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The Israeli Elections--Can Barak Win By Losing?

February 5, 2001

Israel will hold elections for Prime Minister tomorrow, and opposition leader Ariel Sharon is expected to win by a significant margin over incumbent Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak was elected in 1999, defeating then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the help of James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign advisor. In this election, Sharon’s margin is so large (20 points, according to some polls), that even Carville can’t help. But will a victory for Sharon tomorrow be a defeat for Barak? Or will it be just the first step in Barak’s comeback?

Barak was elected in 1999 to continue the Oslo peace process begun in 1993 by Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, who was later assassinated. Rabin, his foreign minister Shimon Peres, and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorist Yassir Arafat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for signing to the Oslo accords, under which Israel agreed to hand over to Arafat much of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to rule as an autonomous Palestinian entity. In exchange, Arafat agreed to stop killing Israelis. The Oslo process was to last for 7 years, during which the confidence built by seven years of peace would allow for final status negotiations on Arab East Jerusalem, Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and Arab refugees’ right of return to Israel.

The Oslo peace process broke down almost immediately. Although the autonomous Palestinian entity was established under Arafat’s rule, terrorism against the Israelis did not stop. Rabin was assassinated by a disgruntled Israeli in 1995, and was succeeded by Shimon Peres. A series of terrorist bombings led to Israeli voters rejecting Peres in 1996 in favor of Benjamin Netanyahu of the hard-line Likud party. However, Netanyahu was not as hard-line as his supporters had hoped. Pressured by both Bill Clinton and by his own sense that Oslo represented a legal commitment by the state of Israel, Netanyahu continued the process of handing over more land to Arafat’s rule, most notably the biblically historical city of Hebron in 1997. By 1999, Netanyahu had sufficiently alienated both his supporters and opponents that the Israeli Knesset decided to hold new elections, which Netanyahu lost by a sizable margin. Netanyahu subsequently resigned his seat in the Knesset.

Barak did not fare any better than Netanyahu in his dealings with Arafat. Although a period of relative peace followed Barak’s election, he focused most of his peacemaking efforts on Syria and Lebanon. Intensive negotiations with Arafat brought much wishful thinking, which was shown to be just that at a meeting hosted by President Clinton at Camp David in July of 2000. Barak agreed to a Palestinian state consisting of most of the West Bank and Gaza strip as well as Arab East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. In addition, Barak agreed to abandon many of the Israeli settlements in the territories and allow for limited Palestinian right of return. In exchange, Arafat would declare an end of the conflict. Barak’s concessions caused his coalition partners in the Knesset to abandon him, but the concessions were not enough for Arafat, who in the opinion of many will settle for nothing less than the destruction of Israel. At the conclusion of the seven-year peace process in September of 2000, Arafat began another uprising. Barak’s popularity, already buffeted by his failure to obtain a peace agreement, plummeted as the death toll rose. The Knesset began considering calling new elections, by Barak decided to short circuit the process by resigning instead.

Now in any other country, when a Prime Minister resigns, he’s gone. Not so in Israel. The Israeli Knesset passed a law in 1995 that established the direct election of the Prime Minister. In most countries with a parliamentary form of government, and in Israel before 1995, the people vote for a party to represent them in parliament. The party with the most representatives in the parliament then chooses the Prime Minister and forms a government. If the party has less than a majority in the parliament, it must form a coalition with other parties in order to have a majority to form the government. If the Prime Minister resigns, the ruling party elects another Prime Minister who then attempts to form a majority, or they can call for new elections.

However, Israel’s parliamentary process no longer works like other countries. In 1995, the Knesset passed a law that allowed the people to elect the Prime Minister, as well as voting for a party for the Knesset, which can be different than the party of the Prime Minister candidate. As a result, Netanyahu became Prime Minister in 1996, even though his Likud party had fewer Knesset members than Peres’s Labor party.

Although in some ways, the direct election of the Prime Minister made Israel more democratic, it also led to the fragmentation of parties in the Knesset, making it more difficult for a Prime Minister to govern. Now a voter can vote for the Prime Minister that he really wants, but still vote for the party that represents his narrow interest. As a result, the Labor Party’s representation in the Knesset has dropped from a near majority under Rabin to only 26 under Barak. The major opposition party, the Likud, has seen a similar drop in its numbers, while third parties such as the ultra-Orthodox Shas have increased. As a result, neither Netanyahu nor Barak has served out the 5-year term for which they were elected. The Knesset turned on Netanyahu after only 3 years in office, and Barak lasted less than two years.

Barak’s resignation was less a resignation than a parliamentary tactic. By resigning, he ensured that new elections would not be called. When new elections were being considered, it was widely thought that Netanyahu would return as the leader of the Likud. Netanyahu’s popularity, in spite of his previous failure as Prime Minister, is still greater than that of Sharon, who, whatever his other points, lacks one essential in modern politics, charisma. However, since new elections will not be held, Netanyahu, not currently a member of the Knesset, can not run. The Knesset briefly considered changing the law to allow Netanyahu to run for Prime Minster even without new elections, but Netanyahu refused, apparently believing that with the current fagmented Knesset, the country is ungovernable.

In the view of many, it appears that Barak’s gambit has failed. Even the unpopular Sharon is now poised for victory over Barak. The Labor Party even considered calling on the perennial loser Peres to run instead of Barak, although Barak succeeded in squashing this move.

But let’s look at what will happen next if Sharon wins. Sharon will take office with only 19 members of his party in the Knesset, fewer than any Prime Minister has had at any time in Israeli history. Whether Sharon tries to make peace with Arafat or takes a hard-line, he will have 101 members of the Knesset questioning his every move, while only his own Likud Party with 19 seats will support him. Unless Sharon can perform a miracle, his government will fail. This time, the Knesset will call new elections. And the Israeli public will not blame the Labor party and Barak, which got Israel into this mess to begin with. Instead, the public will blame the ruler of the hour, Sharon, who simply inherited the mess and did not have enough votes in the Knesset to govern. Barak’s previous failures will be forgotten. And this time, when the people vote for Barak, their new messiah, they will also vote to give his party a large governing plurality in the Knesset. Thus, even by losing, Barak can win in the long term.

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