Yohanan Plesner
Elections 2022 in Israel: What Happened and What Lies Ahead?
Yohanan Plesner - Elections 2022 in Israel: What Happened and What Lies Ahead?
- So, we’re going to get started. Yohanan Plesner has been President of the Israel Democracy Institute since 2014. IDI is the country’s largest impact orientated policy planning institute. From 2007 to 2013, Yohanan served as a member of Knesset in Israel’s parliament. He was a member of the Constitution Law and Justice Defence and Foreign Affair Committees, small ones there, co-chair of the Knesset lobby for higher education and chairman of the Knesset’s permanent delegation to the council of Europe. He later became the First Secretary General of Israel’s new ruling party, Kadima, and spearheaded the creation of the party’s organisational infrastructure. He grew up in Jerusalem and served as a combat officer in the IDF’s elite Ccal unit in which he serves as a mayor in active reserve duty. So Yohanan, and in the next hour we’re going to try and unpack.
Major, not mayor.
Yeah. A complex, sorry, major. A complex period in the Israeli political system. So, I think perhaps if we start with some opening remarks from you, and then I’ll chip in, and we’ll then move over to some Q and A.
Okay, thanks, that’s great. And thank you Carly, for inviting me. I think I had the honour and privilege to be one of the first to inaugurate this series of talks and lectures and discussions, and I’m honoured to be.
Just about the time that the last Israeli government was being, being-
One of the last ones.
So perhaps this is a comfortable way to jump into our conversation. ‘Cause one thing we can probably say with a good degree of certainty is that Israel’s longest political crisis is over. So after four years, the crisis began back in November, December of 2018, when the then Netanyahu government dissolved, when the Knesset dissolved, and the country went for an election. And ever since, we are four years later, five election campaigns later, we had interim governments and two, one Unity government, and one, what was labelled Change government, both short-lived with a slim majority or very divided governments, and now it’s over. It’s over. And, you know, there’s some bad news and some good news. Let’s start with the good news. The good news is although Israel is pretty much, you know, politically speaking is divided as ever. Now, it’s not the same division as say in the US not that I’m an expert for what’s happening in the US, but it’s not the same, because Israel is so small, and we need each other, the workplace and in the military. And the views of Israelis say those who voted it could, and those who voted for the mainstreams centrist party Lapid and Gantz, are not that different on most of the issues that have to do, say with the economy and security.
So, it’s more of a political divide. It’s more of a divide around tribal questions, questions of identity, rather than a divide on the major questions of policy. Now, good news, no violence. So, although there was high levels of division and heated rhetoric, no violence. Israelis turned out to vote in record numbers about 70% turned out in this last election campaign. Here, you can see in this slide, the figures for all of the past five campaigns, 68, 69, 71, 67, 70. Now, take into account that about 10% of Israelis, roughly speaking of eligible of Israelis were eligible to vote overseas. I imagine you met a few of them in New York, and so when we count 70%, it’s actually out of 90%. So, it’s actually closer to 80%, which is quite an impressive figure for a democracy that went through, through such a crisis and asked Israelis to come to vote again and again. So, Israelis remained engaged and in voting also demonstrated trust in our democratic system, so this is some of the good news. Now, what just happened? So, in terms of the, you know, obviously there was a big struggle between the Netanyahu block and the anti Netanyahu block. It’s even difficult to say the right wing, because many in the anti Netanyahu block identify themselves as right wing. And the Netanyahu block includes a major, major portion of the ultra-Orthodox parties. What is the, what happened between those blocks? Well, about, we’re divided right down the middle.
So, 2.3 million Israelis voted for each of those blocks. As a matter of fact, the difference between what we call in what you might call an American language, the popular vote. So, the difference of the, in the popular vote is about, as you see here in the slide, about half a percent. So, 2.3 million Israelis voted for and against the Netanyahu block. Nevertheless, as we see here, the way the seats are allocated, there’s a very, there’s a clear and decisive outcome in favour of the Netanyahu block. And that’s why Netanyahu was expected to form the next government. He was assigned by the president, the mandate to form the government. Yesterday the Knesset convened for the first time. Why did the Netanyahu, how come, you know, after five election campaigns, how come or what led to the fact that Netanyahu block achieved such a decisive victory? I’ll run through the factors if you want me to expand on any of them in any greater way, I’ll do it. Otherwise we’ll run through it and then move forward to what, what lies ahead, what are the policy implications? Where’s the country heading, where the Jewish people are heading and so on.
Wow, all that, all that in 45 minutes before we jump ahead.
Jewish people, from their perspective of Israeli leadership, so, you know, what are the implications of Israeli government on Israel diaspora relations and so on.
