What Next for Obama with Israel?

As I write this, I imagine that due to the time difference the official activities of the second day of Obama's first official visit to Israel are over. The first day certainly seemed to go well. Obama got across the idea that he accepts that Israel has long roots in the area and that Israeli Jews are returned natives and not simply European settlers and their co-religionists from the region as most Arabs, Muslims, and those on the European and International Left seem to believe. For the record I believe that they are both--natives who through the circumstance of history were forced to return as settlers. Netanyahu has made nice and Israelis seem to be impressed.

So what happens now? The speeches and visit could be used for two different purposes. First, to smooth over relations with Jerusalem so as to better coordinate a response to Iranian nuclear activities and to the spillover from the Syrian civil war and other contingencies that may arise. Second, it could be used to down the road support a push for a renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace process as J Street, most non-Orthodox American Jews, and the Israeli Left (Meretz, Hadash, part of Labor) wants. But then Obama will face the same obstacles that he faced in his first term--even worse. The Palestinians are still divided between Fatah and Hamas. The Likud still has a veto over the other parties in the coalition, but this time a powerful Jewish Home party is in the coalition along with a Yesh Atid that is largely agnostic on the peace issue and the Likud is farther to the Right than it was in Netanyahu's second government.

New Israeli coalition appears Reformist

Today the news in Israel is that after 49 days of bargaining, the white smoke has gone up and a new coalition government has emerged. It consists of four parties: Likud Beitenu (31 seats), Yesh Atid (19), Jewish Home (14), and HaTnua (The Movement) (6). This gives it a ten seat majority so that it should be able to stand normal attrition levels for its lifetime if it can keep the three main parties in. Prime Minister Netanyahu managed to keep both the defense ministry and the foreign ministry for the Likud Beitenu. 

Here is a link to a list of the ministers in the new government.

Besides the day-to-day running of the country, the new coalition seems to have two main goals: integration of the ultra-Orthodox haredim into Israeli society and electoral reform. The first is to be accomplished by removing the exemptions from national or military service for all but 1800 ultra-Orthodox males and by requiring all schools, including the ultra-Orthodox schools, to have a core curriculum of English, science, and math so as to make the ultra-Orthodox employable in the secular world and hence not dependent on the religious parties for financial support.  Here is a view of the new coalition by veteran English-speaking Israeli journalist David Horovitz.

Netanyahu Gets Two More Weeks to Form Coalition

On Saturday evening President Shimon Peres gave Prime Minister Netanyahu a two-week extension, after his initial month-long period for coalition formation had elapsed, in which to form a government. If Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Beitenu joint list of Likud and Israel Beitenu, is unable to form a government in this time Peres will either offer a chance to someone else or schedule new elections. The problem is that the number two and number three parties in size, Yesh Atid ("There is a future") and HaBeit HaYehudi (Jewish Home), have banded together and refused to enter any coalition that contains ultra-Orthodox or Haredi parties. This is because Yesh Atid ran on the platform of eliminating the religious exemption from national military service for Yeshiva (Jewish religious seminar) students, who also rely on financial aid extracted from the religious parties in coalition negotiations for their livelihood. Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett is also fine with eliminating this exemption as religious Zionists do serve in the Israeli army. Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid has emphasized the "equal burden" issue over other election issues.

Two Likely Coalitions for Netanyahu

With the final results of the Israeli election to the 19th Knesset in  two possible coalition choices for Netanyahu appear likely.  The first would be a Center-Right coalition with Yesh Atid:

Likud Beitenu      31

Yesh Atid             19

Jewish Home       11

________________

Total                    61

Kadima with two seats could be added to provide a little safety margin. In this scenario, Netanyahu would agree to a draft of the ultra-Orthodox Haredim and Yesh Atid would go along with continued settlement. As Yesh Atid appears to put more emphasis on ending religious privilege and coercion and the ultra-Orthodox draft exemption than on achieving peace, this is possible. Certainly, if Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid is anything like his father, Tommy Lapid, leader of the Shinui party of the 1990s-2006, he is closer to the Likud when it comes to borders than he is to Labor. Here is an article from Foreign Affairs that indicates that on territorial issues Lapid is very compatible with Netanyahu.

