Begin's legacy
Stephen Handelman
Tel Aviv
The flushed, jubilant faces of the crowd outside Likud headquarters in Tel Aviv on Tuesday morning should have put to rest any confusion over who the real winners were in the Israeli elections this week. While commentators and politicians split hairs into the early hours with the anguished precision of talmudic scholars, government supporters knew a victory when they saw one.
'We've put the Socialists away forever,' boasted a burly Tel Aviv mechanic who collared a few uneasy foreign journalists, trying to make their way through the throng of heaving, exultant flesh. 'We've done it even without Begin.' As the coun- try's battered parties start the painstaking process of deciding which coalition can form a government, the consolidation of former prime minister Menachem Begin's legacy is likely to be the most impressive achievement of Israel's 11th national elec- tion.
Begin spent the entire campaign brood- ing in his Jerusalem apartment like an Israeli Achilles in his tent. Yet even without his help, his political heirs proved they could retain his hold over the oriental Sephardic Jews who now make up the majority of the country's electorate. Although neither of the two major parties earned enough seats on its own to form a government in the 120-seat Knesset, the final election results reflected the in- creasingly right-wing complexion of the country. President Chaim Herzog is likely to find it difficult to deny Likud and its allies in the ultra-orthodox religious parties the first chance at trying to form a cabinet. Even though the Labour Party of Shimon Peres, with 35 per cent of the popular vote, could still argue somewhat blearily it had the edge in Israel's splintered political land- scape, the instincts of the mechanic were manifestly correct.
Likud's triumph rested on the fact that a powerful, nationalistic and aggressive Israel has reached political maturity with this election. A kind of Middle East fundamentalism, first revealed in the coali- tion of religious and right-wing parties forged by Begin seven years before, is now firmly anchored in the region's only demo- cracy, with implications that go far beyond the voting figures. Seasoned and impartial political observers have been saying for some time that the split between Ashken- azi and Sephardic immigrants from North Africa and Arab countries has had a profound impact on Israeli politics. In the aftermath of this week's vote, the divisions have been institutionalised.
The populist appeal of Likud and its allies can be understood by a comparison with Peronism in Argentina. The working class in Tel Aviv and Israel's other indust- rial cities has a list of economic and social grievances that can match the descamisa- dos in Latin America's urban barrios. The comfortable intellectual socialism which dominated the country for nearly 30 years was an easy target. Throughout the cam- paign, Likud politicians such as the de- magogic deputy prime minister David Levy titillated the crowds with references to Israel's 'honour' and national destiny. In contrast, Liibour was hopelessly avuncular.
The economy should have been Labour's best campaign issue. The massive $23-billion foreign debt, 400 per cent inflation and the sinking value of private savings would have toppled most other governments. But Israel's voters appeared willing to believe that, however bad things were, they were still better than could be expected.
Labour's failure to confront the other issues which have divided Israel over the past three years also contributed to its dismal showing. Fearing that any outright criticism of the Lebanese adventure, or a challenge to the government's settlements policy on the West Bank, would lure an angry Begin out of exile, Peres settled for a civilised fudge. The disappointed foreign journalists who flocked here hoping for a colourful fight were left with adjectives like 'lacklustre' to describe the campaign.
In fact, both major parties shared a surprisingly similar outlook on at least some of the problems which have brought the country to a combined economic and political crisis unprecedented in its his- tory. Both Likud and Labour made clear they were committed to bringing the troops home from Lebanon and ending the drain on the country's finances, and the press was awash with rumours that, whoever won, a period of belt-tightening was inevit- able. Shamir further muddied the differ- ences by appealing early in the campaign for a 'national unity coalition' of the two major parties, which he argued would end the humiliating dependence on small par- ties that has kept Israeli politics a captive of minority interests for nearly a decade. But it was an offer Peres knew it was impossible to accept without appearing to give Shamir the edge in any government. Shamir's outflanking manoeuvre left him pinned with a 'spoiler' label.
Specialists have put most of the blame for the jigsaw results on Israel's complex system of proportional representation, which gives the country one of the purest as well as one of the most unworkable democracies in the world. Any party which can claim more than one per cent of the vote has a right to a seat in the Knesset. After this week, with at least 14 separate factions likely to be represented, Israel's domestic politics will become even more a matter of confrontation. Jewish extremists appear to have gained a voice in the person of American-born Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose platform consists of various ways of driving Arabs out of the country. At the same time, Arab-Israelis, voting in huge numbers for Communist and other left- wing voting lists, have increased their own representation from five to seven seats. The results make the larger parties helpless spectators of groups whose passions can tear the country apart.
But even electoral reform would do little to alter the direction of Israel's burgeoning populism. Having lived with a siege men- tality for decades in the centre of a hostile Arab world, the descamisados have little use for conciliatory talk. 'The rest of the world will criticise us whatever we do,' explained one young Jewish settler on the West Bank, 'so we might as well do what works best for us, democratic or not.'
Thus even the peace movement created 'in the wake of the Lebanese war and seized upon by Israel's friends abroad as evidence of change, has had only a minor impact in this election. It was no coincidence that the government persisted in opening new West Bank settlements right up to the election date.
Even the most discouraged Labour sup- porters can, however, look forward to another chance as early as November, assuming that whatever combination of parties emerges will be too unstable to survive. With no immediate change in the regional power balance likely until after the US elections, that leaves a tiny opening in the ominous clouds once again massing over the Middle East.
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