So, before we jump ahead, I wonder if it’s just helpful you reminding everybody of the Israeli system, Wendy’s father Nate, he always likes to talk about the big challenge as you’ve heard him talk about of the Israeli threshold. And you know, the often the challenge is almost the amount of democracy on the table. So, maybe you just want to remind our audience in terms of what the actual piece looks like.
Yeah, well the system is such that Israelis are voting for parties, and parties have lists of candidates, and then based on the proportionate support that each party gets, assuming it crosses a threshold of 3.25%, a party enters the Parliament and members of Parliament, a majority of members of Parliament, 61 out of 120, elect the government, the Prime Minister and so on. So, the only thing Israelis do is it is select a Balad with a party’s with a party’s name. Now, two major parties from the anti-Netanyahu block won the left wing merits party, who’s been in, in parliament in various incarnations for more than 40 years. The Meretz party didn’t cross the threshold and about 150 thousandths of that voted for Meretz went down the drain. So, once you don’t cross the threshold, all the votes are just discounted. Similarly, the Balad, the Arab party also did not cross the threshold. They also belonged in a very broad sense to the anti-Netanyahu camp. 'Cause they would not join a Netanyahu coalition in any scenario. And they also had about 3%. So, about 6% of the votes on the anti-Netanyahu side went down the drain. And that explains the decisive outcome of the election, although the popular vote was split right down the middle.
Well, what we can see on this slide is other aspects that led to this election outcome. So number one, Netanyahu had a strong organisation that led to two effects. Number one, the architecture of the Netanyahu block, the political architecture was with no leakages. So, it was optimally designed in a way that there are four factions altogether. Likud two ultra-Orthodox faction, and the far right party led by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. So, once they ran only in four parties, it meant that no party had the risk of not crossing the threshold. And all votes went, all votes were counted. This is not just because Mr. Netanyahu is a good political or savvy political architect, and he is, but it’s not the only reason. It’s also a reflection of the fact that the Netanyahu block was more cohesive. The voters of this block accepted and recognised even enthusiastically Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership. And the other block wasn’t as cohesive. There were different disputes between the elements comprising this block and the leadership of Mr. Lapid, the incumbent Prime Minister wasn’t recognised similarly. Netanyahu was able to turn out the vote in Likud strongholds in much higher numbers as opposed to the 2021 election. So, election five was about all about turnouts. Israelis knew what they want to vote, because it’s the fifth election campaign. So, it wasn’t about persuasion, it was only about turnout. And while you see here, the numbers for on the right hand side that you can see almost didn’t change or upper middle class cities, those are all on the right are areas that are associated with support for centre left parties and turnout there was pretty much stagnant, similar to 2021. It’s nevertheless higher than the ones on the left.
So, those in the centre left in Israel actually vote in higher numbers than say in the large southern cities like Beersheba or Segev Shalom or higher than in the development towns. But the change now, Mr. Netanyahu was able to turn out more of the voters, the Ultra Orthodox who’ve been out of power for the past year managed to turn out more voters, although they’re always almost a hundred percent. So, they were around 79% and they managed to increase it to 83%, which is phenomenal. So, what we see is if the Netanyahu block in 2021, including Bennett, that’s was perceived by voters as part of the Netanyahu block was 59. Now, it went up to around 60 61, and it’s up to 64 just because a few didn’t cross the threshold. So, no dramatic change happened in Israel. Perhaps the only dramatic changes that all of Bennett’s voters, practically all of Bennett’s voters remained in the Netanyahu camp, once Bennett created this change coalition. And we perhaps can end opening remarks on what just happened by analysing two things. Number one, why, what led to this enthusiasm of voters in say, Likud associated cities? Why did they turn out in higher numbers and what led to the increase in support for the far right HaTzionut HaDatit religious Zionism party? What led by Ben Gvir, a former Meir Kahane disciple, what led to the rise of this party? So, those are the two questions, and then we can move on to, you know, what lies ahead. So, about what turned out could voters, and that might explain also the story of this election. I think it’s a combination of two things. For the first time we had an Arab Islamist party in the coalition, this change coalition, including an Arab party. Something that has never happened in Israel’s history, and ostensibly difficult to digest for large parts of the Israeli, Jewish public.
