No, the concert pianist and renaissance general has not taken up Olympic figure skating or diving. He has not even entered the World Wrestling Federation. I'll explain what a reverse Weizman is, but first I need a little background.
For nearly the first three decades of Israeli independence, military politicians stuck to the main Zionist parties--mostly on the socialist labor side for the first two decades. In 1969 Ezer Weizman went overnight from the number two position in the IDF to the cabinet. In July 1973, Ariel Sharon was finally forced to quit the army as he had reached the maximum age with little prospect of promotion to chief of staff. So he engineered, with the help of Weizman, the creation of the Likud as a common list from four right-wing parties. Unexpectedly Sharon entered the Knesset on the last day of 1973 from the Liberals--a group of middle-class businessmen with little interest in security or foreign affairs--rather than the Herut. He didn't want to compete with Ezer.
But Sharon's real ambition was still to be chief of staff. So he got an appointment as the commander of a reserve armor division from Rabin. And he also served as Rabin's security advisor (as if Rabin--a former chief of staff--needed one). Labor MKs passed a bill in the Knesset that forbade MKs from holding command positions in the reserves. Sharon made the decision and resigned from the Knesset. By 1976 it was evident that Sharon had no chance of advancing militarily. Liberal leader Simha Erlich made it clear that he wasn't willing to take Sharon back and there was opposition to his inclusion on the Herut list from both Weizman and traditional Herut MKs. So Sharon invented the concept of the general's party--a list headed by a general and a group of loyal followers. Sharon took positions all over the political map. He adopted the name Shlomzion--the peace or wellbeing of Zion--for the party's name. But former chief of staff and world-famous archeologist Yigael Yadin had also started his own list chock full of former generals and industrialists. On election day in May 1977 Shlomzion won only two seats to Yadin's fifteen. Sharon promptly entered into talks with Begin to enter Herut. Begin used Sharon as a foil to play against Weizman and allowed Sharon in as agriculture minister in the government while Weizman, who had been a loyal Herut supporter the whole time he was in the IDF, was made minister of defense. Less than three years later Weizman resigned from the government and the Knesset after he became upset with Begin's approach to the autonomy talks, which he thought endangered the peace treaty with Egypt.
Weizman spent four years in the private sector earning money in the import-export business with Ya'akov Meridor, a former head of the Irgun Zvai Leumi before Begin and Weizman's connection with Herut during the latter's army career. In 1984 Weizman cobbled together a general's list, which included Fuad Ben-Eliezer. Yahad, not to be confused with Yahad-Meretz, won four seats. A year later it became part of Labor and Weizman entered into a second political career, which, including his time as president, lasted longer than his first. Both Sharon and Weizman had successfully engineered mid-career political transitions by means of the general's party.
Barak now appears to be engineering such a transition, but in the opposite direction politically from Weizman's transition--hence, the name reverse Weizman. Political opinion has been shifting from left to right in Israel since 1973 and much more sharply since 2000. Barak is no doubt hoping that he can arrange either his future inclusion high up on the Likud list or the creation of a new centrist party with Netanyahu. In the past Ha'Aretz has written about the possibility of a "zipper party" consisting of alternate MKs from Labor and the Likud in a common list. This seems increasingly unlikely considering the trajectory of Labor. But an inclusion of Barak and former general Matan Vilnai, who followed Barak into Atzmaut, within the Likud appears quite possible.
Showing posts with label military politicians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military politicians. Show all posts
Friday, January 21, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Northern Ireland and Israel Compared
Today I'm going to begin a series of posts that compare Northern Ireland to Israel: first, as states or polities; second, as native-settler conflicts; third, the lessons of the Northern Ireland peace process for the Middle East; and finally, I'll compare the conditions that led to the Northern Ireland peace process to the Middle East to ascertain if it is ripe for peace.
Let's examine Northern Ireland using the six criteria that I claimed characterized Israeli politics. First, Northern Ireland has a proportional representation--single transferable vote (PR-STV) franchise system. This system gives each voter multiple preference votes in any election (except the Westminster parliamentary elections where it isn't used) but only one vote per voter is counted. Each voter rank orders his preference for the candidates running then the counters count each of the ballots to see if any of the candidates in the multi-member constituency have captured the "quota" (total number of votes divided by number of seats plus one) on that count. If one has all of his preferences are then disregarded on future counts and the next preference is transferred to one of the other candidates that (s)he expressed a preference for. This system is just as easy as the proportional representation-list system used in Israel for voters, but a little bit more complicated to administer so that results take a little longer to be compiled.
