The Likud party in Israel is clearly in crisis. While presuming to be a "broad tent" for a gamut of political opinion, the Likud is increasingly split along the tectonic lines defined by the Gaza Disengagement plan of Ariel Sharon. While there are many other divisions within the Likud - over personalities (the Sharon camp vs. the Netanyahu camp vs. the Olmert people), economic policy (market oriented vs. the old-style socialists and central planners), coalition strategies (those favoring national unity coalitions with the Left vs. those opposed), and military-security issues (such as the "Security Wall") - nothing has been so polarizing as the Gaza Disengagement plan being promoted by Ariel Sharon.
The internal divisions became most glaring when the Likud held its party referendum on the Sharon plan several months ago and it was defeated by a margin of about three-to-two. This was widely regarded as a sort of no-confidence vote in Sharon himself. Since then, the Likud's "left wing" (if it may be called that), led by such people as Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Gideon Ezra and Meir Sheetrit, have followed Sharon's lead or even gone beyond it in their embrace of certain components of the "Oslo Approach", and specifically, unilateral Israeli "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip. This wing of the Likud might be labeled the camp of "Oslo Lite", because it reluctantly embraces most of the principles of the "Oslo peace process" introduced by the Israeli Labor Party and the Left, including the desirability of Palestinian statehood. The Sharon disengagement plan for Gaza supported by them is essentially the Amram Mitzna plan, comprising the main plank in the Labor Party's election platform last election. They are opposed by the Likud "Right", which opposes unilateral disengagement in Gaza or at least insists that the plan be submitted to a national ballot referendum before implementation.
The widening split increasingly complicates other political decisions by the Likud leadership. For example, there has been talk of inviting the Labor Party to join the Likud in a new "national unity government." Such a move would likely exacerbate the internal divisions within the Likud, pitting those opposing such a move from the party "Right" against those endorsing it from the party "Left". These same divisions are evident in preferences regarding coalition partners for the Likud, with the party's "Right" preferring the small parties of the militant Right and the National Religious Party, while the Likud "Left" prefers a coalition based primarily upon Shinui and the Labor Party.
As these internal party divisions have grown in their ferocity in recent weeks, the press and others have been asking in ever louder voices whether the crisis in the Likud may end up splitting the entire party itself down the middle, leading to the emergence of a separate Likud-Left and Likud-Right.
Within the party, all talk of such a split is generally dismissed as something of a disaster scenario by those insisting that any such split be prevented at all costs. But should it be? Would Israeli voters and Israel as a whole not be far better off should such a split take place?
The Likud has been attempting to be all things in all seasons for all people, and especially to be the Other Labor Party, for many years. Over and over, the Likud has run for election seemingly as the anti-Oslo party. Without exception, after elections where the Likud took office, it immediately jettisoned its election platform and proceeded to implement what were quintessentially the policies of the Israeli Labor Party.
The pattern certainly goes back to Binyamin Netanyahu's election victory of 1996, but in some ways, goes back as far as Menachem Begin's election in 1977. Having run on a policy of retaining all "occupied territories" and converting Israeli economic socialism into free-market capitalism, Begin quickly abandoned all of the Sinai Peninsula while preserving the monopoly socialism and dirigiste central control of the economy. (Begin's only significant changes in economic policy were floating the exchange rate and enormous printing of money.) The Camp David Agreement signed by Begin included a seemingly innocent pledge to grant the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza "limited autonomy", which in retrospect was the capitulation that formed the precedent for the universal demands for the erection of a terrorist Palestinian state.
Under Yitzchak Shamir, the government dug in its heels over some security matters, played tougher with the Palestinians, but at the same time, Shamir cabinets embraced dirigiste socialism even more fiercely, with Minister of Agriculture and of Housing Ariel Sharon serving as the most passionate advocate of central planning of all. Shamir also sat with the Labor Party in a series of national unity government coalitions.
When Netanyahu was elected in 1996, there seemed little doubt in anyone's mind that he was elected by voters to halt the Oslo "peace process". But it became quickly evident that Prime Minister Netanyahu would continue the Oslo "process" and even accelerate it via the Wye capitulations, agreeing to things that even Shimon Peres had refused to implement. Despite his free-market campaign rhetoric, Prime Minister Netanyahu did almost nothing to reform the economy.
After the fiasco of the government of Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon entered office in 2000, once again as the Likud's reigning anti-Oslo crusader. And once again, a Likud leader elected to stop Oslo turned around, abandoned his campaign platform and continued the Oslo "process". Within months, Sharon was reiterating his personal commitment to Palestinian statehood. Netanyahu, consigned by Sharon to the Ministry of Finance, perhaps because of its infamous ability to break promising careers, has been doing a remarkably good job there in initiating many of the same economic structural reforms he had earlier refused to promote while Prime Minister. Netanyahu meanwhile morphed into leader of the hawkish internal opposition to Sharon within the Likud. In one of the Likud government's most Byzantine and most cynical moments, Sharon conditioned support for the economic structural reforms being pushed by Netanyahu on the latter's capitulation and endorsement of Sharon's Gaza Disengagement Plan.