But we know that, you know, Israel is still in an active conflict with the Palestinians in Gaza in the West Bank, you know, with parts of it. You know, it’s an ongoing affair. And then, and Israeli Arabs, a portion of their identity is Palestinian. So for many Israelis, it’s difficult to come to term, to come to terms with an idea the fact that representatives of a population that defines itself partially as Palestinian and they are our enemy, they will take part in decision making processes. So, we’ve been following in ideas, you know, polling, we’ve been seeing for years that it’s difficult for many Israelis. They want to treat Arabs equally in terms of allocation of resources and so on, but they want the decision making to be in the hands of the Jewish majority and so on. So, this was something that is difficult to digest. Although Netanyahu legitimised it while he negotiated with man the Islamist party a year ago. Now, what happened during this year that sort of, I would say validated the propaganda against the participation of the Arab party. It’s mainly the fact that the increase in terror and the perception of increase in crime, especially in Israel’s periphery crime perpetrated or originating mainly from members of Israel’s Arab community. So, a perception that crime emanating from Bedouin communities in the south, car thefts, protection demands and so on, increase in crime from the of terror from the West Bank. And in the eyes of many Israelis, the idea was, well, there’s an increase in terror because there’s an Islamist party in the coalition. So this, if I had to choose one factor was obviously Mr. Netanyahu is a good communication master if you put it mildly and use this fact. Number two, what led to the rise of Ben.
Just before you go to Ben Gvir, I want to ask you a question about the Arab Party. So yes, this is the first time there’s been in Islamist party in the coalition, but there has been an active number of Arab parties in the Knesset. You know, certainly the joint list over the last few elections has garnered some challenges. Do you think that the Israeli population saw the success of the Arab Party and actually Mansura buses somewhat kind of like likability seemed like a kind of practical, pragmatic character as almost counterintuitively more of a threat than the kind of dishevelled joint list who were often fighting with each other and not as presentable?
Well, there are two angles to your questions. There’s the political and the substantive one. You know how the Israeli public perceives it. Now, you have to understand there, the Israeli Arab, Israeli Arab minority has representation in the Knesset since the foundation of the state. So, it’s not a question of representation. As we mentioned before, Israel has, historically, we even had a lower threshold of entering the Knesset. So, actually in terms of representation, also, you look at the economist and other organisations ranking our democracy, we’re doing pretty well with representation. Sometimes at the expense of governance, stability, effectiveness of government, and so on. So, the Arab minority was represented, but they were never formally part of the coalition. During the Rabin period, they supported this coalition from the outside, but they were never part of a coalition. Now, two trends have been taking place. The Arab population in Israel, increasingly, increasingly over the past decade wanted and expected their political representatives to join coalition governments. They had enough of this, you know, being the representatives of the Palestinians and then and delegitimizing the political process in Israel. They wanted to be in, they wanted to take part, they wanted influence, they wanted to enjoy the benefits of being part of the system. And we’ve seen it in very high numbers over the past decade. It was always very surprising in the eighties, 80 something percent of Israeli Arabs expecting their politicians to join governments.
And it took time for their politicians, but ultimately they began to follow suit. And during this last political crisis, we saw initially the joint list recommending guns and then negotiating and almost joining his government. And ultimately Mansour Abbas broke away from the joint list and went all the way. And to some extent, Mansour Abbas is if we could in a computer programme, define how an Arab politician that can legitimately participate in Israeli politics, how should he operate? The computer programme would produce something like Monsour Abbas. Condemning violence, when there was a war sort of fighting with Hamas in Gaza, Monsour Abbas took a step back and didn’t topple the coalition and so on. So, I mean he was really responsible and that was perceived as a threat for other Arab politicians, this model that that Monsour Abbas presented. So, they campaigned very hard against it within the Arab population, but it was also perceived as a threat by, I would say roughly speaking the Israeli by Netanyahu and by the ultra-Orthodox parties because the fact that the Arab parties were perceived as illegitimate gave the ultra-Orthodox parties absolute power. It was almost impossible to form a coalition without them. Once the Arab parties are in the game, then one can achieve 61. And there are many paths to achieving 61. So, one of Netanyahu’s big political projects since the mid nineties was to delegitimize the Arab participation in coalition politics and to build an unshakeable, unbreakable alliance with the ultra-Orthodox parties, which means that whatever they demand in terms of domestic affairs and budgets and so on, whatever they demand, he doubles it and pays off. So this is the strategy and it almost, and it all, it was almost folding back because Netanyahu himself almost legitimised Monsour Abbas and then Monsour Abbas joined the coalition and the ulta-Orthodox were outside.
So, they be responded with vehement propaganda to undermine it. And there was propaganda from the Arab community that also wanted to delegitimize this idea of, you know, normalising the participation in a Zionist government. So, it was attacked from both ends and to some extent, while policy-wise, it was quite a successful experiment with government decisions allocating budget to, for the economic development of the Arab sector. But all of those budgets in the propaganda were described as the government is transferring dozens of billions of shackles to Hamas and so on and so forth. So, there was a big disparity between what’s going on in the sort of bureaucratic language and what’s happening in public opinion. And I don’t think we can say that the experiment failed, but it was very, very difficult for big parts of the Israeli public to digest and, you know, but we are all here to stay and it’s going to continue and Monsour Abbas, nevertheless got five seats, and he continues yesterday when there was swearing in of Knesset, Monsour Abbas stood there and while the national anthem was being played, while the other members of the joint list left. So, this is a bit about the whole Arab issue. Shall we say briefly something about the rise of Ben Gvir?