The system results in roughly the same number of parties as seats in a constituency. Because parties have to also compete in first-past-the-post Westminster elections there are normally only two viable parties for each of the two main communities in Northern Ireland. These are traditionally known as the Big Four: the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP); the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP); the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP); and Sinn Fein (SF). In the most recent parliamentary election in 2010, the non-sectarian Alliance Party gained a parliamentary seat for the first time in its history--in East Belfast, where it also came close to winning in 1979. The UUP also lost its sole remaining MP when she refused to participate in the alliance with the Conservative Party. Whether she can be lured back to the party is an open question. But for this year's Assembly election there will probably be six parties represented: the Big Four plus Alliance and the Traditional Unionist Voice, a splinter group from the DUP representing its traditional position before 2007.
Of the Big Four, two can be considered to be religious parties. The SDLP has a close traditional relationship with the Catholic Church in Ireland (churches on the Island are organized on an all-Ireland basis) as the SDLP supported its positions on non-violence and Irish unity. The SDLP also has a pious religious character.
The DUP has been a religious party in the Israeli sense--its longtime leader, Ian Paisley, was also the leader of the Free Presbyterian Church, a breakaway Evangelical church that he established in 1951, or two decades before he established the DUP. Until the end of 2007 he was both the moderator (or head) of the Free Presbyterian Church and the leader of the DUP. In this way he was the unionist Protestant equivalent of Aryeh Deri and Shas's spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef combined with a bit of Menahem Begin thrown in. Because power sharing with Sinn Fein was upsetting to many in the church Paisley was forced to retire as moderator in 2007. Since his retirement as party leader in 2008 the party has become more secular but it still has a powerful religious wing.
Northern Ireland, because it is a province rather than a sovereign independent country, has no army and no class of military politicians. The closest thing to a military politician was probably Ken Maginnis who was a major in the Ulster Defence Regiment and became a UUP spokesman on security affairs during the 1980s and 1990s. He lost in a bid to become party leader in 1995 to David Trimble, but then became a big Trimble supporter during the peace process. He is in many ways in the tradition of the Arab-fighter politicians in Labor like Dayan, Rabin, Allon, and Barak who supported peace for pragmatic reasons. Maginnis had excellent relations with SDLP politicians.
Northern Ireland had three paramilitary parties: Sinn Fein, connected to the Provisional IRA; the Ulster Democratic Party, connected to the Ulster Defence Association; and the Progressive Unionist Party, connected to the Ulster Volunteer Force. The UDP failed to have any of its candidates elected to the Assembly in 1998 and abolished itself in late 2001. The UDA then began receiving political advice from its own internal think tank. The PUP was reduced from two Assembly members (MLAs) in 1998 to one in 2003. Its leader, David Ervine, died in January 2007 and was replaced by Dawn Purvis. She quit the party in 2010 after the PUP was implicated in the murder of a former loyalist prisoner. The new party leader was David Ervine's younger brother. So loyalist parties are even more marginal today than they were at their height in the mid-1990s. The IRA decommissioned its weapons in 2005 and the loyalists followed in 2009.
In Israel both Labor and the Likud have paramilitary roots. Herut and Ahdut Ha'Avoda were both continuation paramilitary parties that extended the existence of a paramilitary group as a political party. But within Labor the factions quickly became personal camps organized around Allon and Dayan and then around Rabin and Peres. Yitzhak Shamir was the last paramilitary figure in the Likud and he retired from active politics in 1992.
Increasingly paramilitary links are a historical rather than a contemporary issue in the party systems of both Israel and Northern Ireland.
In both Israel and Northern Ireland the distinction between parties of the Left and of the Right is based on their position on the "native" question. In Israel after June 1967 it became the position on the occupied territories that determined whether or not a party was a member of the Left or Right. In Northern Ireland it was the position on power sharing with nationalist parties that determined whether a unionist party was Left or Right. Donald Akenson in his book God's Peoples first noticed the link between the native question and position on the political map, but he did not label it as such because he was using a different paradigm (peoples of the book) to compare Israel, the Afrikaners, and the unionists.