The main argument by Likud loyalists against any split of the Likud into two parties is that such a cleavage could allow the Labor Party to return to office. This is more than a little ironic, because the main thing that Likud-led governments have done since 1996 has been to implement Labor Party political programs. If the Likud is going to implement Labor Party ideas anyway, if Sharon is going to adopt each proposal coming from the Labor Party, starting with the "Security Wall" and ending with the Mitzna plan for unilateral disengagement in Gaza, then what difference does it make if the Likud is split and in opposition or not?
But the main reason for splitting the Likud is to create true political pluralism and real democracy in Israel at long last. Until 1977, Israel was essentially a one-party state, where the Labor Party (nee MAPAI) exercised quasi-totalitarian (albeit ballot-selected) control over the country. By 1977, the Likud had emerged as a plausible alternative for voters, but by 1996, it was clear that it was an "alternative" only in the sense of the roster of names and personnel running for office, not in terms of the policies being pursued. The two main parties in Israel, the only two serious contenders for leadership of any government coalitions, have increasingly resembled political clones of one another, pursuing the same flawed sets of visions. Both parties endorse a "two-state solution" with a Palestinian state arising in virtually the entire West Bank and Gaza and with Israel being forced back to borders not significantly different form those of 1949. Both parties now endorse unilateral "disengagement" in Gaza, which will clearly serve as precedent for the West Bank no matter how many times Sharon denies it, and both endorse the expulsion of thousands of Jewish "settlers" from their homes to accommodate Palestinian ambitions.
Splitting the Likud would at long last offer Israeli voters a real choice. The Likud-Left would run openly as the "Other Labor Party", endorsing continuation of Oslo and generally seeking accords with the PLO by way of Israeli concessions and goodwill measures. The Likud-Right would oppose all negotiations with the PLO, would run on a "Peace Through Victory" platform, would vehemently oppose Palestinian statehood and would increase settlement construction. The Likud-Left could promote dirigiste state planning, while the Likud-Right would promote free-market capitalism.
Israeli voters would have a clear choice, and Israeli elections would at last serve as clear legitimizing procedures, rewarding parties clearly proposing alternatives just as clearly opposed by other parties, with the voter making a determination of the direction for the country. Ironically, the total votes awarded to one of the emerging Likud halves could well exceed those of the two Siamese halves currently joined at the hips in the current Likud party. The Likud that represents everything and nothing at the same time, that is, the Likud of the current Sharon-led coalition, has driven away large numbers of voters. A Likud half clearly representing something may discover that it has enormous electoral appeal.
The internal divisions became most glaring when the Likud held its party referendum on the Sharon plan several months ago and it was defeated by a margin of about three-to-two. This was widely regarded as a sort of no-confidence vote in Sharon himself. Since then, the Likud's "left wing" (if it may be called that), led by such people as Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Gideon Ezra and Meir Sheetrit, have followed Sharon's lead or even gone beyond it in their embrace of certain components of the "Oslo Approach", and specifically, unilateral Israeli "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip. This wing of the Likud might be labeled the camp of "Oslo Lite", because it reluctantly embraces most of the principles of the "Oslo peace process" introduced by the Israeli Labor Party and the Left, including the desirability of Palestinian statehood. The Sharon disengagement plan for Gaza supported by them is essentially the Amram Mitzna plan, comprising the main plank in the Labor Party's election platform last election. They are opposed by the Likud "Right", which opposes unilateral disengagement in Gaza or at least insists that the plan be submitted to a national ballot referendum before implementation.
The widening split increasingly complicates other political decisions by the Likud leadership. For example, there has been talk of inviting the Labor Party to join the Likud in a new "national unity government." Such a move would likely exacerbate the internal divisions within the Likud, pitting those opposing such a move from the party "Right" against those endorsing it from the party "Left". These same divisions are evident in preferences regarding coalition partners for the Likud, with the party's "Right" preferring the small parties of the militant Right and the National Religious Party, while the Likud "Left" prefers a coalition based primarily upon Shinui and the Labor Party.
As these internal party divisions have grown in their ferocity in recent weeks, the press and others have been asking in ever louder voices whether the crisis in the Likud may end up splitting the entire party itself down the middle, leading to the emergence of a separate Likud-Left and Likud-Right.
Within the party, all talk of such a split is generally dismissed as something of a disaster scenario by those insisting that any such split be prevented at all costs. But should it be? Would Israeli voters and Israel as a whole not be far better off should such a split take place?
The Likud has been attempting to be all things in all seasons for all people, and especially to be the Other Labor Party, for many years. Over and over, the Likud has run for election seemingly as the anti-Oslo party. Without exception, after elections where the Likud took office, it immediately jettisoned its election platform and proceeded to implement what were quintessentially the policies of the Israeli Labor Party.
