Avirama Golan analyzes the elections within a social and economic context:
[B]y every accepted international standard Kadima is moderately right-wing, Likud is the immoderate right and Yisrael Beiteinu is extreme right. All these parties believe in neoliberal capitalism and complete privatization. Kadima just espouses more compassion, as is evident by the safety net it unfurled for those who fell victim to a policy that it itself wholeheartedly supported. All three parties reject a separation of church and state, including civil marriage and the excising of the ethnic origin category from the national identity card.
While Barack Obama is a centrist by my standards, within the context of American politics over the past 30 years, he is a down and out radical. He never ceases to remind people of the important role of government in protecting the social and economic well-being of its citizens. Starting with Nixon and accelerating with Reagan, it is clear which cuisine reigned supreme in the U.S.: unbridled corporate capitalism. The role of government was delegitimized and downgraded as much as possible. This culminated in the eight years of Bush & Co. which saw the sole role of government to transfer wealth and resources to plutocrats and away from working people and certainly the poor. It was the disastrous legacy of those policies which opened the door for Obama to begin to turn the US back in the direction of social democracy.
Israel was founded by Jewish socialists and was quite “left” on the political scale for the first 30 years of its history. With the rise of the Likud in 1977 along with the strengthening of its political ties with the US, came in a change in the dominant ideology. Bibi Netanyahu was particularly keen on establishing neoliberal (or neoconservative depending on which side of the Atlantic you sit) economic policies in Israel. As Golan states, the conversion of Israel to a corporate capitalism ruled by plutocrats is pretty much complete. The social democratic left is a tiny blip in the Israeli landscape. Most of the Labor party doesn’t even fit into that category.
In short, the Israeli elections are pushing the country against the tide of the rest of the world. Despite this, I am not overly pessimistic about the results. Israeli neoliberalism has been no less catastrophic than in the US. I have already cited this article about Bibi’s days as finance minister. Given the economic crisis the entire world now faces, Israel is particularly vulnerable at this time. Along with the inevitable clash between the new Israeli government and its US patron, the economic consequences of the downturn are likely to be exacerbated. This is precisely what happened when the first Bush was President and Shamir was Prime Minister. The US doesn’t have to do much to economically pressure Israel. Just turning a cold eye to a few military contracts can do the trick. The question is whether the right-wing government about to be formed will be able to divert the Israeli people away from their economic suffering by playing the ultra-nationalist card? Or will the next government collapse in the not too distant future and pave the way for a more social democratic alternative (as was Rabin in his time)?
One wild card in the mix that might add another contributing factor to this collapse, are the rumors that Marwan Barghouti might be released in the upcoming prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit. I have no doubt that if that happens it will be as a result of US pressure behind the scenes. Barghouti has every chance of playing the role of the Palestinian Nelson Mandela. He is certainly a partner the US (under the Obama administration) would be happy to deal with. Hamas would likely be willing to step back from their conflict with Fatah, if Barghouti replaced Abbas. In other words, he could unify the Palestinians and have total US support. His return to the Palestinian political scene will be another source of pressure on the next Israeli government, whomever might lead it.
Tags: Israeli Politics