Israel’s Third Election and the US Democratic Race
REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and the right-wing bloc have failed to secure a majority after Israel’s third election in less than one year. On March 15, Benny Gantz, the main opposition leader was given the mandate to form a government. The recent political uncertainty that has gripped Israel seems to be taking tender steps towards stability. Meanwhile, the Democratic nomination race in the US coalesces around two candidates. The relationship between Washington and Jerusalem could, hypothetically, be facing a biblical shift due to the diametrical differences on Israel between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.
The political stalemate in Israel began with elections in April and September 2019, when neither Netanyahu nor Gantz of the Blue and White Alliance, were able to create a coalition of more than the 61 seats required to form a government in the Israeli Knesset.
This deadlock is further complicated by several indictments placed against Netanyahu. The charges against the Prime Minister include breach of trust, accepting bribes and fraud. Netanyahu was due to appear in Jerusalem District Court. The Prime Minister was initially due to appear on March 17, but almost all courts were closed over concerns about the coronavirus by Justice Minister, and Netanyahu loyalist, Amir Ohana.
Netanyahu and the traditional right-wing bloc came away with a total of 58 seats. The centre-left, anti-Netanyahu bloc, consisting of the Blue and White Alliance, the Labour party and Joint List won a total of 55 seats.
Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) walked away with the remaining 7 seats, making it and its leader Avigdor Lieberman one of the kingmakers of this election. Lieberman, a former coalition partner and Minister of Defence in Netanyahu’s previous government, is unlikely to go back into power with the indicted Prime Minister.
A significant result of the election was the success of the Joint List in gaining an extra two seats in the Knesset, bringing its total to 15, making it another major power broker. The Joint List is an alliance of different Israeli-Arab factions, none of which have served in government before, due to their opposition to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories.
Gantz’s challenge now is to form a government which will have some longevity and provide Israelis with a break from the voting booth. Mtanes Shehadeh, a key figure within the Joint List, stated that a number of agreements would need to be reached before going into government. Shehadeh said there would need to be an “annulment of the Kaminitz Law and the Nation State Law, an economic program (aimed at improving the conditions of Israel’s Arab minority), a peace process, a change in the status of the Arab population in Israel, and annulment of discriminatory laws that significantly change the standing of the Arab population.”
Whether or not the Joint List will enter government or prop it up from the outside remains to be seen, but they will play a significant role in the existence of an Israeli government for the first time. A government that is accountable to a coalition party which is concerned with both Israel’s Arab population and Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, will inevitably have a different relationship with Washington.
Politics in the age of Coronavirus
In an extraordinary move last Wednesday, the Speaker of the Knesset, Yuli Edelstein (Likud), decided to close parliament. Edelstein’s justification was that he believes the closure will force the creation of a unity government (with Netanyahu at the helm) at this time of international crisis. The Speaker also stated that measures designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus prevented more than 10 people from gathering in one place.
The state has implemented similar responses to tackle the coronavirus that have been used in other countries. Closing some business and schools, restricting travel and gatherings, and encouraging social distancing. Israel has gone one step further by instituting monitoring of people with confirmed cases, leading some Israelis to fear their privacy rights are under threat.
The closure of parliament came a week before a vote was scheduled to take place on a new Speaker, a vote which Edelstein was likely to lose.
Opposition to the move was led by the Blue and White Alliance, who said that Netanyahu and Edelstein were waging an “assault on Israel’s democracy.” The protest against the move saw some Israelis take to the streets, defining the new regulations banning public gatherings.
The High Court reversed Edelstein decision and has ruled that he must arrange a vote for a new Speaker to take place on Wednesday. Voting in the Knesset will presume this week, functioning in accordance with social-distancing regulations implemented across the state.
Israel is suffering two ongoing crises. A health emergency that is rapidly spreading across the planet and changing how society functions is overlapping with the recent political turmoil. Netanyahu’s coordinated response to the coronavirus may succeed in preventing the spread of the disease, but the consequences of his measures will also increase his divisiveness.
Donald Trump's “Deal of the Century”
Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead
Over in the United States, the presidential race is faced with three different variables for the future of US-Israeli relations.
The Trump administration has made support for Israel a mainstay of its foreign policy agenda. By moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and facilitating Netanyahu’s attempts to annex some settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, Trump and his administration have given the Israeli Right the ability to undermine some of the key aspects of the peace process.
The Peace to Prosperity deal crafted by the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was met with resounding condemnation. The deal was seen as extremely biased towards Israel, as it required Israel to sacrifice very little to secure peace but demanded important sacrifices and concessions from the Palestinians in order to gain statehood. During the writing of the deal, no Palestinian Authority members were invited to the discussions, leading them to reject the deal before it was even presented to the world.
Trump’s first term in office has seen a reversal of decades of international agreement on how the delicate peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians should proceed. This has been done by entirely excluding one of the key actors, the Palestinians.
Joe Biden: The Consensus Candidate
That Gantz may succeed in his attempt to create a government and oust Netanyahu from power is not the only factor at play concerning the dynamic between Washington and Jerusalem. The Democratic primary race in the US has thrown up two candidates with different views on how the US-Israeli relationship could work.
Former Vice President Joe Biden has built his campaign on the narrative of being a consensus building candidate. He has over forty years of experience working across the aisle with Republicans as both a senator and as Vice President.
However, an important aspect of his career has been his unconditional support for the Israeli state. His perspective on Israel is rooted in his 1973 visit to Israel shortly after the Yom Kippur War and met then Prime Minister Golda Meir. He was one of many proponents calling for the resupplying of arms to Israel in order to rebuild its military.
This early experience in Biden’s career is mirrored in comments made to the AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), when he stated that “Israelis wake up every morning facing an existential threat from their neighbours — a rain of rockets from Gaza just this past week, threats and missiles from Iran and Hezbollah — Israelis live each day with tremendous courage.”
The question of Biden’s ability to be a consensus-building moderate will be important to the future of Washington-Jerusalem relations. The current administration in the White House has seen a fraught relationship with the Palestinians, and a president who has built his career around creating working relationships that could bring the Palestinians back into the conversation and down the road towards peace.
Biden has continually expressed support for a two-state solution but said that it needed to be constructed on the understanding that the “Palestinians need to eradicate incitement in the West Bank and end the rocket attacks from Gaza. And they need to accept, once and for all, the reality and the right of a secure, democratic and Jewish State of Israel in the Middle East.”
Getting to this position of compromise is no easy task, but it is not out of the realm of possibility for someone like Joe Biden.
Bernie Sanders: The Alternative Way
Senator Bernie Sanders holds the possibility of changing the Washington-Jerusalem relationship in an interesting way. Sanders himself is Jewish, his father emigrating to the US after surviving the Holocaust. While this may seem somewhat inconsequential, it will be a significant symbolic element of the relationship between the two countries.
What is interesting to note about Sanders, and what distinguishes him from Biden, is that Sanders has talked about making US military aid to Israel conditional on the basis that Israel start taking more practical steps towards a two-state solution.
Presently, the US gives Israel $3.8 billion in military assistance. While speaking at a J Street national conference, Sanders stated that “My solution is to say to Israel: you get $3.8 billion every year, if you want military aid you're going to have to fundamentally change your relationship to the people of Gaza, in fact, I think it is fair to say that some of that should go right now into humanitarian aid."
Applying this kind of conditional pressure on any kind of Israeli government would be far removed from any Biden-style consensus building, Trump’s one-sided posturing.