The pattern certainly goes back to Binyamin Netanyahu's election victory of 1996, but in some ways, goes back as far as Menachem Begin's election in 1977. Having run on a policy of retaining all "occupied territories" and converting Israeli economic socialism into free-market capitalism, Begin quickly abandoned all of the Sinai Peninsula while preserving the monopoly socialism and dirigiste central control of the economy. (Begin's only significant changes in economic policy were floating the exchange rate and enormous printing of money.) The Camp David Agreement signed by Begin included a seemingly innocent pledge to grant the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza "limited autonomy", which in retrospect was the capitulation that formed the precedent for the universal demands for the erection of a terrorist Palestinian state.
Under Yitzchak Shamir, the government dug in its heels over some security matters, played tougher with the Palestinians, but at the same time, Shamir cabinets embraced dirigiste socialism even more fiercely, with Minister of Agriculture and of Housing Ariel Sharon serving as the most passionate advocate of central planning of all. Shamir also sat with the Labor Party in a series of national unity government coalitions.
When Netanyahu was elected in 1996, there seemed little doubt in anyone's mind that he was elected by voters to halt the Oslo "peace process". But it became quickly evident that Prime Minister Netanyahu would continue the Oslo "process" and even accelerate it via the Wye capitulations, agreeing to things that even Shimon Peres had refused to implement. Despite his free-market campaign rhetoric, Prime Minister Netanyahu did almost nothing to reform the economy.
After the fiasco of the government of Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon entered office in 2000, once again as the Likud's reigning anti-Oslo crusader. And once again, a Likud leader elected to stop Oslo turned around, abandoned his campaign platform and continued the Oslo "process". Within months, Sharon was reiterating his personal commitment to Palestinian statehood. Netanyahu, consigned by Sharon to the Ministry of Finance, perhaps because of its infamous ability to break promising careers, has been doing a remarkably good job there in initiating many of the same economic structural reforms he had earlier refused to promote while Prime Minister. Netanyahu meanwhile morphed into leader of the hawkish internal opposition to Sharon within the Likud. In one of the Likud government's most Byzantine and most cynical moments, Sharon conditioned support for the economic structural reforms being pushed by Netanyahu on the latter's capitulation and endorsement of Sharon's Gaza Disengagement Plan.
The main argument by Likud loyalists against any split of the Likud into two parties is that such a cleavage could allow the Labor Party to return to office. This is more than a little ironic, because the main thing that Likud-led governments have done since 1996 has been to implement Labor Party political programs. If the Likud is going to implement Labor Party ideas anyway, if Sharon is going to adopt each proposal coming from the Labor Party, starting with the "Security Wall" and ending with the Mitzna plan for unilateral disengagement in Gaza, then what difference does it make if the Likud is split and in opposition or not?
But the main reason for splitting the Likud is to create true political pluralism and real democracy in Israel at long last. Until 1977, Israel was essentially a one-party state, where the Labor Party (nee MAPAI) exercised quasi-totalitarian (albeit ballot-selected) control over the country. By 1977, the Likud had emerged as a plausible alternative for voters, but by 1996, it was clear that it was an "alternative" only in the sense of the roster of names and personnel running for office, not in terms of the policies being pursued. The two main parties in Israel, the only two serious contenders for leadership of any government coalitions, have increasingly resembled political clones of one another, pursuing the same flawed sets of visions. Both parties endorse a "two-state solution" with a Palestinian state arising in virtually the entire West Bank and Gaza and with Israel being forced back to borders not significantly different form those of 1949. Both parties now endorse unilateral "disengagement" in Gaza, which will clearly serve as precedent for the West Bank no matter how many times Sharon denies it, and both endorse the expulsion of thousands of Jewish "settlers" from their homes to accommodate Palestinian ambitions.
Splitting the Likud would at long last offer Israeli voters a real choice. The Likud-Left would run openly as the "Other Labor Party", endorsing continuation of Oslo and generally seeking accords with the PLO by way of Israeli concessions and goodwill measures. The Likud-Right would oppose all negotiations with the PLO, would run on a "Peace Through Victory" platform, would vehemently oppose Palestinian statehood and would increase settlement construction. The Likud-Left could promote dirigiste state planning, while the Likud-Right would promote free-market capitalism.
Israeli voters would have a clear choice, and Israeli elections would at last serve as clear legitimizing procedures, rewarding parties clearly proposing alternatives just as clearly opposed by other parties, with the voter making a determination of the direction for the country. Ironically, the total votes awarded to one of the emerging Likud halves could well exceed those of the two Siamese halves currently joined at the hips in the current Likud party. The Likud that represents everything and nothing at the same time, that is, the Likud of the current Sharon-led coalition, has driven away large numbers of voters. A Likud half clearly representing something may discover that it has enormous electoral appeal.