vicinity, not to mention the critical infrastructure in and around Ashkelon. The IDF has expressed concern over the buildup of weaponry and terrorist cells within the Gaza Strip. 'We are at war" with the Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank, declares Maj.-Gen. Yitzhak "Haki" Harel, head of the IDF's Planning Directorate and a senior member of the IDF General Staff. (Jerusalem Post, April 13).

Hamas has assumed the reins of government
in the Palestinian Authority and has vowed never to recognize the permanent presence of a Jewish state. At the same time, Israel faces an unprecedented existential threat from Iran whose President has promised that Israel will soon be "annihilated". Yet Israel's voting population remained relatively apathetic in this election, and the new Gil (Pensioners) Party received a surprising seven seats in the Knesset -- presumably drawing in large part on those protesting their unsatisfactory choices among the established parties.

As further evidence of the alienation of a large portion of Israel's voters from the candidates presented in this election, the combined total of the three parties with candidates for prime minister, Ehud Olmert's Kadima, Bibi Netanyahu's Likud and Amir Peretz's Labor Party, garnered only 60 seats among them, or less than a majority of the 120 seat Knesset. Israel's voter turnout of 62.3% might seem high when compared to American elections (voter turnout in the nine preceding U.S. elections ranged from a low of 49% to a high of 60% in the last election) but it must be compared to Israel's participation of 78.7% in 1999 and 68.9% in 2003.

In Israel, the voter does not vote directly for a prime ministerial candidate but for a party headed by the ostensible candidate. In this case, Ehud Olmert's Kadima party won only 22% of the vote, resulting in 29 out of 120 Knesset seats. In no city in Israel did Kadima win as much as 30% of the vote.

Clearly, if the election was a "referendum" on Olmert's plan for withdrawals and expulsions of Jewish settlers, as Olmert asserts, the results were less than a clear endorsement of his policies. The combined total of seats won by his party, and the two Zionist parties clearly in favor of the expulsions, Labor and Yachad (Meretz), is only 53 (I am excluding the seats won by the three anti-Zionist Arab parties) while the parties on the right have an aggregate of 50 seats. Further, the 29 seats won by Olmert must be compared to the 40 seats won by Sharon's Likud in the last election and the 40-44 seats that had been projected for Kadima not long before the election.

Within Kadima itself there is such an incongruous group, with sharply differing views on a wide variety of issues, that it is difficult to see how they will form a cohesive bloc. Kadima Knesset members range from Shimon Peres, Dalia Itzik and Chaim Ramon, from the Labor Party’s left wing, to Tzachi Hanegbi and Shaul Mofaz, formerly of Likud. Whether this disparate group will be prepared to follow the lead of Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, both once of the Likud "nationalist" group, remains to be seen.

Although as of this writing no coalition has yet been formed, there are three groups, according to Moshe Arens, that will "set the tone in the Knesset": Kadima with 29 seats, Labor-Meimad with 19 and the Ultra-Orthodox (Shas and United Torah Judaism) with 18 seats between them. In addition, it should be noted that the combined Ichud Leumi-Mafdal (National Union-National Religious Party) has another 9 seats and they will presumably be allied with Shas and United Torah Judaism on national security issues. Consequently, regardless of the composition of the final coalition, the government to be formed by Olmert does not appear to be a very stable one. Arens cites "the seeming inability to assign key ministerial portfolios to the most suitable members of the coalition" as a sign of the instability of the government in the process of formation.

Even the press, which consistently supported withdrawal plans previously, has voiced doubts. For example, Ari Shavit, a commentator for Haaretz, the flagship newspaper of the Israeli left, recently wrote that "The basic law of the Israel-Palestinian jungle is that Israeli withdrawal does not restrain the conflict, but escalates it." His colleague on the paper, long time Labor supporter Yoel Marcus, described by Yoram Hazony as “perhaps Israel’s most respected columnist” noted in an April 18th column “that in light of the fact that the evacuation of Gush Katif put Hamas in office, increased the Qassams, and Israel is still in Gaza via cannons, and maybe soon with tanks, I suddenly doubt if the Ehud Olmert government will be able to evacuate 60 thousand settlers.”

Sever Plocker, a member of the editorial board of Yediot Achronot, Israel's largest newspaper and an enthusiastic supporter of the Gaza “disengagement”, wrote in his column of April 16th, that "We didn't disengage: What is happening, and particularly what is not happening, in Gaza, continues to haunt us." He raises numerous critical questions regarding Olmert's “convergence” plan and notes that, with regard to Gaza, "Almost nothing has materialized in the way pullout supporters promised us would happen."

Support within Israel for Olmert's government will depend on a multitude of factors such as relations with the United States, the perceived imminence of the threat from Iran's nuclear ambitions, and the measures taken to combat Hamas and the other terrorist organizations, as well as the status of Israel's economy. In view of the fragility of any likely coalition, the divergent views among Kadima members, and the stresses among coalition members regarding economic and social issues -- particularly the extreme demands of Labor's Amir Peretz -- the odds favor another election well before the end of the prime minister's term of office.

Roger A. Gerber’s most recent article for Outpost was the “Missing Moral Dimension”, June 2005