After London became directly involved in administering Northern Ireland in March 1972, ethnic or religious discrimination was outlawed and measures were taken to redress the discrimination suffered by nationalists in the province over two generations. From 1922 to 1972 unionists discriminated against nationalists in terms of housing, employment, and the franchise. The latter was accomplished both through gerrymandering the legislative boundaries and by a system of corporate voting that allowed the wealthiest to have multiple votes. The PR-STV franchise system was eliminated for Stormont provincial and council elections in 1929 and not reinstated until 1973. Unionist premiers encouraged firms to discriminate against Catholics who were seen as inherently disloyal and potentially subversive. This was most pronounced when James Craig and Lord Brookeborough were the prime ministers of the province--for all but two years until 1963. Things improved under Prime Minister Terence O'Neill from 1963 to 1969, but the real break was when London took over in 1972.
By contrast, Israel has, if anything, strengthened discrimination against the Arab minority as the Left has become weaker. Under Mapai Arabs did not even freedom of movement until November 1966 as they lived under martial law. Menahem Begin as opposition leader liked to portray himself as a champion of civil rights, so the situation for Israeli Arabs did not worsen when Begin became prime minister in 1977. But as settlement of the West Bank (and Gaza) intensified, practices from the territories began to be imported into Israel proper. And during the 1990s Israeli Arab party leaders increasingly identified themselves with Yasir Arafat, the PLO, and the Palestinian cause. This has meant that increasingly Arabs are seen by the Israeli Right as disloyal and even subversive. Attacking Arabs is a means for ultra-Orthodox and national religious Jews to identify themselves with their secular Jewish countrymen while separating themselves from the Arabs. It is also a way for Russian Jews (and non-Jews) to do the same thing.
Israeli law has traditionally discriminated against Arabs in terms of land allocation and rights and in terms of rights derived from national service.
Thus Northern Ireland has either in the recent past or present displayed five out of six traits of Israeli politics. The biggest difference between the two is that Israel is sovereign and Northern Ireland is not. Northern Ireland is a province of the United Kingdom that has always been administered under unique laws. In the early 1970s anti-terrorist legislation was passed that allowed the British government to exclude Northern Ireland residents from the rest of the UK by simply naming them. Ordinary British citizens, especially in England and Wales, tend to think of Northern Ireland as either foreign territory or a colonial possession rather than as part of the core territory of the country. Thus, Northern Ireland is almost a no man's land--neither truly Irish nor truly British but a mixture of both, a frontier territory.
Let's examine Northern Ireland using the six criteria that I claimed characterized Israeli politics. First, Northern Ireland has a proportional representation--single transferable vote (PR-STV) franchise system. This system gives each voter multiple preference votes in any election (except the Westminster parliamentary elections where it isn't used) but only one vote per voter is counted. Each voter rank orders his preference for the candidates running then the counters count each of the ballots to see if any of the candidates in the multi-member constituency have captured the "quota" (total number of votes divided by number of seats plus one) on that count. If one has all of his preferences are then disregarded on future counts and the next preference is transferred to one of the other candidates that (s)he expressed a preference for. This system is just as easy as the proportional representation-list system used in Israel for voters, but a little bit more complicated to administer so that results take a little longer to be compiled.
The system results in roughly the same number of parties as seats in a constituency. Because parties have to also compete in first-past-the-post Westminster elections there are normally only two viable parties for each of the two main communities in Northern Ireland. These are traditionally known as the Big Four: the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP); the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP); the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP); and Sinn Fein (SF). In the most recent parliamentary election in 2010, the non-sectarian Alliance Party gained a parliamentary seat for the first time in its history--in East Belfast, where it also came close to winning in 1979. The UUP also lost its sole remaining MP when she refused to participate in the alliance with the Conservative Party. Whether she can be lured back to the party is an open question. But for this year's Assembly election there will probably be six parties represented: the Big Four plus Alliance and the Traditional Unionist Voice, a splinter group from the DUP representing its traditional position before 2007.
Of the Big Four, two can be considered to be religious parties. The SDLP has a close traditional relationship with the Catholic Church in Ireland (churches on the Island are organized on an all-Ireland basis) as the SDLP supported its positions on non-violence and Irish unity. The SDLP also has a pious religious character.
