The Elections in Israel 1999

10. The Likud’s Campaign and the Headwaters of Defeat

10 The Likud’s Campaign and the Headwaters of Defeat Jonathan Mendilow Introduction The elections of 1999 dealt the Likud so stunning a blow that to describe it critics had recourse to natural calamities such as volcanic eruptions, or disasters like being run over by an express train. While Benjamin Netanyahu’s bid for reelection ended in a landslide defeat, the party’s share of the vote was reduced by almost 44%, thereby breaking the 1977 record held by Labor when its share was reduced by 37.88%. Several explanations were offered, one that the results constituted a repudiation of a style of leadership that had led to the desertion of top Likud leaders and to the waning of activist enthusiasm, another that the debacle resulted from the decline of the left-right cleavage over the destiny of the Territories and its replacement by an amorphous center or by a nascent ultra-Orthodox versus secular split. Still others pointed to penalties meted by voters for the economic decline and the stalling of the peace negotiations (e.g., Marcus 1999; Sontag 1999; Yovel 1998). While none of these explanations will suffice by itself, the problems they allude to in combination exacerbated underlying causes that serve as the board on which to fit together the jigsaw pieces and to present a coherent picture. Such a picture is necessary to determine whether it was merely the reaction of a temporarily irritated electorate , whether any lessons can be learned from the failure of the Likud’s strategy , and what consequences may be foreseen for Israeli democracy as a whole. My argument is that the headwaters of the defeat lie at the confluence of two sources. One was the difficulty faced by parties fielding credible candidates for the premiership to compete efficiently for the Knesset. The former race demanded a “presidential stance,” transcending party interests and able to attract the widest possible electorate; the latter to differentiate between the party and its rivals and to unify the membership around common causes. 197 In effect, two different campaigns were run simultaneously by the same agents. As a result, the race between the candidates turned on images contrived by promotional teams, while their supporting parties faded into the background, shedding the vestiges of their distinctive positions and social referents, a form of electioneering that cost them dearly in the multiparty Knesset competition. Both in 1996 and 1999 the larger rivals lost heavily to communitarian parties (Lawson and Merkel 1998), aggregating the interests of ethnic, cultural, or narrowly defined social groups; a Balkanization that reached its apogee in 1999, when two Russian parties, a party of Histadrut affiliated manual workers, and an anti-ultra-Orthodox Party won representation , while Shas became the third largest party in the Knesset. And yet, the losses incurred by the Likud in 1999 were disproportionately high. To explain this we must turn to the source unique to it: its failure to resolve a prolonged identity crisis that was carried over into government and intensified by the heterogeneity of the coalition and the need to take critical decisions. The Likud’s 1996 feat was winning the premiership despite the fissure between those who argued that following Oslo the party must change its positions on the Land of Israel issue and that “anyone who refuses to acknowledge the reality had better stay at home” (Barnea 1996), and those who protested that the “credo remains as right and just as it ever was” (Honig 1996) and that without it the party “is unworthy to survive” (Tal 1993). Striding over the divisions, B. Netanyahu combined a readiness to negotiate within the context of the Oslo agreements with security demands that amounted to the traditional Likud stands rejecting both territorial compromise and the gradualism laid down at Oslo.1 This enabled the party to attract the electorate to its right and to its left, as well as those hesitating between the options; yet its message designed to avoid coming to grips with the ideological dilemma, not to resolve it. The inexorable progress of the peace process consequently imposed on the Likud-led government double negotiations . Externally, it had to engage the Palestinians and the United States. Internally , the prime minister had to confront moderates and Rightists within the Likud and the coalition, and attempts to placate both led to inconsistent policies and loss of credibility. Deteriorating relations with the Palestinians and the Americans intensified the strains, forcing him to rely...