Bibi's Victory: Understanding the Israeli Elections

By Shmuel Lederman, a visiting scholar at the Hannah Arendt Center

Why did Benjamin Netanyahu win Israel’s recent elections? Various explanations are currently being put forward, most of which reveal more about those who suggest them than they do the political realities in Israel. To truly understand why Bibi won, we need to listen to what those who voted for him are saying.

Bibi's supporters have common sense. They experienced the Second Intifada (the Palestinian uprising), which included suicide bombers in the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and many other places, and they watched as thousands of rockets fell from the skies in the south of the country after Israel withdrew from Gaza. Acknowledging these events, most Israelis believe that their country should defend itself against a bitter enemy. It is therefore only reasonable that they would vote for someone who has in the past pledged to do everything necessary to do just that in a way that at the very least looks sane. In the meantime, other contenders who can rationally cater to this viewpoint have thus far failed to emerge. Those to the right of Bibi are seen by most as too fundamentally ideological and unlikely to be even minimally sensitive to the concerns of the international community, whereas those to his left are perceived as figures who, in the best case, would do a worse job or, in the worst case, would support the Palestinian “enemies.”

[caption id="attachment_15689" align="alignleft" width="300"] "Benjamin Netanyahu likely to be Israel PM; again" (Source: Erewise - March 19, 2015)[/caption]

These assumptions have been consistently reinforced by the majority of Israeli media. Indeed, to realize how plausible these assumptions are in the Israeli political discourse, one need only recall that at the time of the last Israeli operation in Gaza, the leaders of the opposition congratulated Netanyahu for his "moderate" conduct--supposed restraint which resulted in the deaths of more than 2,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians. In other words, it is not, as many commentators argue, Netanyahu's fear mongering about Iran, nor is it his voters' racism or lower-class background, that caused Bibi's triumph. It is the real-life experience of most Israelis in the last decade and a half, whether or not one accepts their subjective interpretation of those experiences.

From a broader perspective, it can be argued that the Israeli left lost all of the past elections because it already won in the broader political debate. One should recall that Rabin, who led the great breakthrough towards a settlement with the Palestinians, was not willing to allow a Palestinian state, only a Palestinian "autonomous entity," as he made clear before he was murdered. And yet, he became the symbol of peace-making for the international community and the Israeli left! In twenty years, we have reached the point where Netanyahu has been forced to back away from his declaration that there will not be a Palestinian state in an attempt to avoid the disapproval of the international community. Now more than ever, the Israeli public understands that any solution to the conflict must be based on the 1967 borders. This is a clear victory for the Israeli left.

[caption id="attachment_15690" align="alignright" width="300"] "Why a Palestinian state needs Israel" (Source: The Commentator - April 17, 2013)[/caption]

At the same time, however, the left has lost in the Israeli public consciousness due to ongoing Palestinian terrorist attacks and the Palestinians’ refusal to accept anything less than the 1967 borders. In order for an Israeli to understand the Palestinian position, she has to make a special effort to put herself in the Palestinians’ shoes, to look at the world, as Hannah Arendt put it, from the point of view of the “other.” And to achieve this, she has to overcome a political, media, and intellectual culture that for a long time now has been demonizing and producing willful ignorance about Palestinians. Failure to do so will shortchange the full range of options from which Israel has the ability to choose, which would only further erode Israeli democracy and add value to an increasingly racist and violent atmosphere in the country.

In any case, there is nothing surprising about the fact that Netanyahu was elected, though that does not mean that it was inevitable. It also doesn't mean that Herzog, his opponent, would have done a better job. To judge by the precedents of Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, and by the positions Herzog himself has expressed so far, it is likely that he would have prolonged the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, perhaps more effectively (in terms of international acceptance) than Netanyahu. This state of affairs makes any real progress towards a settlement of the conflict dependent on much more active pressure on Israel by the international community to end the occupation. Many Israelis and Palestinians understand that already. It is time for the international community to understand that as well.