Party that built Israel now faces collapse
► THE ANNUAL lecture of the IDF Chief of Staff at the Institute for National Security Studies is usually a low-key affair, of interest mainly to defence wonks. On Tuesday, however, as Lieutenant-General Aviv Kochavi took the stage, he dropped a bombshell into the empty hall. One which was heard loudly on over a thousand Zoom screens.
“Return to the Iran nuclear agreement must not be allowed,” he intoned, shocking the Israeli security and diplomatic establishment. Not only was the chief of staff directly challenging the new Biden administration, which is determined to reengage diplomatically with Iran, but his statement flew in the face of intelligence assessments he himself had made in the past, that the Iran deal had actually given Israel some much needed breathing space to focus on other pressing matters beside Iran’s nuclear programme.
Had he changed his mind? Or was he simply articulating prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s position?
The coronavirus has thrown General Kochavi’s ambitious rearmament plans off course. He’s yet to receive funding that will allow him to sign major contracts. In addition, he’s waiting to find out whether his term as chief of staff will be extended to a fourth year. These are compelling reasons for a reassessment.
“Aviv is the most eloquent of generals,” said an officer who has served under him. “So eloquent that he can convince you of the opposite to what he said three days ago.” But General Kochavi’s motive for reversing his opinion on the nuclear deal is less important than whether he is indeed a harbinger of the prime minister’s policy. Does he intend to seek an open confrontation with the Biden administration on its Iran policy? And if so, is he doing so because he thinks it will help him win the election?
In February 2015, Mr Netanyahu defied President Obama by flying to Washington and addressing a joint session of Congress, lambasting the Iran deal.
Three weeks later, he trounced Labour in what the polls had predicted would be a close election.
Not that he’s worried about Labour right now.
"Coronavirus has thrown Gen Kochvai’s plans off course’
LITTLE TIME TO CELEBRATE
● MERAV MICHAELI arrived at her local Labour branch in north Tel Aviv to vote in the party’s leadership election as winner in all but name. With no other high profile politicians in the running, her win against six anonymous candidates seemed assured. But she wasn’t even assured of being allowed to vote.
Her name didn’t appear on the membership database being used to run the election and neither did those of many other veteran party members. It took the staff half an hour to work out the problem and, even then, when she tried using one of the electronic voting-machines it malfunctioned and she had to use a different one.
This is the party that founded and built Israel. In 2021, it is barely capable of holding an election, down to just three Knesset members and under the electoral threshold of 3.25 percent in the polls.
At least the vote-counting ran smoothly. Twenty-five minutes after voting ended, the former television and radio star was confirmed Labour’s new leader, achieving 77 percent of the vote. Ms Michaeli has little time to celebrate. The deadline for filing candidate lists with the Central Election Commission is next Thursday at midnight. She has until then to decide whether Labour can risk running alone or whether it should merge with other parties. And under what conditions. At stake is the party’s very survival.
At least she has the first glimmers of hope. In two out of three polls since her election, Labour is crossing the threshold, for the first time in a year. This could strengthen her hand in the difficult merger negotiations.
THE OTHER ABBAS
● SOME OF Labour’s new votes may be coming from an unexpected quarter. One merger that seems almost certainly off the table is between the four main Arab parties that in three out of the four past elections ran together as the Joint List.
In meetings between the party leaders, Mansour Abbas of the Islamist United Arab List has made two demands — that his own MKs will have freedom after the election to support whichever bloc it chooses (including a Netanyahu-led government) and that the entire Joint List opposes any legislation on LGBT rights. For the other three parties, these are obvious deal breakers and proof that Mr Abbas has been planning to split with them and run separately all along. In the last election, 90 per cent of Arab-Israelis voted for the Joint List. If they split, many will start looking elsewhere. Statnet, a polling company specialising in the Arab sector, published a poll this week showing that at least a quarter of Arab voters could choose to support a “Jewish party” this time around.
Likud has already started investing in an Arabic campaign and Mr Netanyahu has made three visits in recent week to vaccination centres in Arab towns. Other Jewish parties are following suit, searching frantically for Arab candidates to place prominently on their lists. Yet another headache in the last week before the Election Commission deadline.
WHITHER LAPPID?
● THE QUESTION of potential mergers was also one of the main topics of discussion over the weekend in New York, where Yesh Atid leader, Yair Lapid, flew to meet his chief strategist and pollster, Mark Melman.
Yesh Atid has no need for mergers itself. The party went up a couple of seats in this week’s latest polls, overtaking New Hope, and are now second largest after Likud. But Mr Lapid wants to “maximise” the votes of the anti-Netanyahu bloc and flew back to Israel just before the government closed the skies to all flights, armed with data which he plans to present to leaders of smaller parties, urging them to merge with each other.
Another question on which Mr Lapid would have almost certainly consulted his pollster is the efficacy of various attack-lines against Mr Netanyahu. Yesh Atid, in its first elections in 2013 and 2015, focused much of its campaign on matters of state and religion, particularly its demand for “equal burden” — an end to the exemption of yeshiva students from military service and the requirement that all state-funded ultra-Orthodox schools teach the “core subjects” of the national curriculum.
In the last three election campaigns the Charedim were barely mentioned.
Partly because Yesh Atid was partnered with Blue and White and partly because religious issues have only a limited appeal to voters. Polling in recent years shows they come, at the highest, fifth or sixth on the priority lists of Israelis — below security, economics, education and other social affairs. Besides, maybe they will end up sitting in the same government.
There’s no public polling yet to show that this has shifted. But sharper rhetoric in recent days from party leaders, in response to the ongoing riots between Charedi men and police trying to close down schools in ultra-Orthodox neighbourhoods as part of the lockdown, indicates that they have seen internal polls that suggests it has.
Anger over the ultra-Orthodox is especially damaging for Mr Netanyahu, who is relying on the support of the Charedi parties in the coalition negotiations after the election. But many of his rivals would like to have Shas and United Torah Judaism in their coalitions as well. Their dilemma is whether it will be worthwhile pushing an anti-Charedi message now to win more votes in the election, jeopardising potential partnerships.
Mr Lapid may have had an opportunity to discuss this with two unexpected fellow passengers in the business class compartment on the last plane back from New York before the closure of Ben Gurion Airport. Seated near him were Rabbi Boruch Shochet, leader of the Karlin Chassidim, and Rabbi Eliezer Finkel, dean of the Mir Yeshiva. This is the closest Mr Lapid has ever been to two such senior rabbis. Though one of his aides insists that “he slept most of the flight.”
"Is it worth pushing an anti-Charedi message in the election’