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Israel’s election: another unstable government guaranteed
LESS THAN a month after the end of the latest bloody
onslaught on Gaza the West Bank was put under a military closure as the
election for Israel’s 120-seat Knesset (assembly) began. Many Israelis
went to vote reluctantly and many abstained. The results were not only
the expected nightmare for the working-class, but also a headache for
the Israeli elite.
The Gaza Strip massacre was conducted on purpose
during the run-up to the election. The results, however, show that the
ruling parties did not gain from it. The ruling party Kadima (Forward)
kept its position as the biggest party, but only because a certain
lesser-evil vote allowed it to grab votes from other establishment
parties. This even caused a slight increase in the turnout, from 63.5%
in 2006 to 64.7%. The turnout among Israeli-Palestinians and youth seems
to be relatively low, although no official figures are available yet.
Nevertheless, Kadima dropped from 29 to 28 seats, a bad share for the
biggest party – second only to the 26 of Ehud Barak’s then coalition
list, One Israel (extended ‘Labour’ party), in 1999.
The secondary ruling party, Avoda (Labour – led once
again by Barak) suffered its worst ever result, down from 19 seats to
13. Its little cousin party, Meretz (Vigour), plunged to its own
all-time low of three seats, after it attempted to reshape itself as
more mainstream. This is a further crumbling in the support base of the
Israeli ruling class’s traditional parties.
The more right-wing, conservative Likud
(Solidification), which in 2006 achieved its worst ever electoral result
– 12 seats – has now got 27. Likud’s support in 2006 was hit by the
response to its hated neo-liberal agenda, combined with the
establishment of Kadima, which was meant to be a more stable governing
tool for the ruling elite. It failed, and Likud won many of Kadima’s
former voters, after some time out of the ruling coalition.
Another party strengthened is the autocratic,
racist, right-wing party of Avigdor Lieberman, Yisrael Beytenu (Israel
Our Home), which waged a vicious anti-Arab campaign with the slogans:
‘Only Lieberman understands Arabic’, and ‘No loyalty, no citizenship’.
The party increased from 11 to 15 seats, into third place. This is less
than predicted by different polls, and is not comparable to its major
jump in 2006, before which it had only three seats and was considered a
right-wing, Israeli-Russian party.
Lieberman’s party is exploiting the political cracks
and growing popular rejection of the traditional parties. It won votes
from some highly despairing and disgusted sections of Jewish workers and
poor. It has a core of support among Israeli-Russians but, generally
speaking, the rise of such a party is not unique to Israel, it has been
evident in recent years, in different forms, in some European countries
as well.
Lieberman and his party tend to say loudly what the
main establishment parties only imply. This is partly why Lieberman is
not well liked among the ruling elite. He is presenting the real face of
the brutal Israeli capitalist regime, as a self-titled ‘Thatcherite’
with an autocratic, racist agenda.
Like many leading politicians, Lieberman has been
involved in infamous corruption scandals (under investigation) and
thuggery, including an alleged short period of activity in the outlawed
fascist-Kahanist group Kakh. But at root, it is also a party of
chair-chasers, a member of each of the last three governments, going in
and out of them over various nationalist pretexts. In the outgoing
government Lieberman served as deputy prime minister and as minister for
‘strategic matters’, until his party quit in 2008.
The establishment parties ran desperate campaigns,
with not a few imitations of Barack Obama’s US presidential campaign.
The right-wing populist religious party, Shas, even had the slogan:
‘With the help of God, yes we can’, declaring it was aiming for 20
seats. It dropped from 12 to 11. This was despite using populist
demands, for instance calling for a pension for every worker and an
increased minimum wage.
So ignorant are the capitalist politicians and their
professional advisors, that they interpreted Obama’s victory merely as a
demagogic trick, ignoring the reasons behind the historical crumbling of
the establishment parties in Israel. Dreaming of the degenerating US
political system, Kadima leader, Tzipi Livni, said that people should
not look for a party agenda, but for the personality they prefer. At the
time of writing, it is unclear who the next prime minister will be.
Since the Israeli state was established, only two
governments out of 31 have survived a four-year term, and they did so
under exceptional circumstances. The first was due to an extreme wave of
reaction following the 1967 war, which resulted in the biggest ever
electoral support for a ruling party in Israel. The second followed the
changeover of 1977, when the ruling elite parties were taken down after
three decades in power, via a ballot-box revolt that was exploited by
Likud. It is highly unlikely that the new government will be the third.
Speaking of historic records, December 2008 saw an
all-time high number of redundancies in the Israeli economy. The central
bank has set its interest rate to a record low of 1%, and had to update
its prognosis for economic growth in 2009 to minus 0.2%. The price index
has been negative since November. While not yet formally confirmed,
economic recession is already here and will impact on politics.
The next government, whether it is headed by Likud
leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, or by Livni, will be faced with an unstable
division in parliament alongside growing social unrest, especially as
Jewish and Arab workers engage in inevitable struggles. There have
already been many workers’ disputes in recent years, including
slowdowns, strikes, protests and factory blockades.
The recession will have a particularly devastating
effect on the occupied Palestinian territories, and this can be expected
to be paralleled with increased military oppression.
Whether Obama’s US administration gets more or less
collaboration from the coming Israeli government, even if another
short-term ceasefire is signed, the Israeli ruling class will continue
its national oppression by any means it finds necessary, including
against Palestinian citizens of Israel, with the backing of US
imperialism. The present constellation of parties in parliament also
means that the Golan Heights cannot be de-annexed currently. New bloody
military adventures are possible for the sake of rehabilitating the
prestige of the Israeli army and deflecting attention from the political
and economic crises. An attack on Iran is not immediately on the agenda
of the Israeli elite, but cannot be completely ruled out, particularly
if Obama’s diplomatic efforts carry no results.
Hadash (the Communist Party front) achieved its best
relative electoral result in 20 years, increasing from three seats to
four. Resting mainly on a core of Israeli-Palestinian workers
supplemented with a few thousand Jewish votes, mostly middle-class, it
is a testimony to the fact that the current crises could potentially
lead people towards genuine left-wing and socialist organisations that
have a working-class orientation. Hadash’s historic policies on various
questions have prevented it from becoming a more important reference
point for Jewish workers.
Hadash is calling for ‘building a new left’, and is
looking to win voters from former liberal nationalist ‘left’ parties,
particularly young layers. These efforts, along with its new
self-labelling as a ‘socialist movement’, are welcome. But to achieve
real social change, Hadash must seriously put socialism on its agenda,
and make a clear class appeal, instead of speaking with contradictory
messages to the different sides of the national divide. While building
its organisation, the questions must be posed: What should it aim to do,
outside of parliamentary legislation? How will it help build a mass
struggle to change society? Unfortunately, Hadash has a three-decade
history of disastrous policies that cannot be expected to change
dramatically in the short term. Otherwise, it could play a positive role
in pushing forward a serious organised opposition inside the General
Histadrut (main trade union federation), and promoting the idea of
setting up a broader genuine workers’ party.
The current global crisis and the threats posed by
right-wing capitalist parties could emphasise to many workers the urgent
need for independent working-class organisation. In Israel’s history,
there has never been a genuine major workers’ party or a big political
left camp. The so-called ‘left’ parties were the most loyal guardians of
the development of Israeli capitalism, with its nationalism and
militarism, right from their inception. They were never built by a
workers’ movement through struggle, nor for the sake of workers’
struggle. Today’s Israeli working class will have to start to take up
this task.
Shahar Ben-Khorin
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