The DUP has been a religious party in the Israeli sense--its longtime leader, Ian Paisley, was also the leader of the Free Presbyterian Church, a breakaway Evangelical church that he established in 1951, or two decades before he established the DUP. Until the end of 2007 he was both the moderator (or head) of the Free Presbyterian Church and the leader of the DUP. In this way he was the unionist Protestant equivalent of Aryeh Deri and Shas's spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef combined with a bit of Menahem Begin thrown in. Because power sharing with Sinn Fein was upsetting to many in the church Paisley was forced to retire as moderator in 2007. Since his retirement as party leader in 2008 the party has become more secular but it still has a powerful religious wing.
Northern Ireland, because it is a province rather than a sovereign independent country, has no army and no class of military politicians. The closest thing to a military politician was probably Ken Maginnis who was a major in the Ulster Defence Regiment and became a UUP spokesman on security affairs during the 1980s and 1990s. He lost in a bid to become party leader in 1995 to David Trimble, but then became a big Trimble supporter during the peace process. He is in many ways in the tradition of the Arab-fighter politicians in Labor like Dayan, Rabin, Allon, and Barak who supported peace for pragmatic reasons. Maginnis had excellent relations with SDLP politicians.
Northern Ireland had three paramilitary parties: Sinn Fein, connected to the Provisional IRA; the Ulster Democratic Party, connected to the Ulster Defence Association; and the Progressive Unionist Party, connected to the Ulster Volunteer Force. The UDP failed to have any of its candidates elected to the Assembly in 1998 and abolished itself in late 2001. The UDA then began receiving political advice from its own internal think tank. The PUP was reduced from two Assembly members (MLAs) in 1998 to one in 2003. Its leader, David Ervine, died in January 2007 and was replaced by Dawn Purvis. She quit the party in 2010 after the PUP was implicated in the murder of a former loyalist prisoner. The new party leader was David Ervine's younger brother. So loyalist parties are even more marginal today than they were at their height in the mid-1990s. The IRA decommissioned its weapons in 2005 and the loyalists followed in 2009.
In Israel both Labor and the Likud have paramilitary roots. Herut and Ahdut Ha'Avoda were both continuation paramilitary parties that extended the existence of a paramilitary group as a political party. But within Labor the factions quickly became personal camps organized around Allon and Dayan and then around Rabin and Peres. Yitzhak Shamir was the last paramilitary figure in the Likud and he retired from active politics in 1992.
Increasingly paramilitary links are a historical rather than a contemporary issue in the party systems of both Israel and Northern Ireland.
In both Israel and Northern Ireland the distinction between parties of the Left and of the Right is based on their position on the "native" question. In Israel after June 1967 it became the position on the occupied territories that determined whether or not a party was a member of the Left or Right. In Northern Ireland it was the position on power sharing with nationalist parties that determined whether a unionist party was Left or Right. Donald Akenson in his book God's Peoples first noticed the link between the native question and position on the political map, but he did not label it as such because he was using a different paradigm (peoples of the book) to compare Israel, the Afrikaners, and the unionists.
After London became directly involved in administering Northern Ireland in March 1972, ethnic or religious discrimination was outlawed and measures were taken to redress the discrimination suffered by nationalists in the province over two generations. From 1922 to 1972 unionists discriminated against nationalists in terms of housing, employment, and the franchise. The latter was accomplished both through gerrymandering the legislative boundaries and by a system of corporate voting that allowed the wealthiest to have multiple votes. The PR-STV franchise system was eliminated for Stormont provincial and council elections in 1929 and not reinstated until 1973. Unionist premiers encouraged firms to discriminate against Catholics who were seen as inherently disloyal and potentially subversive. This was most pronounced when James Craig and Lord Brookeborough were the prime ministers of the province--for all but two years until 1963. Things improved under Prime Minister Terence O'Neill from 1963 to 1969, but the real break was when London took over in 1972.
By contrast, Israel has, if anything, strengthened discrimination against the Arab minority as the Left has become weaker. Under Mapai Arabs did not even freedom of movement until November 1966 as they lived under martial law. Menahem Begin as opposition leader liked to portray himself as a champion of civil rights, so the situation for Israeli Arabs did not worsen when Begin became prime minister in 1977. But as settlement of the West Bank (and Gaza) intensified, practices from the territories began to be imported into Israel proper. And during the 1990s Israeli Arab party leaders increasingly identified themselves with Yasir Arafat, the PLO, and the Palestinian cause. This has meant that increasingly Arabs are seen by the Israeli Right as disloyal and even subversive. Attacking Arabs is a means for ultra-Orthodox and national religious Jews to identify themselves with their secular Jewish countrymen while separating themselves from the Arabs. It is also a way for Russian Jews (and non-Jews) to do the same thing.
