The Elections in Israel 2013

Michal Shamir

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351295826
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Campañas políticas y elecciones

The elections for Israel's nineteenth Knesset were held on January 22, 2013. This volume offers an in-depth analysis of Israel's 2013 elections from various perspectives. It presents an up-to-date picture of the complexity of Israeli democracy, and its challenges, achievements, and failures.

The chapters in this collection shed light on different facets of Israeli democracy. Yaron Ezrahi provides a sceptical perspective on prospects for democracy. Gayil Talshir explains the party system's slowness to respond to citizen demands and to social movements. Michal Shamir and Keren Weinshall-Margel explore the politics of the right to be elected to the Knesset. Nir Atmor and Chen Friedberg highlight the decline in participation in Knesset elections in the Periphery versus the Center. Assaf Shapira and Gideon Rahat reveal the complexity of inter-party democracy. Dganit Ofek analyses the stability of government coalitions. Gal Levy examines Mizrahi Jews and the Shas Party. Mtanes Shihadeh discusses the voting patterns of Israeli Arabs. Asher Cohen focuses on religious Zionism and the success of the renewed Jewish Home Party. Michal Shamir and Einat Gedalya-Lavy document a gender gap in voting.

Elections in Israel 2013 analyses the give-and-take between the public and its leaders that is at the heart of elections. In doing so, it illuminates the role of elections in providing representation for different groups in Israeli society and in giving voice to their political choices.

1

Introduction: The 2013 Elections and Israeli Democracy

Michal Shamir¹

The elections for the nineteenth Knesset were held on January 22, 2013, nearly four years after the previous Knesset elections. Following the elections, the outgoing premier, Benjamin Netanyahu, formed the new (his third) government. What is the significance of these elections, and what can be said on their basis about contemporary Israeli democracy?

Elections are the main instrument of democracy, but how do they function? The 2013 elections provide an opportunity to examine this question and Israeli democracy in general. This collection of articles offers an in-depth analysis of the 2013 elections from various perspectives, while presenting an up-to-date and complex picture of Israeli democracy, including its challenges, achievements, and failures.

From the Second to the Third Netanyahu Government

The Background for the Elections

In the elections for the eighteenth Knesset, the right-religious bloc won sixty-five seats. In addition to Likud, Netanyahu’s coalition included Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas, United Torah Judaism, Jewish Home, and Labor. At the beginning of the term, in June 2009, Netanyahu delivered the Bar-Ilan speech in which he accepted, for the first time, the two-state solution of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state of Israel. In November, under American pressure, he agreed to a ten-month freeze in settlement construction in the West Bank. During this government’s term, talks were conducted with the Palestinians, but there was a deep mistrust between the sides, and the talks were fruitless. Netanyahu emphasized recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, while the Palestinians turned to the United Nations (UN) to receive recognition as a state. The battle against the Iranian nuclear program became a centerpiece of Netanyahu’s agenda, while a wave of protests, the “Arab Spring,” swept across the Middle East. In Israel, in the summer of 2011, a widespread social protest erupted that included tent campsites throughout the country and protest demonstrations that peaked on September 3 with the “March of the Million,” which drew four hundred thousand protesters. In October of that year, following a long public struggle, the abducted soldier Gilad Shalit was exchanged for over a thousand Palestinian prisoners in a deal with Hamas. On February 21, 2012, the High Court rejected the Tal Law as unconstitutional and ruled that the Knesset could not renew it upon its expiration on August 1. Thus, the controversy over drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews for military service returned to the Knesset and the public agenda.

Debate over the state budget, against the backdrop of the budget deficit and global economic crisis, added pressure for early elections, and on May 7, 2012, the Knesset passed the first reading of bills submitted by the government and the opposition to schedule the elections for September 4 of that year. In the midst of the Knesset debate, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the head of the opposition, Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz, reached an agreement on forming a national unity government, and the discussion of early elections was frozen. The headline on the Ynet website declared: “Unity bomb: Military service for all and change in the system of government” (Somfalvi and Azoulay 2012). But this move failed, and Kadima quit the government on July 17. On October 9, 2012, Netanyahu announced early elections, and six days later the Knesset voted unanimously to dissolve itself.

