Israeli Politics Roundup – 2008-12-10 – Political Morons Who Ushered In Lebanon II Kadima Government Make Major Gains In Likud Primaries

I’m really starting to hate elections. Celebration time on the right side of the JBlogosphere and as usual I’m the odd one out:

“It was a blow for Bibi [Netanyahu] because many of those elected were people he successfully got rid of in the last election,” said one analyst who asked not to be named because of his close ties to the Likud Party… Eyal Arad, a Kadima strategist… said the so-called rebels of the Likud, those who forced former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to leave Likud and form the centrist Kadima Party, “have now become Likud.”… Nearly all of the top 40 vote getters vocally opposed Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005.

Right or wrong about disengagement it was pretty obvious at the time that these tools were exiling the Israeli right to the political wilderness. Obvious down to the last detail. MR, Aug. 5, 2008:

Bringing down the Sharon government would result in one of three scenarios: Scenario 1 – a Labor government: Prime Minister Sharon runs in the Likud primaries and gets dismantled… Labor gets more votes than Likud but has to be anchored by parties to the left… Israel is led by a center-Left led government propped up by the far Left… Scenario 2 – a non-Likud Sharon government: Sharon forms a centrist third party and takes 30% his die-hard Likud supporters with him… Israel is led either by a fully centrist government or a Labor government anchored by Sharon’s centrist party… the current government – in which rightists at least firmly control the Knesset – is the best electoral option that [rightists] have.

It’s not like it took a genius to see how that was going to play out. But the Likud rebels forced Sharon’s hand anyway. The result: new elections and the Lebanon II government. Now those same rebels are the public face of the Likud and are set to undermine the possibility of a stable center-right coalition. Because that went so well last time. I’m agnostic on the question of whether Feiglin and his band of rebels are “fanatics” (although cutting off clean water – really?) But it’s absurd to treat this group as some kind of electoral juggernaut when they’re so manifestly bad at electoral politics.

A more detailed explanation of why the right’s cheering might be a touch over exuberant, after the jump…

The conventional wisdom in Israel is that Feiglin’s success was the result of tactical errors on Bibi’s part. The wishful thinking on the right is that it’s some kind of sweeping mandate. I’m not sure. Probably a little of column A and some of column B. But the people talking about popular support for Feiglin are the same ones who kept insisting that fifty percent of Israelis opposed the disengagement. No they didn’t. Subsequent election proved as much (yeah yeah – the Likud was punished by voters for not opposing Sharon – by Gil protest voters – right).

So yes there’s a single snap poll shows the Likud gaining two more seats. But a subsequent poll showed a net drop. And that first poll showed Labor gaining two more seats. And the only ideological shift in that poll was one vote moving from the center to the left – Kadima to Labor. Which wouldn’t matter except in Israel PM’s have to build coalitions. How many marginal protest votes changed “Defense Minister Mofaz” to “Defense Minister Peretz” by weakening Olmert’s bargaining position? Two mandate? Three?

I was once lucky enough to go to a small dinner with a high-ranking Likud operative who was passing through LA . There were some right-wing American Jews seated around the table who were less than politically astute. Not everyone at the table was like that but there were a handful of fundamentally unserious people – the kind of people are involved in activism only so they can make strike ideological poses and have people nod sagely. One of those poseurs – thinking that he was in safe company and looking for a little ideological backpat – asked the Likud guy “what role do you think Feiglin will play.” You could see the operative kind of do a double take before realizing that “oh – this is this kind of table.” And then he sighed and said “what role will he play? The same role he always plays. That of a spoiler.” Yup.

References:
* Likud ‘rightward shift’ defies conventional wisdom – UPDATED WITH VIDEO [Israel Matzav]
* Likud Primary Boosts Feiglin [The Jewish Week]
* Israeli Rightists Prepare to Cut Nose, Spite Face [MR]
* Tzipi Livni slams Likud list as ‘been there, done that’ [Ha'aretz]
* Time to move over and let someone else drive for awhile [Treppenwitz]
* Feiglin’s missing manifesto: Israel should quit UN, cut off water to Palestinians [Ha'aretz]
* ‘Bibi to blame for Feiglin’s success’ [JPost]
* Despite Netanyahu’s fears, latest poll shows Likud gaining strength [Ha'aretz]
* Israel’s Likud leading polls after party vote [AFP]