Israeli law has traditionally discriminated against Arabs in terms of land allocation and rights and in terms of rights derived from national service.
Thus Northern Ireland has either in the recent past or present displayed five out of six traits of Israeli politics. The biggest difference between the two is that Israel is sovereign and Northern Ireland is not. Northern Ireland is a province of the United Kingdom that has always been administered under unique laws. In the early 1970s anti-terrorist legislation was passed that allowed the British government to exclude Northern Ireland residents from the rest of the UK by simply naming them. Ordinary British citizens, especially in England and Wales, tend to think of Northern Ireland as either foreign territory or a colonial possession rather than as part of the core territory of the country. Thus, Northern Ireland is almost a no man's land--neither truly Irish nor truly British but a mixture of both, a frontier territory.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
South Africa and Israel
In recent years it has become almost compulsory for those on the Left to speak of Israel in terms of either apartheid or South Africa or both. This has reached the point where Jimmy Carter, who ran for president as a conservative Evangelical Christian, entitled his book Palestine: Peace or Apartheid. Carter admitted that he was deliberately attempting to be provocative; it's a pity that he was also not analytical as he nowhere in the book explains what he means by the title. In interviews he explained that he was referring to the Palestinian territories and not to Israel. In this case the natural comparison would be with South West Africa/Namibia, the former German territory conquered by South Africa in World War I, a defensive war on Britain's part. After the war South Africa was awarded a class C mandate from the League of Nations, which entitled South Africa to rule the territory as part of its own territory as long as it provided regular reports to the League. After the League's demise in 1946, the UN began to challenge South Africa's application of apartheid to South West Africa on behalf of Ethiopia and Liberia. Eventually in the 1970s the UN and the International Court in the Hague revoked the mandate. After a twenty-plus-year war of liberation by SWAPO, backed by Angola and Cuba, Pretoria finally agreed to withdraw from the territory in December 1988. But SWAPO never said that it would use Namibia as a springboard from which to liberate South Africa. And in any case there are hundreds of miles of barren desert wasteland between the border and South Africa's closest major cities. This is a major difference with Israel/West Bank where the PLO and Hamas have both spoken of liberating all of Israel and Israel's capital--the city in which its government is located--is on the border of the West Bank with half of the city claimed by the Palestinians.
In my opinion there are three valid bases on which to compare Israel with South Africa:
1) both had similar regional defense policies stemming from a similar geopolitical situation of being isolated siege societies;
2) both had a system of migratory labor from conquered territories that were/are economically integrated into the economy of the labor-requesting country;
3) both had major roles for military politicians in elected politics (see my previous post on this subject).
Jerusalem developed a policy of raiding and occupying neighboring countries or territories and supporting ethnic minorities in these countries in order to survive in the region. This strategy was then copied, with some advice from Israel, by South Africa in the period from 1975 to 1989 when P.W. Botha was the leader of South Africa. Israel first developed this strategy under David Ben-Gurion in the mid-1950s from 1953 to 1956 and applied it to Egyptian-ruled Gaza and the Jordanian West Bank as well as Syria. Then from 1972 to 2000 this strategy was applied in Lebanon. And Israel has over the decades supported rebels in Sudan, Lebanon, and Iraq while allying itself with non-Arab countries like Iran and Turkey.
South Africa applied a similar strategy to Southern Africa under Botha. Pretoria first intervened in the Angolan civil war on behalf of the U.S. and France in October 1975. Then in 1978 Pretoria copied the Rhodesians and began raiding SWAPO base camps in Angola. Finally in 1981 South Africa invaded and occupied southern Angola. There are many parallels between Israel's Lebanon policy and South Africa's Angolan policy. The SADF also carried out against SWAPO and ANC base camps in Zambia, Mozambique, and Lesotho. Pretoria supported rebel movements in Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.