The second coalition, would be more Centrist:

Likud Beitenu    31

Yesh Atid          19

Labor                15

--------------------------

Total                65

Under this scenario, there would be a religious draft, an end to subsidies to the ultra-Orthodox, and settlement construction would probably be defined by some formula or committee that would allow for "natural expansion" within settlements but not much in the way of new settlements outside of Jerusalem.  There would also probably not be any renewed peace talks with the Palestinian Authority. Labor leader Shelli Yakhimovich campaigned on socio-economic issues, so as long as there was a change in budget priorities towards helping out the secular poor it would probably be happy.

This Jerusalem Post article discusses various coalition possibilities and graphically illustrates four of them. And here Ben Birnbaum of The New Republic discusses the winners and losers of the latest Israeli election in terms both of parties and individuals.

The Center-Left lacks the sufficient Knesset votes to construct a stable coalition of its own without the Likud, even if it was inclined to include the Arabs--which they have not been willing to do in the past.

Israeli Election and the Coalition After

The last polls legally allowed before Israel's January 22 election have the Israeli Right bloc composed of the secular Right parties and the religious parties winning a slim majority of about 64 seats. This includes two seats to the far-right Otzma L'Israel (Strengh to Israel) party, which Netanyahu is determined to keep out of his coalition. This will give him 62 seats or a majority of two. This projection has Likud Beitenu receiving only 32 seats, over ten less than was expected only a month ago. Another older poll by the newspaper Ma'ariv has Likud Beitenu receiving 37 seats (Hebrew link). But usually the differences between polls occur between parties within the same bloc so that the overall bloc margins remain about the same. The Ma'ariv poll has Labor coming in a distant second at 15 seats, Jewish Home a close third with 14, and Shas a close fourth with 12 seats. But the Ma'ariv poll is older and doesn't take into account an apparent shift to the Center-Left and the far Right. Much depends on turnout--typically the highest levels of turnout are found among settlers in the West Bank and among the ultra-Orthodox who are both ideologically motivated to vote. The mainstream Israeli peace movement Shalom Akshav/Peace Now has been attempting to counter this by publicizing voting levels in different locations in the previous election in an app for smart phones and other electronic devices.

The Israeli Election: A Preview

Israel goes to the polls on January 22. Everyone has already conceded that Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu will be heading the next government. His Likud Beitenu (Union: Our Home) party is forecast to receive between 34 and 38 seats out of 120 in the Knesset. Next largest will be the centrist Labor Party with 16 to 18 seats--up from 13 in 2009. Third will be the Jewish Home (haBeit haYehudi) party with 13-14 seats- (Hebrew link) --this will be a record for the old National Religious Party, which normally received anywhere from four to ten seats in each election since the 1950s. For another forecast in English see here. The Kadima party, founded by Ariel Sharon as a splinted from the Likud in November 2005, is likely to only receive two seats despite being the largest party after the 2009 election with 28 seats. Most of its voters are said to be either returning to the Likud after seven years, returning to Labor after three years, or going to former Kadima leader Tzipi Livni's haTnua (the Movement) party that is projected to receive seven seats. Overall the Right is projected to receive about 53 seats and the Center-Left about ten seats less than that. Daniel Levy, an analyst affiliated with a number of European and American think tanks as their resident Israel expert, has a very good article organized around the concept of Israel's "four tribes" or electoral blocs.

There are many explanations for this move to the right.  But the important thing is the effect that it will have on the policy of the Israeli government. Netanyahu is likely to form another rightist coalition with one of the Center parties in the coalition, such as Yesh Atid (There is a Future), as a legitimizing party in the small role that Labor has periodically filled (after 2001, after 2009 etc.) An attempt to form a Center bloc with Yesh Atid, Labor, and haTnua blew up last week when Tzipi Livni issued a statement about a meeting that the three party leaders held and then the other two contradicted her.  This will make it easy for Netanyahu to play the three parties off against one another after the election. The most interesting figure in this election cycle has been Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party, portrayed in this New Yorker article by David Remnick.  Here is an article that ran on Sunday January 20--two days before the election--in The Times of Israel on the Likud's post-election coalition options.