Israel at the Polls 2009

Shmuel Sandler, Manfred Gerstenfeld, Hillel Frisch, Shmuel Sandler, Manfred Gerstenfeld, Hillel Frisch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317966289
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book describes political and sociological developments in Israel before and after the February 2009 elections, alongside an analysis of electoral trends. It provides an effective analysis of contemporary political and sociological Israeli history. Rather than focusing narrowly on electoral politics alone, this book broadens its focus to make it relevant to undergraduate and graduate students in Middle Eastern, Israeli and Jewish studies and the liberal arts. Israel at the Polls has been updated and published annually for thirty years, providing readers with up-to-date analysis and continuity of scholarship; this book offers an expert long-term assessment of Israeli politics.

This book was published as a special issue of Israel Affairs.

The 2009 Knesset elections: a foreign affairs perspective

Shmuel Sandler and Hillel Frisch

Department of Political Studies, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

Israel's general elections in 2009 yielded three major outcomes: 1) the replacement of the bi-polar system that characterized Israeli electoral politics between 1977 and 2003 in which most parties are aligned to one of the two principal parties by a more flexible multi-party system. 2) The nearly total collapse of the Labor party and the Zionist left; for the first time since the 1920s, the Labor party was no longer a major political player, and 3). Kadima's electoral relative success, despite scandals haunting it since 2006. Kadima has basically superseded Labor without necessarily adopting its ideology. We argue (contrary to Henry Kissinger's quip that Israel never had a foreign policy but only a domestic policy) that primarily external factors and processes — chiefly the failure of the Oslo process in the 1990s — yielded these three outcomes.

Israel's general elections in 2009 yielded three major outcomes. Perhaps the most significant was the demise of the bi-polar system that characterized Israeli electoral politics between 1977 and 2003 in which most parties are aligned to one of the two principal parties and its replacement by a more flexible multi-party system. Although the previous elections provided indications of the coming demise of bi-polarity it took the 2009 elections to confirm it. Then there was the nearly total collapse of the Labour party and the Zionist left. For the first time since the 1920s, the Labour party was no longer a major political player. Kadima's relative electoral success, despite scandals haunting it since 2006, represents the third major outcome. In proving its staying power, the party has basically superseded Labour without necessarily adopting its ideology.

The question arises as to what extent these three outcomes can be attributable to one source. This article argues (contrary to Henry Kissinger's quip that Israel never had a foreign policy but only a domestic policy) that primarily external factors and processes — chiefly the failure of the Oslo process in the 1990s and the penetration of Western values — yielded the three outcomes identified above.

Following a summary of the election results in Tables 1 and 2, this article analyzes the rise and demise of the bipolar system providing another possible long trend explanation for the current outcome. Subsequently it expands on the relationship between external factors and domestic electoral processes and finally shows how the various essays written by different scholars relate to this argument.

The rise and demise of Israel's bi-polar system

Israeli electoral politics has traditionally been analyzed as a system in which political power is divided between ideological camps. The long-established approach was to divide Israeli political parties into three: the Labour, civil, and religious camps.¹ From 1935 until 1977 a uni-polar system prevailed first in the Yishuv and then in the State of Israel. Mapai and its other competitors from the Labour camp ruled the Jewish State in this dominant one-party system. Between 1977 and 1999, it became a bi-polar system. However, despite its historical defeat to the Likud in 1977, Labour made a comeback, remaining a major political factor in Israeli politics. Remarkably, in 1981 Labour under Peres dramatically increased its representation from 32 in 1977 to 47 Members of the Knesset (MKs) and in 1984 the party under Peres even prevailed over the Likud. Labour reached its zenith in 1992 when, together with Meretz, it increased its power to 56 seats. However, the right-wing camp together with the religious parties won 55 seats. The bi-polar system seemed to have come of age.

According to this conception of electoral politics, bi-polarity was based on two major parties, each heading a cohesive camp behind its leadership. In the past, Labour as a pivotal party maintained a special relationship with the National Religious Party (NRP) on the one hand and centrist secular parties on the other and thus divided its opposition.² After 1977 it lost the alliance with the religious parties while the right succeeded in building a winning coalition with them. Thus even when Labour superseded Likud in 1984, or came very close (39 seats) to Likud (40 seats), in 1988 the religious parties refused to desert Likud. Peres tried to change that equation in 1990 by a coalition with Shas — a move that was dubbed ‘the dirty exercise’. This attempt at realignment failed and Shamir stayed on as prime minister. In 1992, however, the Labour central committee finally realized that its best chance of gaining power was to replace Shimon Peres, the head of the list who was identified with the left of the party, with Yitzhak Rabin. By doing this, they gave their party a more hawkish image. Indeed, Labour under Rabin won the plurality of the 1992 elections, 44 Knesset seats compared to 32 for Likud. This was the biggest achievement of the Labour camp since 1973 when the left achieved 54 Knesset seats. For the first time since 1977, Labour was able to put together a majority coalition in the Knesset. This time Shas joined the government and hence replaced the NRP in coalition politics.