The main strategic lesson that comes from all of this activity over fifteen years is that at the end of the day Pretoria had to deal with the political problems stemming from apartheid and white minority rule. All its military activities did was to buy it time to negotiate with the ANC in a situation that was favorable to Pretoria--after Angola had expelled the ANC's armed wing from its territory and after the Cold War had ended. When applied to the Middle East this means that Israel after regularly beating the Arab armies will still have to deal with the Palestinian problem. All the IDF can do is buy it time to do this under favorable circumstances. But this lesson should have been obvious without reference to South Africa in the aftermath of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Defense Minister Ariel Sharon thought that he could redesign the politics of the region by defeating the PLO and Syria in Lebanon. The PLO, after its defeat by the IDF and a Syrian-sponsored rebellion within Fatah, was forced to withdraw completely from Lebanon in 1982-83 and no longer had a viable military option. Yet Israel soon found that there was no more moderate Palestinian negotiating partner. The main effect of the war (besides sending Sharon into political obscurity for 15 years) was to possibly speed up the PLO's thinking in regard to negotiating with Israel.
Since 1967 Israel had reshaped its economy to become dependent on Palestinian manual labor in the construction and agricultural sectors among others. It was only with the serious Islamist terror of the mid-1990s that Israel had second thoughts about the utility of this labor source. Israel began importing labor from Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe to replace many of the Palestinian workers who were increasingly seen as potential terrorists. Thus, this common feature is increasingly an historical one.
As mentioned in my previous post, Israel's class of military politicians can most usefully be compared to the Indian-fighter politicians of the antebellum period in America and to the Union of South Africa. From 1840-60 the United States had a three-party system in the North (the South only developed a three-party system from 1854-57). In antebellum America as in Israel the military politicians were native-fighter politicians who had fought the indigenous population and this fighting continued into the late 1850s in Florida and Texas. But the United States has never had coalition governments. By contrast South Africa had two two-party coalition governments in the Union period (1924-29, 1933-34). But the two governments were so stable that in the first instance the National Party stole the electorate of the Labour Party and in the second merged with the South Africa Party to form the United Party. And its military politicians were not native-fighter politicians during this period and the African population was quiescent then. Also, I would argue that the Whigs were closer to the Israeli Labor Party than was the United Party for purposes of comparison. The United States was also very corrupt in the 1840s and 1850s like Israel today (by Western standards) and from 1846-50 had a debate over occupied territories. And South Africa completely lacked a liberal party during this period. Although with the collapse of Meretz this last point is less relevant. But overall, I would argue that the United States of the 1850s is marginally a better case for comparison with contemporary Israel than was the Union of South Africa. Apartheid South Africa is useful for comparing with Israel at the regional level, but not at the internal level.
The main problem with comparing Israel and South Africa is that although the latter has many of the features of the former they are spread out over several time periods. The Boer republics had many African-fighter politicians and an ongoing conflict with the native population. The Union of South Africa had a genuine multiparty system with competitive white political parties. And apartheid South Africa had an interventionist regional defense policy. But South Africa never had these three major features at the same time. Apartheid
South Africa's main utility to analysts of Israeli politics and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is as a warning of the international isolation that is the fate of a racially-European population that rules a territory by force in which it is a minority. This is much more relevant for Israel's future than for its present.
In my opinion there are three valid bases on which to compare Israel with South Africa:
1) both had similar regional defense policies stemming from a similar geopolitical situation of being isolated siege societies;
2) both had a system of migratory labor from conquered territories that were/are economically integrated into the economy of the labor-requesting country;
3) both had major roles for military politicians in elected politics (see my previous post on this subject).
Jerusalem developed a policy of raiding and occupying neighboring countries or territories and supporting ethnic minorities in these countries in order to survive in the region. This strategy was then copied, with some advice from Israel, by South Africa in the period from 1975 to 1989 when P.W. Botha was the leader of South Africa. Israel first developed this strategy under David Ben-Gurion in the mid-1950s from 1953 to 1956 and applied it to Egyptian-ruled Gaza and the Jordanian West Bank as well as Syria. Then from 1972 to 2000 this strategy was applied in Lebanon. And Israel has over the decades supported rebels in Sudan, Lebanon, and Iraq while allying itself with non-Arab countries like Iran and Turkey.
