Israel's Military Campaign in Gaza and the Israeli Election Campaign- Two Campaigns in One?

Daniel Shenhar
Associated Researcher, CIDOB Foundation

13th January 2009 / Opinión CIDOB, n.º 22

The parliamentary elections in Israel are due to be held on February 10th. A month and a half before the elections, on Friday, December 26th, the newspapers were full of analysis as to the projected outcome of this impending election campaign. All the analyses showed the same prognosis – the Likud's leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is poised to win the elections. His party was well ahead in the opinion polls, and, together with an array of nationalist-religious elements, could easily form a right-wing coalition in the coming Knesset. The governing coalition's main parties were in dire straits. Kadima, headed by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and incumbent Prime-Minister Ehud Olmert, was lagging behind in the polls, weakening by the day. The Labour Party, once the all-encompassing ruler of Israeli politics, was headed towards becoming irrelevant. Ehud Barak, Labour leader and Defence Minister, was getting appalling marks for his performance. The dies seemed to be cast.

Almost three weeks and 900 Palestinian deaths later, the political arena has been turned on top of its head. Benjamin Netanyahu has disappeared almost completely from the media, leaving the arena, as is natural in these circumstances of "national emergency", for the coalition leaders, namely Olmert, Barak and Livni. The Likud's electoral campaign, in full swing before the military operation in Gaza, came to a complete halt, because, in Israel, nothing is loved more than national unity in the face of the "Arab enemy". And, although nominally all other parties halted their campaigns as well, one can imagine how many points Barak and Livni were getting as they were being seen mingling with the army top brass, taking decisions on using ever more firepower to crush the Hamas, speaking live on prime-time TV about grave national circumstances.

The consequences of this turn of events are clearly seen in the latest polls. The Likud has plummeted from 36 to about 30 projected MK's, with Kadima gaining a bit, and the Labour Party, seen as a political dead only a fortnight ago, surging meteorically, from 8 to 16 MK's. These changes have made the election scene as open as ever, with a virtual tie between the left and the right-wing parties, meaning 60-60 projected MK's.

One has to be quite cynical in order to claim that the whole military campaign in Gaza, with the carnage and destruction it has reaped in its wake, was planned by the leading members of the governing coalition so as to help them improve their standing before the elections. Or should one be? Maybe a healthy amount of skepticism is in order, given the sweeping changes in the polls in such a short time. Moreover, these are changes nobody predicted before the military operation commenced.

First and foremost, the cool-headed, highly intelligent leader of the Labour Party has only to gain from this situation. His and his party's standing in the polls could not have been lower. Unfortunately as it might sound to onlookers from Western Europe, being a courageous military commander is much more valued in Israeli society than being a Human Rights activist. Barak, who was strictly opposed just a month ago to any military escalation in Gaza, suddenly changed his mind – and, given the situation described above, and Barak's talent of strategic thinking - this fact shouldn't surprise us very much. Has the military situation on the ground changed so dramatically in just a couple of weeks? Was this military operation in Gaza absolutely necessary in this specific time frame, and not, say, six months ago, or six months from now? What is strikingly clear is that the context of this operation in Gaza is a highly politicized one, with the elections near, and the Labour Party in shambles. Looking at the opinion-poll results, it seems that even the most innocent analysis can produce serious doubts as to the purely military incentives behind the Gaza operation.

As to Livni, although as Foreign Affairs Minister she is less connected to the military campaign, she is part of "the Three", a forum composed of her, Barak and Olmert, who ultimately take all the decisions together. As part of the recommendations of the Winograd report concerning the Second Lebanon War, the Foreign Ministry was given a much greater role in decision making. And so, after almost fading away from the media prior to the military campaign, Livni has once again become a star, with the media focus on her once more. Not bad at all for a contender less than a month before the elections, with her main rival disappearing in the distance.

And Olmert? What has he to gain from this devastation? He is soon to be out of office, leading a caretaker government, not interested in the outcome of the elections. But, like every political leader, Olmert is interested in the legacy he will leave after he has left the public scene. No one would like to be remembered as a corrupt politician, forced to resign after a barrage of allegations as to his mishandling of private and public funds, who also led Israel to one of its most disastrous military campaigns in history, i.e. the Second Lebanon War. What better way to say farewell to office (and thus leaving the door open for a future comeback?) than leading Israel to a victorious military operation, crushing a hated enemy like Hamas. The polls are showing that, for Olmert, this is clearly the case. Even his public standing, which was dismal, has taken a positive turn.

This is the pathology of Israeli politics, of Israeli society. Nothing like a good military operation to change a politician's public standing. This is not the first time something like this has happened (hence pathology). The question a worried, responsible Israeli citizen might ask himself is – will this ever change?

Daniel Shenhar
Associated Researcher, CIDOB Foundation