Rechavia Berman – GangstaYid

Friends, Americans*, Countrymen, lend me your ears (eyes, minds, work with me here). I come not to confuse y’all but to break it down. To tell the truth, I wasn’t even feeling terribly inspired to tell you folks all the ins and outs of the Israeli election, but ole @johnboehner decided to force our PM on your politics and himself and y’alls domestic strife on our politics, so I guess y’all interested parties now and deserve an explanation on what in tarnation all the ruckus be about. Settle in, grab a sip and a bite, this’ll take a few.

* I'm American by birth. I get to say that.
Non-Americans welcome along for the ride, of course.
Apologies in advance for the yankee-centric imagery

Israel, which in the spirit of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy can be termed “mostly a democracy**, is having general elections.

** (that it to say, it is a democracy to most - 
not all - of those it controls)

Q: When?

A: March 17

Q: Who’s up for election and re-election?

A: Everyone. The entire legislature (Knesset), the majority of which appoints the government and the Prime Minister (so that job’s up for grabs as well).

Q: Who’s running?

A: Lots of folks. A dizzying, GameofThrones-like array of characters and allegiances, but I’mma break it down for y’all.  (let it be broke, mofo!***).

*** (This is an invitation to play "place that quote")

The two main, and practically sole contenders for Prime Minister are the incumbent, Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu (you can call him that), and the challenger, Labor Party Chairman Yithak “Boujie” Herzog (but don’t call him Boujie! He’s trying to brand as serious and PM-worthy, and that’s too cutesy and soft a nickname his momma tagged him with).

Who are they? Well, if you don’t know (and have some opinions about) Bibi chances are slim you’re reading this, but see here (reference link under construction) for a summary of him (and others) as candidate and PM.

Quick bio recap:

Netanyahu (65) is the son of a world-famous expert on Medieval Jews in Muslim and Christian Spain. Eternally Bereaved Brother of mythological ground commander of the legendary Entebbe hostage rescue, Yoni Netanyahu.

Bibi (who also served in the fabled Matkal commando unit, but at lower rank) was living at the time in the US, under an American name, with a non-Jewish wife. The death of his brother, whom their father had always groomed for public greatness, summoned Bibi back to the fold to take the mantle upon himself, which required among other things getting rid of the shiksa spouse. Bibi, with polished English uncommonly good in Israel (especially back then) and fine debating skills, climbed quickly in Likud, rising from UN Ambassador, through Deputy Foreign Minister, to win control of the party in 1992, first becoming PM in 1996 (till ’99, then again from 2009 to now).

Herzog (54) is the son of Israel’s sixth President, Chaim Herzog, who had also been a military general and Ambassador to the UN, where he won undying fame for contemptuously ripping the Assembly General’s 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism on the UN podium. His son Boujie served in the military as well, rising to Major, and then became a lawyer, inheriting a partner’s position in one of Israel’s most powerful law firms.

His first national political exposure came in 1999, as campaign manager to a victorious Ehud Barak and Labor campaign, and immediately thereafter as Secretary of the Cabinet under Barak. He came into the spotlight in unflattering circumstances, when he refused to cooperate (basically taking the fifth, in US terms) with a police investigation regarding campaign violations. He has since served in four consecutive Knessets (since 2003) and served as Minister of various departments on behalf of Labor as a junior coalition partner (including in Bibi’s 2009-2013 administration.) He has been Housing, Tourism, and Welfare Minister, as well as holding lesser portfolios.

Early elections were called in early December after Bibi and his main coalition partner, centrist Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party (19/120 Knesset seats), each lost the ability to work with the other at all. Lapid was joined by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni with her 6-seat party in leaving the coalition (well, technically being fired by Bibi, but deliberately bringing things to that pass). Since then the twists and turns have been thick and heavy, but I’ll try to pick a minimum of crucial ones to the big picture.

Remember Tzipi Livni? Leaving the coalition with her 6-seat party? Well, after polling at the edge of survival**** for a week or two, she made the first splash of the election by negotiating a very favorable (for her) deal to unify with Labor (15 seats/120 in the outgoing, polling a tad better at this point). Usually when a party A unites into a single list (that is, not merging parties, but running as a single unit in a given election) with party B, and party A is 2.5 times bigger, the head of party B gets the number 2 spot and a few reserved seats in the unified list for their people, and consider themselves to have done pretty well. Livni not only got the number 2 spot in the unified list (and guaranteed spots for 5 more people under the 25^th spot), but an agreement that should Herzog form the next coalition, he would rotate with her after two years. If Herzog did not prove terribly sharp bargaining skills (always a must for leadership in the land of bazaars) he did prove he was fully willing to put ego aside in order to maximize any possibility of actually winning the elections and switching the course of the country after 6 years of Likud and right-wing policies.

