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by Bret Stephens
opinion columnist
JERUSALEM – Anshel Pfeffer, a columnist for the left-leaning newspaper Haaretz, was horrified last week after the Israeli electorate gave the far-right alliance only about 11 percent of the vote, making it the third-largest parliamentary bloc in the Knesset. the bloc’s leader, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a “fascist,” a description that matches a guy who once had a portrait of Israeli terrorist Baruch Goldstein in his living room.
But Pfeffer also has a sense of perspective. “It’s a shame that 11 percent of Israelis voted for those other people,” he told me as we headed to a quiet lunch in the village of Ein Kerem on Saturday. “Now tell me: what percentage of French people who voted for Marine Le Pen’s fascists?
The answer is 41%. When it comes to the democratic politics of the far right, whether in France, Italy, Sweden or the United States, Israel is lagging behind.
This is a point of value that he takes into account amid the turmoil, inside and outside the country, about the state and character of Israeli democracy. The country has held five elections since 2019, due to a similarly divided electorate and volatile coalition politics. He fired Benjamin Netanyahu for his third circular as prime minister, a testament to his political prowess and appetite for power. Israelis are tired of going to the polls, even though 71% of the electorate voted again last week. And unlike the United States, almost everyone accepts the official results.
None of this suggests a declining democracy. Netanyahu may be an unpopular figure in much of the West, but the country prospered economically during his tenure and forged new alliances in the Middle East and Africa. Israeli security officials know that while Netanyahu likes to speak harshly in public, he is a cautious father and above all averse to the risk of the national interest.
Nor is he about to overthrow Hamas in Gaza (which, he once told me, was his favorite alternative) or dismantle the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. His perspectives on the Palestinians reflect a resigned Israeli consensus: peace will come when a long-term generation of Palestinian leaders, not Hamas theocrats or Fatah kleptocrats, abandon their dreams of destroying the Jewish state. Until then, Israel will settle for an unfortunate prestige quo as the most productive of bad alternatives.
So what ails Israel? The choice comprises two vital clues, not the ones regularly noticed by foreign observers.
The first is the political self-destruction of the Israeli left. Meretz, Israel’s progressive party, failed to win a seat in parliament only after winning six in the 2021 election. The Labor Party, Israel’s historic center-left party, fell to 4 out of seven seats.
“Since the Palestinians have violently refuted the Israeli left’s assumption that withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza would bring peace, the left no longer has a compelling message for Israeli voters,” said Einat Wilf, a former Labour MP. “Moreover, as in the world, right-wing populist parties emerge when concerns, especially from the ruling classes, around crime and immigration are ignored. “
This is a lesson for the Democratic Party. The country wants a relevant,, and politically tough left as a viable brake on the populist, xenophobic and anti-secular impulses of the right. For now, there is none, a flaw that will have long-term consequences for the character and dynamism of Israeli society if nothing changes.
The key to the moment is that the innermost chasm in Israeli politics, between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority, is widening. In the Arab-Jewish city that was the scene of intercommunal riots and looting in May 2021, Ben-Gvir’s party saw its vote count double compared to the last election. Balad also, the top party of Israel’s Arab parties, Pfeffer told me. enterprise.
On Monday, I spoke with Muhammed Khalaily, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute (of which I sit on the advisory council), about what the elections mean. “It wasn’t a big surprise,” he told me. It is a tactical translation of the deep undercurrents that have evolved in recent years to exclude Arabs and unmarry them. “Even the historic inclusion of the outgoing government of an Arab party in its coalition has replaced shortly after it failed to secure, namely higher budgets for Arabs. priorities, namely safety, education and painting opportunities.
Have things gone through a point of no return?Khalaily thinks not. This will require not only a massive reallocation of resources (as well as some fundamental policy replacements, such as making bank loans more available to Arab corporations so they don’t want to rely on local crime bosses), but a complete replacement in mindset. Khalaily says Ben-Gvir “thinks the way to solve this is to exercise Jewish supremacy and force the Arabs to submit. That’s not the way to go. “
Each Israeli election takes position in two stages: first the vote itself and then the mandatory haggling to form a coalition. There is still time for Netanyahu and his formative rivals to put aside their petty differences, exclude Ben-Gvir and his disgusting allies from the next government, and regardless, start treating Israel’s Arabs as full-fledged fellow citizens rather than a possible fifth column. That would be genuine political sense: a legacy worthy of all the other people of Israel, no matter how, or if, they worship.
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