There will always be a disparity between the promises that political parties
sell to the public and the parties’ ability and desire to deliver on those
pledges.
Newer parties and candidates will invariably promise hope,
change and – an Israeli favorite – a “new politics.”
Tzipi Livni, though
hardly a new politician and in fact a senior figure in the governing coalition
at the time, made precisely that promise in the 2009 elections, portraying her
unwillingness to meet haredi (ultra- Orthodox) demands in coalition negotiations
after Olmert stepped down as proof of her novel and “clean” political
approach.
Yair Lapid is now presenting his Yesh Atid party as the a
purveyor of “new” and “different” politics in the current race. To Lapid’s
credit, one should note the clear positions he has taken on key issues, that
truly will require a new and different kind of conduct in political corridors to
be implemented. The diversity of his list, which is comprised of accomplished
men and women from different parts of Jewish Israeli society – secular, national
religious and haredi – also bodes well and attests to the seriousness of his
intentions.
Lapid has decided to tackle a number of issues that have
become increasingly vexing for Israeli society in recent years. Perhaps the best
example of this is his plan for extricating the haredi community from a life on
welfare, a plan that would allow them to be integrated into the workforce and,
eventually, to pull their weight in national service and in producing tax
revenues.
YESH ATID has also addressed other difficult problems that have
been sidestepped by successive Israeli governments, such as civil marriage and
other issues that stem from Israel’s unique but as yet ill-defined status as a
Jewish and democratic country.
Depending on how the chips fall, Lapid and
his party should have an opportunity after the election to prove whether their
approach truly is novel and the politics they are offering truly
“different.”
SHELLY YACIMOVICH has worked hard since her election as
Labor Party chairwoman to revamp the public’s perception of her party in the
wake of mounting public disappointment with the results of the Oslo process, on
the one hand, and the damage to the party’s credibility that was wrought by Ehud
Barak’s cynicism on the other. Yacimovich has been overwhelmingly successful on
both counts, on the assumption that public opinion polls are even remotely
accurate.
Since her election as chairwoman, Yacimovich has worked
unerringly to shift her party’s central focus away from prospective peace with
the Palestinians, with which it has been closely identified since the Oslo
process began nearly 20 years ago, to a social-economic agenda. She has limited
her public references to the deadlocked peace process to a bare minimum, while
backing up Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on a number of related issues, most
recently the prosecution of Operation Pillar of Defense in the Gaza
Strip.
Conversely, Yacimovich has been unsparing in her scathing
criticism of the Netanyahu government’s economic policies and priorities, which
she has lambasted with alacrity at every opportunity. Moreover, Yacimovich was
successful in recruiting new candidates associated with her social-economic
agenda, such as Stav Shaffir and Itzik Shmuli. This has allowed her to increase
her appeal in the eyes of younger voters from the potential middle class, voters
who feel they have been under-prioritized by the Netanyahu government’s economic
policies. Like Lapid, Yacimovich’s test will come after the election, when the
opportunity either to deliver or to renege on her promises arrives.
THE
LIKUD and Yisrael Beytenu, as the leading members of the outgoing coalition, now
face the daunting task of making credible campaign promises, particularly in
light of their poor track record to date.
In sharp contrast to its 2006
slogan, “Netanyahu – strong against Hamas,” and its relentless criticism of the
“weakness” shown by the Sharon and Olmert governments toward the Islamic
Resistance Movement, the Likud has spent the past four years strengthening
Hamas’s standing as a legitimate Palestinian political power. The Likud-led
government first negotiated the lopsided Schalit deal, crossing its own red
lines by capitulating to Hamas’s demands to release mass-murderers, red lines
that the supposedly “lax” Olmert had refused to cross. More recently, the
Netanyahu government negotiated a cease-fire with Hamas, boosting Hamas’s
standing within Palestinian society and across the Muslim world.
The
Likud-led government, which in four years undertook no meaningful military or
political effort to oust Hamas from power – despite an explicit clause in its
coalition agreement with Yisrael Beytenu requiring it to do so – is going to be
hard put presenting itself as “strong” against Hamas, or any other
adversary.
The Likud’s partner in the current elections, Yisrael Beytenu,
has a slogan that celebrates the ability of its party chairman, Avigdor
Liberman, to keep “his word” (“mila zot mila”). But even the most cursory review
of Liberman’s track record shows that most of the major promises he made over
the years have not been kept.
Liberman failed to topple Hamas from power;
he failed to bring about civil marriages, an issue of the utmost importance to
the many immigrants from the former Soviet Union who cannot marry in Israel; and
he failed to bring either the haredim or Israel’s Arab citizens into the fold of
equal duty and “loyalty” to the state.
Liberman, like Netanyahu, knows
how to talk tough and to stoke the flames of public passion. However, his
ability to deliver, also like Netanyahu, has fallen far short of any of his
major promises.
As Abraham Lincoln famously said, “You can fool all the
people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot
fool all the people all the time.”
The coming elections will prove
whether the tough-talking duo, Netanyahu and Lieberman, will be able to fool
enough of the people enough of the time to win themselves another term in
office.
The author is a veteran Israeli writer and translator.
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