Israeli Rightists Prepare to Cut Nose, Spite Face
We have a simple question: how would bringing down the Sharon government (which will probably happen on September 1) help the Israeli Right in any way? Here's the best explanation so far:
MK Zevulun Orlev, chairman of the National Religious Party, plans to convene the Knesset next month for a special holiday session in order to conduct a preliminary vote on a bill he proposed, which calls for the dissolution of the Knesset and early elections... Meanwhile, MK Uri Ariel (National Union) said that he is working to sign 61 MKs onto his own no confidence proposal...
"There is an agreement among us all that in the difficult situation Israeli society finds itself today, after the disengagement, we have to help the nation," Ariel said.
The difficult situation requires help and stability. So clearly the most pressing task is to bring down the government.
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 by current back-bencher Benjamin Netanyahu, but chooses to stay in the party. Labor picks someone who's not Shimon Peres or Ehud Barak - probably Benjamin Ben-Eliezer but maybe Matan Vilani (both former generals). Some Israeli rightists punish the Likud for disengagement and Netanyahu for not voicing his objections to the pullout earlier, but many of them have nowhere else to go, and the party machinery still gets him 20ish mandates. Maybe Netanyahu even picks off some National Religious Party or National Union voters, because they don't want to see a Labor government and they correctly calculate that a lot of centrist Likud voters will be fleeing the Likud. And indeed, the 30% of Likud voters who supported the disengagement are the same Likud voters who still remember Netanyahu as a crook and a liar. Since Labor is running a general many of them will hold their noses and vote Labor. Meanwhile, most mainstream Labor voters reward their party for propping up Sharon just long enough to make disengagement a reality. Maybe some peacenik voters see no reason to support the Labor party any more and vote for wherever Yossi Beilin happens to be at the time. Oh, and since sympathy for religious Jews is running at an all-time high due to media coverage of Gaza settlers' suffering, Shinui sees its support plummet. Under this scenario, Labor gets more votes than Likud but has to be anchored by parties to the left since the secular nationalist option has evaporated with Shinui. Under this scenario, 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. Maybe Peres joins him and maybe Peres doesn't join him. In the former, this new party gets all the voters who feel guilty that they ridiculed Peres for opportunism and self-aggrandizement when he rejoined the government to prop up disengagement. In the latter, Peres will have already been defeated in the Labor primaries and is therefore an electoral nonentity. Maybe Lapid brings the five or so mandates he can still personally command and maybe he doesn't. One more dynamic is important in this scenario: since all of the centrist voters have fled the Likud, what's left of the Central Committee has chosen a far-right list for the Knesset - which will make Netanyahu seem even more radical and unappealing in the general election. So in addition to being far less popular nationally than Sharon, Netanyahu is now dragging along a list that's even further right than he is. Sharon's centrist party would do better than Likud and potentially as well as Labor. Under this scenario, Israel is led either by a fully centrist government or a Labor government anchored by Sharon's centrist party.
Scenario 3 - an unstable Likud-led Sharon government: The post-disengagement polls showing Sharon gaining the Likud turn out to be right. But he is dragged down by a far-right list chosen by the Central Committee. Likud loses centrists with a distaste for the rest of the list to Labor and rightists who opposed the disengagement to NRP or NU. Either Likud loses to Labor or Likud wins but Sharon has to look to the Left for support - the latter is basically the current government, albeit with a newly strengthened Labor that will demand even more concessions to the Palestinians.
Rightists calling for Sharon's head will receive little gratification from the realization that the current government - in which rightists at least firmly control the Knesset - is the best electoral option that they have. But here's a test for anyone on the right who supports bringing down the Sharon government: create a single credible scenario that demonstrates that a Netanyahu led Likud can win an election. Polls that show about 50% of the country supports disengagement, about 40% opposes it, and 10% are too torn to make a decision. Assume that of the 50% who support disengagement, a total of 10% are Israeli Arabs. That leaves a total of 40% of Israel supporting disengagement - almost all of which are coming from the secular Left or the center-right. No one from any of those two camps are going to vote for Netanyahu - but most of the 40% will vote Labor since Shinui won't have a real presence. Likud voters who would quickly point that this still leaves 40% for Netanyahu, however, are mistaken - because many of those 40% are religious Jews, who will be voting either for NRP or NU. And if they need an excuse, they'll tell themselves that (a) Netanyahu waited too long to come out against disengagement and (b) that Likud can't be trusted anyway.
Now we expect emails in the next couple of hours from frothing anti-disengagement activists brandishing polls that show disengagement opposition at 50%. We think those polls are bad, but even if they're not - those polls all posit a 10% shift (from support to opposition) in the final days leading up to disengagement. Those are people whose opposition for disengagement was - definitionally - soft at best. In other words, centrists. In other words, from the camp that will leave Likud and follow Sharon - or at the very least, leave Likud to get away from Netanyahu. A Netanyahu candidacy is simply not credible.