South Africa applied a similar strategy to Southern Africa under Botha. Pretoria first intervened in the Angolan civil war on behalf of the U.S. and France in October 1975. Then in 1978 Pretoria copied the Rhodesians and began raiding SWAPO base camps in Angola. Finally in 1981 South Africa invaded and occupied southern Angola. There are many parallels between Israel's Lebanon policy and South Africa's Angolan policy. The SADF also carried out against SWAPO and ANC base camps in Zambia, Mozambique, and Lesotho. Pretoria supported rebel movements in Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.
The main strategic lesson that comes from all of this activity over fifteen years is that at the end of the day Pretoria had to deal with the political problems stemming from apartheid and white minority rule. All its military activities did was to buy it time to negotiate with the ANC in a situation that was favorable to Pretoria--after Angola had expelled the ANC's armed wing from its territory and after the Cold War had ended. When applied to the Middle East this means that Israel after regularly beating the Arab armies will still have to deal with the Palestinian problem. All the IDF can do is buy it time to do this under favorable circumstances. But this lesson should have been obvious without reference to South Africa in the aftermath of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Defense Minister Ariel Sharon thought that he could redesign the politics of the region by defeating the PLO and Syria in Lebanon. The PLO, after its defeat by the IDF and a Syrian-sponsored rebellion within Fatah, was forced to withdraw completely from Lebanon in 1982-83 and no longer had a viable military option. Yet Israel soon found that there was no more moderate Palestinian negotiating partner. The main effect of the war (besides sending Sharon into political obscurity for 15 years) was to possibly speed up the PLO's thinking in regard to negotiating with Israel.
Since 1967 Israel had reshaped its economy to become dependent on Palestinian manual labor in the construction and agricultural sectors among others. It was only with the serious Islamist terror of the mid-1990s that Israel had second thoughts about the utility of this labor source. Israel began importing labor from Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe to replace many of the Palestinian workers who were increasingly seen as potential terrorists. Thus, this common feature is increasingly an historical one.
As mentioned in my previous post, Israel's class of military politicians can most usefully be compared to the Indian-fighter politicians of the antebellum period in America and to the Union of South Africa. From 1840-60 the United States had a three-party system in the North (the South only developed a three-party system from 1854-57). In antebellum America as in Israel the military politicians were native-fighter politicians who had fought the indigenous population and this fighting continued into the late 1850s in Florida and Texas. But the United States has never had coalition governments. By contrast South Africa had two two-party coalition governments in the Union period (1924-29, 1933-34). But the two governments were so stable that in the first instance the National Party stole the electorate of the Labour Party and in the second merged with the South Africa Party to form the United Party. And its military politicians were not native-fighter politicians during this period and the African population was quiescent then. Also, I would argue that the Whigs were closer to the Israeli Labor Party than was the United Party for purposes of comparison. The United States was also very corrupt in the 1840s and 1850s like Israel today (by Western standards) and from 1846-50 had a debate over occupied territories. And South Africa completely lacked a liberal party during this period. Although with the collapse of Meretz this last point is less relevant. But overall, I would argue that the United States of the 1850s is marginally a better case for comparison with contemporary Israel than was the Union of South Africa. Apartheid South Africa is useful for comparing with Israel at the regional level, but not at the internal level.
The main problem with comparing Israel and South Africa is that although the latter has many of the features of the former they are spread out over several time periods. The Boer republics had many African-fighter politicians and an ongoing conflict with the native population. The Union of South Africa had a genuine multiparty system with competitive white political parties. And apartheid South Africa had an interventionist regional defense policy. But South Africa never had these three major features at the same time. Apartheid
South Africa's main utility to analysts of Israeli politics and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is as a warning of the international isolation that is the fate of a racially-European population that rules a territory by force in which it is a minority. This is much more relevant for Israel's future than for its present.
Friday, January 7, 2011
The Future of Israel's Military Politicians
After my second book, on liberal parties in settler societies, was published in 2002 I thought about what I wanted to research and write about next. I decided to do a comparative study that would cast light on the phenomenon of military politicians--former senior military officers elected to serve in the Knesset--in Israel. I figured this subject was worth writing about for two reasons. First, serving generals or former generals in government had negotiated every agreement reached with the Arabs from the armistice agreements of 1949 to the Oslo accords. Second, since 1967 military politicians had a virtual lock on the defense ministry and also played a dominant role in the Labor Party and the Likud. So I wanted to be able to make an educated guess as to how much longer the phenomenon would last in Israel.
