The Elections in Israel 1996

9. Peres the Leader, Peres the Politician

CHAPTER 9 Peres the Leader, Peres the Politician MICHAL YANIV University of Haifa INTRODUCTION "I have not failed," claimed Shimon Peres several weeks after the 1996 elections, when Benjamin Netanyahu became leader of the new government (Yediot Aharonot, July 5,1996). A short time prior to this, while opening his last cabinet meeting, Peres chose to describe Rabin and himself as victims of the process of change they initiated and led: Rabin paid with his life, Peres with the leadership of the State of Israel. Peres's political history is strewn with electoral defeats. The first was the 1977 elections. Then came the 1981,1988, and 1996 elections, in which he was unable to secure the majority of votes required for victory. In 1984 the Labor Party did, in fact, win more votes than the Likud; however, it suffered a loss in the number of Knesset seats relative to the previous elections in 1981. Despite its advantage over the Likud, the decline of the Labor Party's power was substantial enough to prevent it from forming a government that excluded the Likud, and that was based on a full, rotation-based partnership in the prime ministership. Peres's remarkable capacity for recovery following his defeats in political campaigns may lie in his ability to perceive social-political reality as a wide and complex model. According to this model, there are numerous variables involved in political rivalry. Peres always chose to highlight his public and political achievements on the one hand, and the structural difficulties and general political circumstances determining the various voting patterns of the public on the other. Two factors may be derived from the way in which he explained the reasons preventing him from winning electoral campaigns : one is linked to the belief, which persisted throughout his public life, that his competency and accomplishments as a public figure and a statesman would translate into victory in the battle for leadership-a belief that ultimately failed him. The second factor lies 211 212 Yaniv in his deep sense of being a victim of circumstances that are beyond the control of any leader at any given time. Although Peres's political career, spanning more than five decades, is one of the longest and most impressive Israel has known, the balance between his successes and failures, and particularly the discontinuity between them, is quite exceptional in Israeli politics. A discussion of Peres's political biography would be lacking were it to exclude reference to the question this phenomenon presents: how did Peres continuously succeed in performing the political and managerial tasks he undertook over such an extensive period of time, while repeatedly failing when faced with political rivalry for national leadership ? The existence of such disparity between his successes as a statesman and failures as a politician will be the focus of this chapter. Several words of clarification are in order. This paper does not intend to address the substantive issues raised by Peres's policies or the public debate they have created in Israeli society. The assessment of Peres's abilities in the area of policy implementation is, for the purposes of this chapter, unrelated to the contents of those policies. The basis for this assessment is an examination of the degree to which the objectives set by Peres were actually achieved. It is also worthwhile clarifying the use that will be made of the terms statesman and politician. For the purposes of this chapter, it is the duty of the statesman to establish and implement policy. Foregoing is the campaign for leadership, in which the role of the politician is manifested at a time when he/she is required to make decisions and exercise dexterity in order to ensure success. Lasswell, for example, in his book on politics published in 1963, elaborates on the political personality by tracing the causes for success and failure as a function of character types. The life of the politician, claims Lasswell, is, after all, "a life of conflict." In order to succeed one must also possess a "well-developed political personality" (whose traits he specifies), as well as certain motivations and skills (Lasswell 1930).1 The distinctions regarding the political personality and qualities required for leadership are, then, the continuation of a long tradition of research. Lasswell's contribution (1930, also 1948) was added to by the pioneering work of such scholars as Erikson (see Erickson 1958 and 1969) and George and George (1956).2 Another interesting example is the psychobiography written by...