Political campaigns are about winning. Politics is about
compromise.
Israel’s political process, with its plethora of sub-parties,
has a Middle Eastern shuk quality to it, with each group hawking its wares and
vying for the electorate’s attention. The frenzy of the shuk atmosphere is
fueled by a zero-sum-game reality, whereby each merchant is competing for the
buyer’s limited dollar, and each party for the citizen’s vote. A dollar spent in
one location, and a vote cast in one direction, is a dollar and a vote taken
from one’s competitors.
Israelis have a deep affinity for the multiparty
system, for it maintains this shuk consciousness – maximum competition coupled
with a maximized system of choice. Each person counts and each person gets to
locate his or her vote within the sub-sub-sub party to which they feel at
present the greatest affinity.
The challenge of coalition politics within
this multiparty system is that while founded on a shuk consciousness, it can
only succeed if it transcends it. While in theory there can be a winner in a
multiparty election, in the divided reality of Israeli society, the only
competition is over size, both objectively and relative to the other parties. We
associate the term “winner” with the party that makes the most unexpected gains,
and “loser” to those who fail to actualize their or the public’s projections.
But in fact, however, there is no winner. Everyone at best gets only a part of a
pie that they have to share with their former competition.
A coalition is
a form of partnership.
While the voting share and influence vary –
contingent both on the party’s size and significance for the stability of the
coalition – it is a partnership nonetheless.
A partnership, however,
cannot be created within a shuk mindset and a zero-sum- game attitude. If it is,
it will be by definition a limited partnership, limited not by its legal
charter, but limited in time and limited in effectiveness.
When a party
thinks it has won, it either enters into a coalition with an arrogance that
insists on the acknowledgement by others of its leadership and power, or stays
out of the coalition because such an acknowledgement is not
forthcoming.
The future of Israel’s political system and culture is not
dependent on changing our multiparty system or raising the threshold for
entering the Knesset, but on changing our mindset from a zero-sum- game
consciousness to one of win-win.
Win-win is rarely a quality of reality
but rather a decision on how to perceive reality.
Win-win becomes
possible when one ceases to think in zero-sum-game terms and recognizes that the
achievement of a part of one’s goals and aspirations is also a win. It is this
process that opens the door for the other to attain “their win” alongside
yours.
In the aftermath of the election, the shuk posturing has already
begun: who won’t sit with whom and who will sit with whom only on condition that
their demands A, B, C and D will be fulfilled to their fullest. If the shuk
analogy falls short, its most apt replacement is that of a cockfight and the
posturing that it engenders.
It is time for us all to recognize that none
of us has won. More Israelis have chosen Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister
than any other alternative; this is really the only significant and legitimate
consequence of being the largest party. A majority of Israelis, however, do not
want Netanyahu to rule solely on the basis of the Likud Party, its Knesset
members and its platform. While this statement is far from revelatory, its
significance is not limited to Netanyahu but first and foremost to the other
parties within our system.
Whether they grew in size or not, whether they
beat the expectations or not, all the parties must recognize a simple fact –
that they did not win, and as such are obligated to reflect on the compromises
that they must be willing to make in order to best serve their
constituents.
Compromise is not a consequence of unbridled hunger for
power or an unchecked desire for a cabinet seat and its car; it’s the
prerequisite of a partnership and the sense of responsibility to contribute to
the future direction of our country.
Can Yesh Atid and Shas sit together
in a coalition partnership? Certainly. Can The Tzipi Livni Party and Bayit
Yehudi join forces in one government? Certainly. The difference between “can”
and “will” is bridgeable when each party understands that the consequence of not
winning obligates every party to compromise on certain aspects of their core
ideologies. That is the prerequisite price of not winning.
The challenge
facing Netanyahu and in fact the challenge facing our country is determining to
what extent we can field a coalition that will be a partnership aimed at serving
our country and not a coalition that will mask a shuk consciousness in order to
use its position in the government as a temporary springboard for the next
election, when “we” can win.
In the weeks preceding the election, the
rhetoric was naturally vicious and unnecessarily arrogant. The airwaves and
social media were filled with voices drunk on the fantasy of winning. The
sobriety demanded by not winning is now the call of the day, as we must look
across political divides, not to disqualify but to engage.
One of the
lessons of the rabbinic tradition is that compromise is not a compromise but is
in fact superior to truth, for the former enables peaceful coexistence and
consequently a joint social life.
We Israelis know how to compromise when
there is a grave external threat that spreads an umbrella of necessity over the
stain of compromise. Our challenge is to stop looking for an umbrella and to
start embracing compromise both as the just result of the electoral process and
as the highest value of our Zionist aspirations: living together as one people,
safe in our home, and building a society in which the sum total of our parts is
a foundation and catalyst for greatness.
Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman is
president of the Shalom Hartman Institute and director of the Institute’s
iENGAGE Project – iengage.org.il
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