Absolutely.
Okay, so on the one hand, you know, I’ve been on CNN quite a few times over the past week or two, and I’ve been asked quite harshly on the BBC in other places, and I’ve been asked, you know, so does Israel now have a fascist party and so on. And the answer is absolutely no. To be frank, am I glad that this party gained so much power? The answer is no, but it’s far from being fascist. It’s an outcome of a number of factors. Number one, there’s always right of Likud. Let’s say hard line populist party that sort of speaks the truth about let’s not succumb and let’s not turn a blind eye and let’s be tough with the Arabs, especially in periods when there’s a terror and crime perpetrated by Arabs. So this is, there’s always something right of Likud, that sort of, if you amalgamate them together, adds up to around 10 seats. Now, this something is always gains more momentum when there’s violence and last year’s violence, you know, in the joint cities in l and in a ako on May of 21, the lynching and some terrible things that have happened and ever since and remained on the agenda because of the continuation of crime and protection and car thefts and terror attacks. This created a sort of a wedge and tension between Jews and Arabs in Israel in the field. And we see those also in the democracy index. When we measure, we can say that if we look at the last decade, tension between Jews and Arabs is at a sort of at a very high point. So, when there’s high tension, and a party right of Likud that is anti-establishment and sort of speaks the truth and so on.
And Ben Gvir, that his entire career was an anti-establishment, was a Kahane disciple, but always sort of speaking against the military, against the police for being too soft and so on. He was perceived as this authentic voice that is saying what everybody else is afraid to say and so on. And he gained support from people more in the periphery. They tend to sort of have anti-establishment views and wanted to see a change of trajectory, especially he shed light on the issue of need to the need to fight against crime. And while he is a populist, he also has a point not about, he doesn’t, he didn’t offer any solutions. You know, populists are offering simple problems to simple solutions, to complex problems. But he was able to articulate the problem in a way that struck a chord with many Israelis. And what is the problem? I’ll just give you one piece of data from today’s or yesterday’s economic newspaper in Israel, about 90% at least that’s what, you know, reported. I can’t say that it’s true, but it was in an Israeli serious newspaper today that contractors say that 90% of building sites, construction sites have to pay protection for, you know, for organised crime in order otherwise they’re being threatened and they’re bullied and their equipment. So, there’s a real problem. And, this partially is what led to the rise of Ben Gvir. I’m not sure that all of them subscribe to Smotrich, the other leader of the party that said that Israel should become a Halacha state. So, not a state run by a civic code and civic law, but state run by the Halacha. I’m not sure.
I’m going to push you a bit more to clarify what it is that you, that Ben Gvir like stands for, but also, you know, to kind of cite back to Kahane, but not necessarily touch on, you know, the kind of recent actually historical statements of both Smotrich and Ben Gvir, and how they’ve really built up their worldview. I think it’s important that we are clear on what the actual policies are that they advocate for.
Look, so there’s no way to, and no, and I have no interest in whatever you call it, greenwashing or whitewashing their history. Ben Gvir had it his in his home, a picture of Baruch Goldstein, the murderer of the dozens of Palestinians back in 1993 . So a Jewish terrorist, and Ben Gvir saw him as his hero. And Smotrich had statements on turning Israel into a Halacha state and the Jewish women and an Arab where women should not give birth in the same, or should not lie next to each other in the same room in hospitals and so on. So and of course some offensive comments on gays made by Smotrich. So, this is their history, it’s a history that is for any, anyone who believes in Israel as a liberal democracy and Israel as a Jewish democratic state. Those are things that are difficult to digest. Meir Kahane’s movement supported basically expelling or what they call transferring Israeli Arabs out of Israel. Now, this is not the platform that Ben Gvir ran on now. He said, I’m more pragmatic. He ran on a law and order campaign on let’s say back the policemen and back soldiers as they fight terror and allow them to sort of, it’s more of a campaign that has to do with echoes the case of Elor Azaria, the soldier in about six years ago 2016, if I recall correctly, that that killed a terrorist that was already injured and could not cause any harm. And there was massive support for him, for this soldier that nevertheless he sort of did the right thing, and he should not be indicted. This is the kind of campaign that Ben Gvir is running.
