Time for New Elections?

Netanyahu’s coalition with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, chairman of the Labor party, is unravelling. The two joined forces after the last election on the basis of the new consensus in Israeli politics: Dismantling settlements and unilateral retreat ends in disaster, the Palestinian Authority cannot be trusted to make a durable peace agreement, so Israel must retain effective security control of Judaea and Samaria. Now Barak is welching on the deal. Barak fears the Americans and wants to give in to American pressure. He also suffers from delusions of grandeur, imagining himself leading Netanyahu’s government down the path of unilateral concessions, taking credit for a peace treaty and reconciling himself with his party’s mainstream, now dominated by the loony left.

What the country may need is a snap election before Rosh Hashana. Netanyahu needs to shore up his ability to pursue a policy at variance with the Obama administration. Polls show that since Obama started pressuring Netanyahu, Netanyahu’s Likud and parties to Netanyahu’s right have become even more popular than when elected in 2009. They regularly get 70 Knesset seats or more in the polls. That won’t be the case anymore if Netanyahu lets the pair of Baracks (the American and the Israeli versions) force him to abandon the policy he was elected to pursue.

Of course an election needs to be prepared. Netanyahu needs to spend about a month campaigning hard, reiterating that his government’s policies reflect the national consensus. He should say that the issue of the campaign is the position laid forth in his Bar-Ilan speech a year ago: Yes to negotiations, no to a precommitment to retreat, dismantling settlements or abandon Israel’s security concerns in Judaea and Samaria. He should make Barak take responsibility for messing up the Mavi Marmara affair. Only then should the coalition introduce a bill to hold snap elections. Passing it should take 72 hours (at the start of which Barak should be fired), with elections taking place three weeks later. The heart of an American electoral campaign is the best time for Israel to hold its own elections; it will reduce Obama’s ability to interfere.

The opposing forces in the election will be very clear. On the one side will be Labor, Kadima, the press establishment, the academic establishment, the business establishment, and all the loonies who haven’t learned a thing in the past twenty years and think that safety lies in unilateral concessions and American smiles. On the other side will be the common sense of the great majority of Israelis, who actually have learned a thing or two in that time. Let’s see who prevails.

After the election, if all goes well, Netanyahu will no longer be dependent on Barak for political survival. He can even take Barak back into his new government if he wants, as head of a truncated Labor party or even on his own (though why Netanyahu needs a serial political loser like Barak at his side isn’t clear). Barak will hardly be in a position to say no. Then Netanyahu can then use Barak as he desires, without Barak holding the key to the government’s survival.