[Cross-posted to IsraPundit]
MK Zevulun Orlev, chairman of the National Religious Party, plans to convene the Knesset next month for a special holiday session in order to conduct a preliminary vote on a bill he proposed, which calls for the dissolution of the Knesset and early elections... Meanwhile, MK Uri Ariel (National Union) said that he is working to sign 61 MKs onto his own no confidence proposal...
"There is an agreement among us all that in the difficult situation Israeli society finds itself today, after the disengagement, we have to help the nation," Ariel said.
The difficult situation requires help and stability. So clearly the most pressing task is to bring down the government.
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 by current back-bencher Benjamin Netanyahu, but chooses to stay in the party. Labor picks someone who's not Shimon Peres or Ehud Barak - probably Benjamin Ben-Eliezer but maybe Matan Vilani (both former generals). Some Israeli rightists punish the Likud for disengagement and Netanyahu for not voicing his objections to the pullout earlier, but many of them have nowhere else to go, and the party machinery still gets him 20ish mandates. Maybe Netanyahu even picks off some National Religious Party or National Union voters, because they don't want to see a Labor government and they correctly calculate that a lot of centrist Likud voters will be fleeing the Likud. And indeed, the 30% of Likud voters who supported the disengagement are the same Likud voters who still remember Netanyahu as a crook and a liar. Since Labor is running a general many of them will hold their noses and vote Labor. Meanwhile, most mainstream Labor voters reward their party for propping up Sharon just long enough to make disengagement a reality. Maybe some peacenik voters see no reason to support the Labor party any more and vote for wherever Yossi Beilin happens to be at the time. Oh, and since sympathy for religious Jews is running at an all-time high due to media coverage of Gaza settlers' suffering, Shinui sees its support plummet. Under this scenario, Labor gets more votes than Likud but has to be anchored by parties to the left since the secular nationalist option has evaporated with Shinui. Under this scenario, 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. Maybe Peres joins him and maybe Peres doesn't join him. In the former, this new party gets all the voters who feel guilty that they ridiculed Peres for opportunism and self-aggrandizement when he rejoined the government to prop up disengagement. In the latter, Peres will have already been defeated in the Labor primaries and is therefore an electoral nonentity. Maybe Lapid brings the five or so mandates he can still personally command and maybe he doesn't. One more dynamic is important in this scenario: since all of the centrist voters have fled the Likud, what's left of the Central Committee has chosen a far-right list for the Knesset - which will make Netanyahu seem even more radical and unappealing in the general election. So in addition to being far less popular nationally than Sharon, Netanyahu is now dragging along a list that's even further right than he is. Sharon's centrist party would do better than Likud and potentially as well as Labor. Under this scenario, Israel is led either by a fully centrist government or a Labor government anchored by Sharon's centrist party.
Scenario 3 - an unstable Likud-led Sharon government: The post-disengagement polls showing Sharon gaining the Likud turn out to be right. But he is dragged down by a far-right list chosen by the Central Committee. Likud loses centrists with a distaste for the rest of the list to Labor and rightists who opposed the disengagement to NRP or NU. Either Likud loses to Labor or Likud wins but Sharon has to look to the Left for support - the latter is basically the current government, albeit with a newly strengthened Labor that will demand even more concessions to the Palestinians.
Rightists calling for Sharon's head will receive little gratification from the realization that the current government - in which rightists at least firmly control the Knesset - is the best electoral option that they have. But here's a test for anyone on the right who supports bringing down the Sharon government: create a single credible scenario that demonstrates that a Netanyahu led Likud can win an election. Polls that show about 50% of the country supports disengagement, about 40% opposes it, and 10% are too torn to make a decision. Assume that of the 50% who support disengagement, a total of 10% are Israeli Arabs. That leaves a total of 40% of Israel supporting disengagement - almost all of which are coming from the secular Left or the center-right. No one from any of those two camps are going to vote for Netanyahu - but most of the 40% will vote Labor since Shinui won't have a real presence. Likud voters who would quickly point that this still leaves 40% for Netanyahu, however, are mistaken - because many of those 40% are religious Jews, who will be voting either for NRP or NU. And if they need an excuse, they'll tell themselves that (a) Netanyahu waited too long to come out against disengagement and (b) that Likud can't be trusted anyway.
Now we expect emails in the next couple of hours from frothing anti-disengagement activists brandishing polls that show disengagement opposition at 50%. We think those polls are bad, but even if they're not - those polls all posit a 10% shift (from support to opposition) in the final days leading up to disengagement. Those are people whose opposition for disengagement was - definitionally - soft at best. In other words, centrists. In other words, from the camp that will leave Likud and follow Sharon - or at the very least, leave Likud to get away from Netanyahu. A Netanyahu candidacy is simply not credible.
[Cross-posted to IsraPundit]