The Election Campaign

As the campaign began, the prevailing view was that the elections would make no difference and would bring about no change.² Immediately following the decision to schedule early elections, Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman announced a joint slate of Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu (in short: Likud Beiteinu). The formation of such a “pre-election coalition” has both risks and benefits in terms of policy, office, and votes.³ In making this coalition, the leaders of the right made compromises that in retrospect proved worthwhile, despite the price in votes and the resentment their decision sparked among Likud activists. The parties of the left and center, on the other hand, were unsuccessful in reaching agreement on agenda and spoils, and particularly on who would lead a left-center coalition. Consequently, no opponent bloc formed against Netanyahu, and the attempts to form such a bloc ended in mutual recrimination within the left-center bloc.

The elections centered on Netanyahu and were marked by the weakening and fluidity of the party system and by growing personalization. Netanyahu led in all of the polls as the unrivaled candidate for prime minister (Verter 2012; Tuchfeld 2013), and the remaining question was who would be his partners in his third government (Verter 2013a). At the same time, media coverage spotlighted candidates at the expense of parties. These tendencies are recognized in Israel and in other democracies as the presidentialization and personalization processes, respectively. However, the party and party system dealignment drew more attention in this election than in the past. The formation of the party lists was accompanied by the movement of active politicians from one party to another and the recruitment of candidates from outside of politics. The media disparaged this stage of the campaign as “foreplay,” “musical chairs,” “horse trading of candidates and slates,” and “shady deals” (Tausig 2012), and correctly identified the aspect of privatization in this process.⁴

The central issues that had precipitated the early election remained “open issues” (Galnoor and Blander 2013, chapter 19), yet there was no in-depth discussion there of in the election campaign (Shavit 2012). The campaign featured the usual struggles over the electoral agenda, but it was largely devoid of content. Some of the parties did not even bother to publish a platform.

On November 14, the Pillar of Defense operation began in Gaza, and it appeared to be a rerun of the Cast Lead operation that had been conducted prior to the 2009 elections. However, the Pillar of Defense operation was short, ending within a week; there was also much less destruction of infrastructure in Gaza, fewer fatalities (in particular among Palestinians), and much less domestic and international media buzz. The operation changed the election agenda, but not for long and not in a profound way. It certainly did not spark a discussion of the fundamental issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Beneath the surface, the 2011 social protest was simmering. But in the campaign, all parties tried to position themselves as “social,” while blurring their social-economic ideology (see Talshir’s chapter in this volume).

Against this background, the election campaign was seen as boring, with its results a foregone conclusion (Verter 2013a; Hirsch 2013). In retrospect, however, this was not the case.

Election Results

As expected, Netanyahu, Likud Beiteinu, and the right won the election (see table 1.1 for the results). Netanyahu had achieved a rare feat: not only had he kept his government intact for four years, but he had also ensured himself another term in office—his second in a row, and his third overall (Verter 2013b). Among the parties, Likud Beiteinu won the greatest number of seats, thirty-one, with the next-largest party winning only nineteen. Still, these results were not seen as a victory for Likud Beiteinu or for Netanyahu. The thirty-one seats represented a 25 percent decrease from the forty-two seats the two parties together had held in the eighteenth Knesset (with Likud holding twenty-seven and Yisrael Beiteinu holding fifteen). The initial expectations for the joint list and most of the polls conducted during the campaign had projected many more seats for Likud Beiteinu. The gap between the two blocs was al...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction: The 2013 Elections and Israeli Democracy
• 2 Democracy as a Constructive Utopia
• Part I Israeli Democracy as Reflected in the Elections
• Part II Groups, Political Parties, and Voting Behavior
• List of Contributors to The Elections in Israel—2013
• Index