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Israel's Party-Bolters
Ashley Rindsberg
Ehud Barak has done it again. Like Sharon before him, and Yossi Lapid before him (as well as Yitzhak Peretz, Amir Peretz, Saadia Marciano, and even Ezer Weizman), Mr. Barak has set out to form a new political party. This time, however, the new party will succeed. This time, Barak must be thinking, that magical compote of Zionism, strategic strength, and dogged peace-processing will actually work.
Of course it won’t. One of the defining qualities of an Israeli is a firm possession of the Bonaparte principle: that he can—will—succeed where all others have failed. In many cases Bonapartean Israelis have been right. The existence of the state itself, with all its achievement and failures, encapsulates this principle.
But in Israel’s political realm Bonaparte’s principle exhibits as a kind of symptom. Again and again increasingly marginalized politicians cook up a political idea they tout as visionary, as Israel’s existential salvation. Rather than set out to convince fellow party members—never mind the voters—that this course is the correct one, they bolt the party. The suddenness, the brashness, and the promise of plum legislative prizes bring along a few defectors as well as a handful of courtiers, aides, and journalist devotees. And voila! A party is born.
Soon it dies. The rate of party-death in Israel is staggering. The toll on the political system and the country itself is untold, since this dirty political habit is nothing less than a periodic disruption of democracy. It negates the voters while giving the political system the finger.
In Barak’s case, we have seen all the usual signs of illness. From the same newspapers that once feverishly supported him he recently came under fire for his bizarrely lavish lifestyle fueled by fabulous, unaccounted-for wealth. The voters were getting a whiff of a strange odor. The Labor Party (of blessed memory) had collapsed in a stammering heap. And aside from his distant military history, no one in Israel could tell you what Ehud Barak stands for—though a few still recall his role in leading the country arse-wise into the Second Intifada.
Now, Israel’s commentators, particularly from the left, scream about the damage Barak is doing to the country—as if he were the cause and not the effect. But the long list of politicians like Barak, who were politically stagnated and threatened by loss of power (or worse), and so bolted, is evidence that party-bolting is a political disease which Barak has caught.
Its cause is the Israeli democratic system itself. In a word, it comes to a single factor: lack of accountability, which is a polity’s immune system. Israel’s politicians are accountable to no specific portion of the electorate, since no constituency elects them. Further, since they’re elected as list members of a party, and not as an individuals, they are not properly representative at all.
Finally, Israel’s system of coalition government means that with only three or four Knesset seats, party-bolting politicians know they can sneak into a government by using their otherwise negligible share of the vote to complete a coalition. They might even end up with a ministerial portfolio if they play their cards right.
With a toe-hold in an unstable government the party-bolters are able to raise money, which they can then use to maneuver themselves into more votes, more power, and more positive media coverage. The new party might rise, might be called “Israel’s only hope for peace,” but it will invariably incur scandal and become marginalized, leaving its members threatened with loss of power. Until one of them decides to bolt.
And so the cycle renews itself. Meanwhile, voters can’t afford to buy homes in a wildly inflated property market; they are forced to pay between 128 and 144% duty on cars (with unreliable public transport as a cruel alternative); the country is falling in global corruption indices; education is ailing; and the citizenry is terrorized by a massive missile war looming on the horizon. But Ehud Barak is the leader of something. At least he’ll sleep better at night.
Ehud Barak has done it again. Like Sharon before him, and Yossi Lapid before him (as well as Yitzhak Peretz, Amir Peretz, Saadia Marciano, and even Ezer Weizman), Mr. Barak has set out to form a new political party. This time, however, the new party will succeed. This time, Barak must be thinking, that magical compote of Zionism, strategic strength, and dogged peace-processing will actually work.
Of course it won’t. One of the defining qualities of an Israeli is a firm possession of the Bonaparte principle: that he can—will—succeed where all others have failed. In many cases Bonapartean Israelis have been right. The existence of the state itself, with all its achievement and failures, encapsulates this principle.
But in Israel’s political realm Bonaparte’s principle exhibits as a kind of symptom. Again and again increasingly marginalized politicians cook up a political idea they tout as visionary, as Israel’s existential salvation. Rather than set out to convince fellow party members—never mind the voters—that this course is the correct one, they bolt the party. The suddenness, the brashness, and the promise of plum legislative prizes bring along a few defectors as well as a handful of courtiers, aides, and journalist devotees. And voila! A party is born.
Soon it dies. The rate of party-death in Israel is staggering. The toll on the political system and the country itself is untold, since this dirty political habit is nothing less than a periodic disruption of democracy. It negates the voters while giving the political system the finger.
In Barak’s case, we have seen all the usual signs of illness. From the same newspapers that once feverishly supported him he recently came under fire for his bizarrely lavish lifestyle fueled by fabulous, unaccounted-for wealth. The voters were getting a whiff of a strange odor. The Labor Party (of blessed memory) had collapsed in a stammering heap. And aside from his distant military history, no one in Israel could tell you what Ehud Barak stands for—though a few still recall his role in leading the country arse-wise into the Second Intifada.
Now, Israel’s commentators, particularly from the left, scream about the damage Barak is doing to the country—as if he were the cause and not the effect. But the long list of politicians like Barak, who were politically stagnated and threatened by loss of power (or worse), and so bolted, is evidence that party-bolting is a political disease which Barak has caught.
Its cause is the Israeli democratic system itself. In a word, it comes to a single factor: lack of accountability, which is a polity’s immune system. Israel’s politicians are accountable to no specific portion of the electorate, since no constituency elects them. Further, since they’re elected as list members of a party, and not as an individuals, they are not properly representative at all.
Finally, Israel’s system of coalition government means that with only three or four Knesset seats, party-bolting politicians know they can sneak into a government by using their otherwise negligible share of the vote to complete a coalition. They might even end up with a ministerial portfolio if they play their cards right.
With a toe-hold in an unstable government the party-bolters are able to raise money, which they can then use to maneuver themselves into more votes, more power, and more positive media coverage. The new party might rise, might be called “Israel’s only hope for peace,” but it will invariably incur scandal and become marginalized, leaving its members threatened with loss of power. Until one of them decides to bolt.
And so the cycle renews itself. Meanwhile, voters can’t afford to buy homes in a wildly inflated property market; they are forced to pay between 128 and 144% duty on cars (with unreliable public transport as a cruel alternative); the country is falling in global corruption indices; education is ailing; and the citizenry is terrorized by a massive missile war looming on the horizon. But Ehud Barak is the leader of something. At least he’ll sleep better at night.
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