We need to sort of more Elor Azaria’s that even if the terrorist is already caught, it’s okay to kill them and so on. This is the kind of the views that he’s advocating and he wants to become now and seems that he’s going to become Homeland Security Minister. And now it’s interesting whether he’s going to be a populist that now once he needs to deliver, will adjust himself or will continue to serve as a populist from office, which will then ensure that we can anticipate many more provocations and perhaps even some escalation. And I hope this will not be the case. Smotrich is a different case. He’s a staunch, hardcore religious, orthodox ideologue in all respects. Again, once his vision is for Israel to become a state run by Halal, and obviously enacting the West Bank and so on. So those two together have much power in the Netanyahu government. Netanyahu’s premiership depends on them, but what will transpire, it’s too early to tell. Perhaps this is an elegant way to speak a little about what we should expect. Is that okay, shall we?
Absolutely.
So, so let’s start with the policy areas. You know, we’re assuming that the next government, again will include four parties, as a matter of fact, five, because the Smotrich and Ben Gvir, they ran together in order to ensure that they crossed the threshold. But day after the election, they split up to two factions of about seven seats each. So, they had 14 together. But there’s the Ben Gvir faction named Jewish Power, I don’t know how this sounds to you. And the Smotrich faction called the Religious Zionism, which is a euphemism because he doesn’t represent mainstream religious Zionist views, unlike Ben say, but nevertheless now. So, those are two factions. And then there’s the two ultra orthodox parties, the Sephardi in the Ashkenazi, and of course Likud. So interestingly, it’s a 64 member coalition 32 and the 32 other seats represent religious party, ultra-orthodox or very hard line, what we call elites, not national religious, but it’s a sort of national religious with strong ultra-orthodox taste. So, half of the new coalition is very, very is very religious and very hard line. And then there’s Likud led by Netanyahu who’s obviously has a more moderate background, but is caught up in this whole thing that he has a legal case and therefore he cannot manoeuvre. This is the only coalition that he has, because if he wants to instigate or initiate changes to the legal system and to take on the legal system in order to assist himself in the campaign, he has no other partners in this except for those partners who obviously have hard line demands in return.
So, what will all of this political architecture mean for policy? Or what lies ahead or what can we expect? So security-wise, which is perhaps the most important because first, you know, first we have to live and then think about all the rest. So security-wise, we don’t expect, Netanyahu is expected to steer the ship and set the tone and there’s no expectation for deviation from any deviation from past policies. So, now no breakthroughs with the Palestinians, but also no deteriorations, no annexation, obviously even in previous Netanyahu governments, he said he will coordinate it with the US as long as there’s a Biden administration, there’s no annexation on the table. Netanyahu will, he obviously understands in great, great depth, the need for preserving this strategic relationship and therefore annexation is not on the table. Breakthrough with the Palestinians is not on the table. Also because the Palestinians are not, not right for it. They have Abu Mazen in his mid to late eighties in no condition, no public support, no age, no health, no willingness to make any big decisions. So, we expect stagnation and continued status quo on the Palestinian issue and on the security front, the rest, the Iranian issue, Hezbollah, Hamas will continue to be the main line will be set by the security establishment that is very professional and very consistent. Where do I do sort of expect perhaps something, you know, to change? As I mentioned before, Ben Gvir who has a history of decades of provocations, if he enters into the Homeland Security Ministry and realises that there’s a difference between making election promises and being able to deliver, he might revert back to the last place where he was oriented, which is making provocations. But this time from the position of Homeland Security Minister, so let’s just give one example, going on Temple Mount and creating a provocation, this can escalate and things can go out of hand.
So, while I don’t think Netanyahu enters into this government with any willingness to take to embark on any adventures, things can go out of hand, both because of mainly because of Smotrich and Ben Gvir on the economy. Again, Israel historically also under Netanyahu was macroeconomically irresponsible. During Covid, our debt per GDP went up from about 59 to low 70, 72% of debt per GDP. Now, it’s after this government that was very responsible from this standpoint, we’re in the mid sixties, so we are already around 65%. So, we are back halfway or more to sort of, to where we were before Covid. And generally, we don’t expect, Netanyahu doesn’t have a history of reckless macroeconomic policies. So what, so economy and security are not expected to sort of change in any significant manner. What will change? So, there are two areas. Number one, everything that has to do with religion and state, and attitude and policy towards the ultra-Orthodox community. The ultra-orthodox parties are returning now to the government after being sort of out of government for a year and a half. And they’re with great returning with great appetite and with greater power, 18 seats and Netanyahu is fully and completely dependent on them and they want to change or cancel everything that was initiated by the previous government.