**** (there's an electoral threshold, currently set at 3.25% 
of all votes, which translates to 4/120 Knesset seats)

However, a deeper reading of this deal will show that while Livni drove a fantastic bargain, it’s mostly a prestige paper achievement. Sort of similar to a pro athlete’s bombastic new contract: “100 million for 6 years!!! – of which 2 years and 25 million are guaranteed.” The athletes are not that dumb. They know this, but there is symbolic capital in signing a 100 million dollar contract, even if you won’t actually get most of that. Livni is not likely to get to be PM even if Herzog gets to be PM for two reasons:

a) After two years he can refuse and dare her to take her 6 seats and leave the coalition. Chances are he’ll still have a slim majority in Knesset if he managed to form a coalition in the first place.

b) Now that Livni got such a deal, any prospective coalition partner with the most seats behind him (a number bound to be greater than 6) will settle for no less. So even if there is a rotation, it won’t be with Livni. But hey, props on your 100 mil contract, playa.

The practical upshot of all this is that as of this writing, the gamble Herzog and Livni took has paid off pretty resoundingly. They Labor and livni’s “Hatnua”party held 21 combined seats in the outgoing Knesset and never polled higher between the calling of the election and the deal. They immediately polled at around 22 following the deal and have been averaging 25 over the past few weeks – maintaining a slim 2-3 seat lead over Likud.

So, why are the headlines not screaming “upset!” yet? Glad you asked. In the Israeli system (a parliamentary one as opposed to a presidential one like in the US), there is no separation in elections between the legislative and executive branches. You don’t vote once for the guy in charge and once for you personal rep to look after your share of the pie. You vote for your favorite party. If it’s the largest one it normally (but not always) gets to be at the head of an alliance of parties called a coalition, that form a majority in Knesset (i.e 61 or more/120). If you voted for the second smallest party you normally (again, not always) get to spend the term rooting for the team on defense that’s trying to cause a turnover and regain possession of the ball.

This leads us to the second crucial difference between the systems: In the US, short of praying for a President from the other party to die or trying to cook up grounds for impeachment, there’s nothing for the party out of power to do but wait 4 years for the next round (it can form a majority in the legislature and use that to impede the President, but it can’t seize the executive branch). In a parliamentary system where power depends (always has here) on coalitions, the party out of power can spend its time trying (as Sun Tzu recommended) to break up its opponent’s alliances. Once you convince enough coalition members to defect, the government no longer has a majority in Knesset. When that happens a “vote of no confidence” is called. If such a vote passes by absolute majority, new elections must be held. The shortest-lived coalition in Israel’s history was Ehud Barak’s Labor-led administration from 1999-2001 (lasted 20 months). Several lasted the full four years or close enough to it. Sometimes the main party in power will engineer a fight with its coalition partners in order to call for early elections when it believes it will gain more seats in a new election than it has without them. Sometimes it’s the junior ally who makes that calculation and picks an issue to split over.

Why am I explaining all this? Because even if the election results match the current polling, Bibi will have a better chance at a stable coalition (one with as few partners as possible, to minimize the different vectors pulling it apart with their different demands and interests). Bibi and Herzog each have one natural ally to the radical end of them – Bibi a right-wing ally (the mostly religious Bayit Yehudi party, under high-tec rich guy Naftali Bennet) and Herzog a left-wing ally (the mostly-white-bread liberal Meretz party, under career politician and activist Zehava Galon). Even if Bibi finishes with three seats or so fewer than Herzog, he has the stronger basic building block for a coalition with Bayit Yehudi, which is polling at 15-16/120 seats, compared to 5-6 for Meretz.

Is all lost for those hoping for a change in government? No, but at current results, it will be an uphill battle for Herzog to be the first to complete a puzzle with 61 pieces or more. Here’s how it works:

The President chooses who will be the first to “get the ball” so to speak and receive two weeks to attempt to score by putting together a coalition that will pass a vote of confidence in Knesset. (President is a mostly ceremonial position. This is his most influential role.) The process is that after the votes are counted and the seats in the new Knesset are assigned, the President calls the heads of the parties and asks for their recommendation as to who should be chosen to form a coalition. If a clear majority of the Knesset recommends one guy, it’s over and that person will, barring bizarre developments, quickly conclude coalition deals with enough partners and be PM. If there is no clear majority it’s completely at the discretion of the President, who still has to take into consideration who has the more realistic shot to get it done so as not to waste the nation’s time.

Now, if a candidate gets the first shot but doesn’t have a majority already agreeing to form a government with him, he has to negotiate with each partner he can possibly work with and give them a piece of the pie. This is where the other party can play active defense: It can also negotiate with all the other (or any of) the other parties and try to persuade them NOT to sit with the party that got the first crack. If they succeed in putting together a majority in Knesset that refuses to sit with the other guy, they have created what’s known as a “blocking bloc” (sounds bad in English, I know. Call it a blocking alliance or whatever). Having managed to cooperate on denying the leading candidate the job, such a blocking coalition will usually manage to form an actual ruling coalition together and enter into power. This is Herzog’s most realistic path to the crown. Bibi will get the first nod because he has a solid 38-40 seats (at current poll numbers) whereas Herzog will only have 30-32 (again, at current numbers. Lotta football to be played here yet). The rest of the parties mostly lie generally in the middle between the two, be they center-secular or religious parties.

The one exception to the above is the secret ace up Hetzog’s sleeve – the Joint Arab List. This list, a new election-specific union of the three Arab (or Arab-majority) parties is a huge story in itself, and one which will wait till the next chapter in this series*****.

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