This explanation is based on a cyclical transformation of power shift, a pattern inherent in Western democracies.³ From this perspective, the Israeli

Table 1. Election results 1999–2009

	No of seats (MKs), no. of votes, share of vote
Party	1999	2003	2006	2009
Kadima	Did not exist	Did not exist	29	28
			690 095	758 032
			21.8%	22.5%
Labour	26	19	19	15
	670 484	458 183	472 746	394 577
	20.2%	14.5%	15.1%	11.7
Likud	19	38^1	12	27
	468 103	925 279	282 070	729 054
	14.1%	29.4%	8.9%	21.6%
Shas	17	11	12	11
	430 676	258 879	299 130	286 300
	13%	8.2%	9.6%	8.5%
Israel Beitenu	4	7 (joint with NU)	11	15
	86 153	173 973	281 850	394 577
	2.6%	5.5%	9%	11.7%
National Religious Party (NRP)	5	6	9(with the NU)	3
	140 307	132 370	223 830	96,765
	4.2%	4.2%	6.9%	2.9%
National Union (NU)	3	(ran with Israel Beitenu)	(ran with NRP)	4
	100 171			112 570
	4%			3.3%
Pensioners (Gil)	0	0	7	0
			185 790
			5.9%
United Torah Judaism	5	5	6	5
	125 741	135 087	146 958	147 954
	3.7%	4.3%	4.8%	4.4%
Meretz-Yachad	10	6	5	3
	253 525	164 122	118 356	99 611
	7.6%	5.2%	3.6%	3.0%
Hadash	3	3	3	4
	87 022	93 819	85 830	112,130
	2.6%	3.0%	2.8%	3.3%
United Arab List (Raam-Taal)	5	2	4	4
	114 810	65 551	94 460	113,954
	3.4%	2.1%	3.1%	3.4%
National	3	3	3	3
Democratic	66 103	71 299	72 013	83,739
Alliance (Balad)	1.9%	2.3%	2.4%	2.5%

Table 2. Eighteenth Knesset elections to the Knesset (10 February 2009)

Number of Eligible Voters	5,278,985
Valid votes	3,373,490
Qualifying threshold (2%)	67,470
Votes per seat	27,246

power shifts started with the Likud success in defeating the Peres government in 1977. Henceforth, in all the elections with the exception of 1981 in which Likud triumphed again despite the comeback of Labour, the opposition party won the subsequent round. Thus in 1984 Labour won over Likud by 44 to 41 MKs to be followed by a 40 to 39 advantage to Likud in 1988. In 1992, Labour under Rabin defeated Likud 44 to 32 while in 1996 the Likud under Netanyahu won, to be followed in 1999 by a Labour victory under Barak. In the interim 2001 election Sharon, the head of Likud, won in the direct vote for prime minister. There were no Knesset elections in that year. In 2003, when the term of the previous Knesset expired, the Likud under Sharon won a decisive victory. Subsequently, Sharon turned to the centre and established the Kadima party, which defeated Likud in 2006, and formed the next coalition government.

The current victory of the right of centre parties despite the slim advantage of Livni from Kadima over Netanyahu, supports the pattern in the transformation of power thesis. The combined strength of the right-wing/religious bloc grew from 50 MKs in 2006 to 65 in these elections at the expense of the left/centre bloc, which declined from 60 to 44 and from 70 to 5...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Abstracts
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 The 2009 Knesset elections: a foreign affairs perspective
• 2 The run-up to the elections: a political history of the 2009 campaign
• 3 Kadima goes back: the limited power of vagueness
• 4 The Likud: the struggle for the centre
• 5 The decline of the Labour party
• 6 Stability in the Haredi camp and upheavals in nationalist Zionism: an analysis of the religious parties in the 2009 elections
• 7 The Israel Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) party between the mainstream and ‘Russian' community politics
• 8 Arab Israeli citizens in the 2009 elections: between Israeli citizenship and Palestinian Arab identity
• 9 Peace and security in the 2009 election
• 10 Corruption again, and again not decisive
• 11 Israel's religious vote in comparative perspective: an Africanist analysis
• Index