Some of those initiatives we spoke about before in previous discussion, some of those initiatives were also, you know, the blueprint was created by IDI with IDI, you know, reforming cell phones and Kashrut and moving forward on opening up conversions. And of course questions that have to do with subsidies for the ultra-orthodox community. So, there’s an entire array of policies both in the area of religion and state that ie, religion and state that will affect the broader public as well. And of course the Jewish diaspora and nonorthodox streams of Judaism questions about conversions and whether say reform conversions in the US will be recognised for the sake of making Aliyah in law of return issues like that will be strongly affected by the new government. And this is from our vantage point, a cause for concern, and it might drive a wedge or a rift between us, and big chunks of the world jury. And it might also change the trajectory of integration of the ultra-orthodox community, because there is an attempt to dramatically increase pretty much double this government subsidies for ultra-orthodox men who go to the kollelim, to the higher Yeshivas and kollelim and to dramatically increase budgeting for the education system of the ultra-Orthodox without demanding any kind of STEM, English, math, core curriculum studies. So, this is very worrying and by the way, is something that is incomplete opposition to the will of the majority of Israel’s population. And this is something that we’re measuring very closely. I see Carly that you want to say something about it?
No, and one of the questions that I think, you know, those outside of Israel are kind of grappling with, if you just look at the numbers, is why there was never the potential for a unity government. Whether or not there could have been the opportunity for Lapid, Gantz or some of the others to sit alongside Netanyahu in some way. So, I thought perhaps you could share with our audience why that was seen as insurmountable and perhaps what Netanyahu’s tactics may be to try and, you know, mitigate the partners he now finds.
Well in the foreseeable future, national unity government is out of the question, although you are absolutely right that, you know, if we take Likud 32 and Gantz and Lapid together 35, so it’s a 67 mainstream coalition with centre left and centre right forces leading a Zionist policy that is, that also reflects the will of most Zionist Israelis and the interests of Israel as a Jewish democratic state. And the differences between say Likud on questions of the economy, security, religion and state and even on constitutional matters. The difference is when you look, you know, poll Israelis by the issue, the differences are not that great and for sure can make, you know, compromises can be created. So ostensibly, everything I said now leads us to the outcome that we need, that there shouldn’t be a problem in establishing a national unity government. But the answer is no, again, for a number of reasons. It’s also connected to the fact that Netanyahu is in trial, and he basically took on the judiciary and the law enforcement institutions, especially the state prosecutor, and his partners against the judiciary are the ultra-Orthodox parties and the far right. The ultra-orthodox because they want to remove the court as an institution that constrains their, almost their massive control in the political arena. So, the changes that I mentioned before in religion and state in the past, the courts were an obstacle for the ultra-orthodox parties. For example, in question of a supplementary budgeting only for higher courts said, you know, it’s unequal. You can’t give only part of the populations, you know, subsidies until age 67 and not to students for example. The courts protected the quality and equal rights of say, non-Jewish streams of Judaism reform and conservative to have access to the court.
And the courts had a role in questions of recruitment to ensure that recruitment will be more equal and that somehow there will be a movement toward more equality. So the courts played a role, in the eyes of the ultra-Orthodox, a role that, that was against their interest and therefore they have a strong interest in removing the courts and the far right led by Smotrich and so on. See the court system as something that is problematic because they’re ensuring that there’s rule of law, say in the West Bank and if private land is confiscated the law, the court intervenes and so on. So, they also want the court out of the way and Netanyahu is a very comfortable ally for them, but they’re also comfortable allies for Netanyahu because of his struggle with the legal system. So although, you know the will of the Israeli people, and certainly we can find it, that’s why I said it’s not like America. The majority of Israeli centre rights centre left, there’s a lot more that brings us together that than drives us apart. But the current political reality, the way the political system is designed is such that we’re driven apart and to the detriment of the national interest. So, this brings us to the second issue. So one issue again, government policy vis-a-vis ulta-orthodox community and questions of religion and state. Here we expect a change as I mentioned before, and area number two where we expect a change is everything that has to do with the current features and current arrangements of checks and balances in Israeli democracy.
Mainly an effort to weaken the undermined the independence of the judiciary, weaken and reduce its authority to conduct judicial review over decisions of the Knesset and the government. And basically to try and concentrate all governing and state power in the hands of the political majority. Now the Smotrich party put in place a plan, a 19 point plan. It’s a maximalist plan. If implemented in full, there’s no other way to describe it, but a sort of a complete overhaul of Israel’s democratic regime. We have to understand and you know, and we spoke about it I think in previous discussions and Israel doesn’t have a constitution. So our, you know this here, there’s an example of you know, the constraints on the power of say the president or political majority in America. We don’t have local governments that have their own authorities. We don’t have a Knesset that is independent. Like in the US you have a senate and you have a house. The Knesset is completely controlled by the government. So, we only have this one institution. The Supreme court that checks the otherwise absolute power of governing coalition. Today with 61 out of 120, there’s no, you can grant rights, you can abolish all rights, you can decide everything, and there’s no constitution. And even the court and the court’s authorities today to conduct judicial review also depend on the Knesset. And this has been our fragile situation since the foundation of the state, but we never confronted a situation where there was a majority of members of Knesset with an apparent intention to overall the basic foundations of checks and balances.
