The Israeli Labour party looks set to strengthen its representation in the Knesset when Israel goes to the polls on January 22 under the new leadership of Shelly Yachimovich. Having sunk to 13 seats in the 2009 election under Ehud Barak, and then split in 2011, the party is now polling around 20 seats according to the latest polls, and will likely replace Kadima as the leading party of the Israeli centre-left. But its strategy for doing so may be confusing for some British observers.
Labour’s leaders often talk about carrying ‘two flags’ in their political platform, a socioeconomic flag, emphasising traditional Labour Zionist values of social equality, and a peace and security flag, emphasising readiness for territorial compromise. Often in the past it was the peace process that was the central electoral issue. However, Yachimovich, a tough former journalist known for promoting social issues, is seeking support from centre-ground voters by emphasising the socioeconomic agenda, and downplaying Labour’s agenda on the peace process. Understanding this strategy requires looking at the context of Israeli politics over the past few years.
First, the socioeconomic agenda is playing a more significant role in the Israeli national discourse than it has for many years. This was expressed most vividly in the dramatic ‘social justice’ movement which swept hundreds of thousands of Israelis onto the streets in the summer of 2011. This was a protest by Israel’s silent, secular, middle-class majority; what British politicians call ‘hard working families’. The protestors were fed up of carrying more than their fair share of the national burden through their participation in the workforce and their service in the army, while shouldering unreasonable living costs in an economy where too much is controlled by a handful of super-rich families.
Offering a more socially orientated alternative to Netanyahu’s neoliberal economics provides Yachimovich’s best opportunity to compete on the centre-ground. As the party leader most clearly identified with the spirit of the protests, she might also bring out some young and disaffected voters who would otherwise stay at home. Two high-profile leaders of the social protest movement, Itzik Shmuli and Stav Shaffir, are running for places on the Labour Knesset list.
Peace and security issues, on the other hand, offer Labour few opportunities and quite a few threats. Benjamin Netanyahu is seen as the most credible voice on security, and an election fought on this ground will benefit him. Labour’s credibility on the peace process never fully recovered from the failure of Oslo, which most Israelis interpreted as the Palestinian rejection of peace offered by Israel on reasonable terms. Meanwhile, Netanyahu has managed to place himself in the centre-ground on the Palestinian issue over the last four years, by coming out in favour of a two-state solution in principle, while still taking a cautious approach when it comes to offering concessions.
Netanyahu’s acceptance of a two-state formula, coupled with the refusal of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to drop his preconditions and enter negotiations, has reduced the political salience of the issue. In addition, the case for Netanyahu’s cautious approach has been reinforced by the ongoing internal division of the Palestinian Authority, the threat of the Hamas regime in Gaza, the increased threat to Israel’s borders following the Arab Spring, and the dominant place of the Iranian nuclear issue on the security agenda.
That’s not to say that Labour no longer cares about the peace process. The party’s leaders and activists continue to see progress towards a two-state solution as being in Israel’s vital interests. Many would likely agree with Barak’s recent argument that if no agreement can be reached with the Palestinians, Israel should evacuate isolated West Bank settlements unilaterally to bring about the creation of a separate Palestinian state. In terms of an electoral strategy, however, this has far less potential to rally centrist Israeli voters than Labour’s socioeconomic agenda.
So what about the outcome of the elections? The polls indicate that Netanyahu’s Likud will likely emerge as the largest party and that right-leaning parties will outweigh those on the centre-left.
However, it is too soon for concrete predictions, not least because it’s still not clear who will compete in the crowded and fragmented, centre-left electoral market. Yachimovich will certainly expect a tough challenge from Yair Lapid, a fellow former journalist who has created a new party running on a centrist, secular and somewhat anti-political ticket. Kadima, having been wrong footed by the socioeconomic agenda, looks set to lose most of its support, but it remains to be seen if Kadima’s former leaders, Tzipi Livni or Ehud Olmert, will return.
If the results reflect the current polling (a big if), Netanyahu is likely to try and bring at least one of the centre-left parties into his coalition, as he did with Labour in 2009. None of these parties, including Labour, are ruling anything out at this stage. So it should be no surprise to find Labour in the thick of the coalition negotiations after the polls, even if they don’t come out on top.
For analysis, daily updates, polling and podcasts on the elections visit BICOM and follow BICOM on @britainisrael
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Toby Greene is director of research for BICOM. You can contact him [email protected] and he tweets @toby_greene_
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Photo: Kudumomo