ISRAELI Likud Coalition
From AICbackground
The current government of Israel represents a coalition of centrist and moderately leftist parties, most notably the Kadimah party of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Labor party headed by Ehud Barak. Labor is a generally leftist party, but swung to the center to become part of Olmert’s ruling coalition. Kadimah is comprised largely (at least its leadership) of defectors from Israel’s traditional rightist political party, the Likud. Since this coalition is comprised of leftists and rightists who have moved to the center, opposition to this government necessarily stems from both the left and right of Israeli politics, where many ideologically-motivated politicians feel that the current government’s ruling parties have sacrificed their principles simply to secure political power. In the current Israeli scene, the right-wing Likud coalition holds far more sway than do the parties of the left.
THE RIGHT
Israel’s right is led by the Likud, currently headed by former Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu. The Likud began in the late 1970s as a coalition of smaller conservative and religious parties led by the ex-militant Menachem Begin and several prominent military figures, including the legendary general Ariel Sharon. Generally speaking, these groups opposed the secular orientation of Israel’s dominant center-left political establishment, and wished to introduce a more religiously Jewish character to the state of Israel. An important part of this national transformation, in the eyes of Begin, was the annexation of the West Bank, referred to by these so-called “Revisionist Zionists” as Judea and Samaria, the biblical name for the Occupied Territories. Although Begin is best remembered for negotiating the 1978 Camp David Accords with Egypt, where Israel traded the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in return for peace, his injection of religion into Israeli notions of strategic geography had a palpable effect: it was now institutionally acceptable for mainstream Jewish politicians to challenge the post-1967 formula of “land for peace,” whereby Israel would trade back lands conquered in 1967 in return for normalized relations and peace treaties with its neighbors. Some politicians, particularly general Ariel Sharon, began openly opining that perhaps Israel would be safer with land that it would be with peace.
Since the late 1990s (when Netanyahu was Prime Minister), the Likud has become synonymous with those Israelis who reject dealing with the Palestinians so long as they continue to conduct terror operations against Israel. This platform led to a great deal of obstructionism from Likud against Ariel Sharon’s policy of unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza in 2005, even though Sharon was the leader of Likud at the time. The public debate engendered by the Gaza withdrawal actually caused Likud to split into 2 parties, the new Kadimah party of Ariel Sharon, which attracted many moderate members of Likud, and a smaller, more ideologically stalwart Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu, which suffered heavily in 2006 parliamentary elections but remains the strongest voice of dissent against Kadimah’s policies, including:
Hamas: in January 2006 elections, Hamas emerged as the ruling party in the Palestinian Authority’s parliamentary elections. Israelis were furious at this result, and Netanyahu was quick to blame Olmert for these results, asserting that he, as Prime Minister, had allowed the Palestinians to go to the polls at such a sensitive time, and was therefore responsible for handing power to Islamic militants. Since then, Likud has kept up the pressure on Kadimah as it strives in vain to deal with the increasing militancy of Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas’ stronghold. Israeli troops have been forced to reoccupy much of Gaza, and Netanyahu has been quick to point out that Olmert and his cronies, the very same people who unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, clearly have no idea how to handle the Occupied Territories. Since the rapprochement between Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in February 2007, Netanyahu has made it clear that Israel might have to consider also cutting off contact with Abbas’ faction, since it is clear that Hamas has not been tempered, but has in fact forced Abbas to recognize its radical agenda. Generally, Likud does not advocate a complete separation from the Palestinian leadership, but rather stresses that Israel cannot bow to terrorist pressure: so long as Palestinian leaders indulge in terrorist activities, Israel has no moral obligation to meet them at the bargaining table.
Lebanon: In the July 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, Olmert promised to wipe out Hezbollah and retrieve Israel’s kidnapped soldiers, neither of which happened. Instead, Hezbollah survived, and by simply surviving the onslaught of Israel’s legendary military, became an international sensation amongst Israel’s many enemies. Netanyahu once again laid the blame for this squarely on Olmert, arguing that he had gone to war with murky objectives and grossly misapprehended the nature of Lebanese resistance, ultimately costing Israel the lives of many soldiers. Likud has repeatedly called for an independent commission to investigate Olmert’s prosecution of the war, but Olmert has refused these demands. Once again, in Lebanon the Likud say that Olmert has shown himself incapable of dealing with the harsh realities of the Middle East, and must be replaced by a government capable of dealing with terrorists using a firmer hand.
Iran: right now Netanyahu and Likud are the loudest voices calling for the Iranian nuclear threat to be interdicted. In Netanyahu’s words the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran constitutes “an existential threat to the State of Israel.” In this Likud and Kadimah share something in common, but Likudniks argue that Olmert’s government, incapable of even dealing with Iran’s proxy Hezbollah, might not have the stomach to neutralize the threat from Tehran if Israel is forced to act alone.
Besides these issues, Likud has also been fortunate in that a number of scandals have rocked the ruling coalition, generally calling into question the moral fiber of Olmert’s circle. Following the Lebanon war, these scandals have caused public faith in Olmert to plummet dramatically, ultimately resulting in Olmert's resignation (though he remains in office pending the February 2009 elections). Pre-election polls show that a vote conducted today would see Likud emerge with the largest number of seats in the Knesset, proof, so Likudniks say, that Israelis have finally wised up to the dangers posed by Olmert’s incompetence.