So, it’s not only, you know, we can now say the Knesset can pass a law, you know, completely 100% infringing on privacy, on the freedom of speech, freedom of association. If those 64 have a strong will, they can pretty much do everything. And this is disconcerting. The right thing would’ve been for, again, this big Zionist majority to come together and legislate. If not a fully fledged constitution that is not realistic now, at least a basic law for legislation that creates a distinction between constitutional politics and regular politics. Constitutional politics, ie tampering with rights and so on, and making a much higher bar for those changes. But this is not the case right now we’re at, at IDI, we are very strongly involved with trying to voice concerns about such some of the ideas that are now being debated in the coalition negotiations. So, we are voicing those concerns and trying to speak not only to the decision making circles, but also to the greater portions of the Israeli public, which is, you know, it’s more difficult to sort of bring across constitutional matters that sometimes sound a little, little theoretical. People care about cost of living, they care about security, about the balance of power and checks and balances. Sometimes it’s theoretical, but nevertheless it’s absolutely crucial and it’s, and those are issues that are at stake right now.
So, in our last 10 minutes, I want to try and do a bit of a kind of rapid fire and look at some of the big issues outside of just domestic that are facing Israel that, you know, we wonder how the new coalition will navigate. So, obviously Iran being an obvious question. Netanyahu’s existential feelings around Iran have been, you know, very clear and there has been change in terms of, you know, the Biden administration, the internal challenges in Iran since he was last in power. And similarly and related the Ukraine, Russia situation where while we’ve been on the call, the readout from the Zelensky, Netanyahu call has come out, which says, you know, Netanyahu agrees to review the Israeli decision not to provide defensive weapons to Ukraine. So, where do you see both of those going and the Iranian interlink between the two?
Well, if a deal with Iran was on the table, then you know, that would’ve created a big sort of, so potential source of conflict or controversy between a Netanyahu government and a US administration. The Iran deal now is off the table, you know, because of the Iranians, because of their appetite, and now also because of the unrest within Iran, it doesn’t make sense to move forward. So, the deal is off the table and therefore I see a continued strong intimate collaboration between our security establishment to deal with this threat without, without a deal. So, while it will very much continue to occupy Israel’s defence establishment, the US establishment, the intimate talks between the two, it’ll not be a big political issue as it was in the past. Although one caveat to it, Netanyahu to some extent has an interest in turning it into a big issue because it will allow him, or make it more easier for him to silence Ben Gvir and Smotrich on, and to stop them from grading provocations because it’s like, well now I have to focus on Iran, so this is why you can’t go now to temple mount, not because I’m weak and so on. So he might use the Iran issue for that.
Now Ukraine, look, Israel went as far as it could without crossing the line that will put us on a collision course with our neighbour, northern neighbour, northern neighbour, ie Russia. 'Cause Russia controls the airspace of Syria. Syria as a north is not only a neighbour of Israel, but there’s a constant process of trying to build up Iranian proxy capability and Hezbollah capability in Iran. And Israel is in a constant low intensity warfare situation trying to undermine it successfully. So, there’s such a strong Israeli interest to prevent Russia from changing its policy that that allows us an open airspace in Syria. And the Israeli analysis was that we are part of the American camp, we support the Ukraine diplomatically humanitarian efforts. We are absorbing both immigrants and tourists and not formally refugees, but we allow, we allow them to come into the country and so on. But the line that we’re not crossing is offensive or basically selling weapons to Ukraine. And America and NATO are selling such, are delivering such massive convoys. I’m not sure that the Israeli additional ammunition or capabilities is required, but I don’t expect that to change. The government policy was very much designed in close contact with the defence establishment. Netanyahu will not risk a change of policy by Putin, but perhaps some change of rhetoric not beyond that.
And then in the last five minutes, you know, the kind of elephant in the room that is a concern to diaspora jury is really about what the future relations could look like there. You know, there’s one or two massive decisions that could be taken, be it about the egalitarian prayer, be it about conversions, you know, be it about the role of reform and and conservative Jews that you know, could really fracture the relationship between Israel and the diaspora. And I know that in America it’s something we hear concerns already in terms of the American Jewish community. What’s your assessment on that and and when you are talking to American Jewish groups, how are they starting to view that challenge?
Well, the concerns are justified. They’re, you know, we haven’t experienced such a coalition before with such strong sort of ultra orthodox and ultra orthodox sympathising elements. And even the Likud is not the same Likud because the more, some of the more moderate elements within Likud people, you know, forget of the past, but even and they’re way many of the MKs are either new or already joined during this decisive process of the past four years and are quite young and to some extent some of them are ignorant. So, what I try to sort of identify, who are the moderating forces within expected coalition. It’s difficult to find again except for one which is Netanyahu himself. Now this will also depend on obviously on matters that are related to Israel diaspora relations to the role of the Jewish community in the you know, throughout the world in Israel access to prayer recognition of conversions for the sake of law of return. There’s also a demand to change the law of return, to change the grandkid paragraph ie that if you’re a grandkid of a Jew, you cannot make Aliyah that will affect more you know, Russian immigration. So there’s, and obviously other changes to the status quo. So, there’s some serious changes being considered. I would like to believe that if there’ll be sufficient pressure from within Israel and from the Jewish community, there will be some changes and what they would call reverting back to the status score before the change government and not beyond that. This is my hope. I will also try to work to achieve it but it cannot be taken for granted.
So, we saw today the announcement that Likud and Ben Gvir have done their coalition negotiations and you know, effectively this all seems to be wrapped up. You know, there’s always a question how much damage a minister can do versus the system and the civil servants and you know, everything else around it. If the predictions of, you know, Areyh Deri’s defence of finance and Ben Gvir and Smotrich in justice and police and other kind of state security important roles, how important is the actual minister in terms of driving where these departments go? Or do you have faith in the civil servant system beneath them?
Well, a homeland security minister is considered a graveyard for politicians, political graveyard. Because you are in charge of the police. You are, you appoint a new chief of police, national police once the term ends and otherwise very little influence ongoing and difficult to influence. So you are as good as, as the police force. Israel’s police has challenges. It’s obviously not as excellent as the IDF. It’s undergoing changes. I actually met the entire leadership of the police this week. We’re doing work with them and trying to help them on various aspects. Ben Gvir will discover he was never in any office and in any, you know, managerial or public position that, you know, this huge police in Israel, the police is a combination of the police, the FBI, some elements of the National Guard. You know, it’s a big, big thing. You will find it probably frustrating to see that you can’t just change things as rapidly as you can tweet on Twitter or on Facebook. So, but my only fear is not so much that he will sort of radically change the police, but rather that he will understand that it’s too difficult to actually change reality and fight crime and fight protection, which are all desired goals. And then he will sort of resort back to just making provocations from office. And here there are ample opportunities, especially for somebody who had a decades long career of a provocative.
And the other two potentially troublesome ministries?
Look Aryeh Deri, I don’t think he’ll take defence. He’s been, you know, in Ravi’s cabinets, he’s been at the helm of Israeli politics. He was in between also in jail for corruption. But he proved himself to be responsible when it came to questions of national security. It was never this sort of populist trying to sort of warmongering populist. It’s not his style. So, even if he becomes defence minister, you know, perhaps there would be a question of competence but not a worry of extra adventurism. But I don’t think he will take it. He’s more likely, if at all now he wants finance. In finance, what should be a worry is economic populism. He ran a campaign, you know, Israelis are worried about cost of living as, as many of us know and so on. So, he ran a campaign on our allocate food vouchers, and I will increase subsidies for Yeshiva students. So, it’s basically you ran a campaign on giving and handing out and handing out and handing out. So, a lot more about what he wants to hand out and less about how to create wealth for the state and therefore and doesn’t have much experience in that. So, I don’t, you know, being, having him in charge of, of government finances doesn’t sound very promising but is, you know, but it can also turn out okay. It’s not a sort of a no-go. Smotrich, in defence is an experiment that I would strongly advised to stay away from.
Well I hope that.
And I believe that Netanyahu understands that and since he wants stability, and he promised stability, he will not give into that. So, it’s more likely that Smotrich which will either be in finance or in some other, like justice and cause damage in another portfolio.
Well I, as we’re on the hour, I think you’ve given us a lot to think about. More will become clear in the next 48 hours, or the next few days, some cautious elements for optimism. But I, you know, I hope that the responsible elements you’ve just touched on will kick in. And thank you for walking us through this very complex issue. I know you-
Just one comment, Carly. Perhaps some elements sounded a little, you know, worrisome or pessimistic, but I look at Israel’s history. Any given point in time, if you looked ahead, things didn’t look like disaster.
Yeah.
Ultimately, you know, good things transpired. So, I believe in the sort of common on the sort of healthy logic of the Israeli people that ultimately things will transpire and develop in a good manner.
As there’s always a Shimon Peres quote for every occasion, as he used to say, “Israel’s miracle exists in spite of itself”. So, you know, yes, absolutely. So thank you. I know that you had a presentation that flashed up in front of the screen, so perhaps your team will be kind enough to share it with Lauren and we can send it round to anybody who, you know, wanted to kind of digest it a little bit more, 'cause you’ve got some great facts and figures in there, and there’s a lot more reading material on IDI website, so I would recommend everyone head in that direction.
Okay, with pleasure and thanks for having me, Carly, and for being so kind.
Bye for now.
[Yohanan] Bye-bye.