I knew as a student of American history that the United States had such a class and from doing research in South Africa I knew that it also had a class. Not wanting to rely on such a narrow base of examples I read histories of all the former British settler colonies to see if I could find a trace of any additional groups. My minimum standard was at least four military politicians who had served in parliament or the central government with a minimum of two each during two separate periods to constitute a class. Less than this would not allow me to make conclusions about the country. After I failed to turn up any candidates among the former British settler colonies I expanded my search to include all the European colonial powers that were democracies during their colonial period or within 20 years of its end (i.e. Weimar Germany). I also failed to turn up any cases.
After taking my American and South African cases I was able to divide them into three separate periods each for a potential of six cases to examine: 1) the early American republic 1780s-1790s; 2) the antebellum period 1824-1860; 3) the postbellum period 1869-93; 4) the Boer republics period 1859-1900; 5) the Union of South Africa 1910-1948; 6) the apartheid period 1975-1993. For comparison I was looking at a multiparty system with at least three parties that could be readily compared to Israeli parties and a minimum of at least two major military politicians. Only two periods fit this minimum requirements: the antebellum period and the Union of South Africa. The early American republic and the Boer republics had two-party systems and the Boers also lacked standing armies and had less than 20,000 voters in any election. And during the apartheid period South Africa had only a single elected military politician, Defense Minister Magnus Malan.
America's Indian-fighter politicians of the antebellum period ended with Zachary Taylor. Four presidents (George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Harrison, Zachary Taylor) and one vice-president (Richard Johnson) had been Indian fighters. Washington had been an Indian fighter in the French and Indian War (1754-63); Jackson and Harrison in the War of 1812; and Taylor in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, and the Second Seminole War. Except for Harrison they were mainly famous for victories over conventional armies, but the Indian fighting had significantly advanced their military careers and made their subsequent victories over the British or Mexicans possible. The same can be said of Arab-fighter politicians in Israel from Israel's first two generations of military politicians such as Yigal Allon, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ariel Sharon.
The postbellum Indian wars in the West produced no major politicians because the wars involved a professional army rather than a popular militia system and the few settlers in the West were remote from the population concentrations on the East Coast, in the Great Lakes Region, and in California. Thus the link between the serving soldiers and the politicians/war heroes were broken. But this Indian-fighter politician class was replaced by first heroes of the Mexican War and then of the American Civil War.
In South Africa the African-fighter politicians of the South African (Transvaal) Republic came to an end with the conquest of that republic by the British in 1900. They in turn were replaced by politicians who were senior officers in the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). These politicians were quite numerous during the decade of 1907-1917. But many were forced to retire from politics for having sided with the Afrikaner rebels in 1914 who fought on the side of the Germans/neutrality in order to prevent South Africa from siding with the Allies. Louis Botha died in office as prime minister in 1919. This left just two members of the class: Jan Smuts, Botha's assistant, and James Barry Munick Hertzog. Smuts and Hertzog remained rivals until 1934 when their two parties fused. Hertzog retired from politics in 1942 a broken man and Smuts retired in 1950 after having lost the 1948 election to the National Party. The two world wars failed to produce any military politicians largely because the Union Defense Force was a professional army and it fought in East Africa and France in World War I and in North Africa in World War II.
So based on the experiences of the United States, South Africa, and Israel in the 19th and 20th centuries I concluded that three things are necessary to produce a class of military politicians. First, there must be a conscript or militia system rather than a professional army. Second, there must be settler self-rule within twenty years of the end of serious fighting with the native population. Third, there must be a serious if not existential threat posed by the resistance of the natives to the settlers. The other settler colonies lacked military politicians for three main reasons. First, the imperial army was responsible for the defense of the colony. Second, the settlers lacked self rule during the period of fighting with the natives. Third, the native resistance never posed a serious threat to the settlers during the 19th and 20th centuries. In several colonies two or even all three of these conditions applied.
Israel's military politicians, like those of the United States and South Africa, belong to several different political parties and have a range of political beliefs. The main difference among the groups is that the Afrikaners and Americans had intertwined political and military careers rather than sequential careers as in Israel. For example, Washington served as a British army officer, then as a politician in Virginia's House of Burgesses, then as the commanding general in the American Revolution and finally as the president. Jackson had an early political career in the 1790s. He then withdrew to concentrate on a career as a planter and as a general in the Tennessee militia. He then became a regular U.S. Army general in 1814 and served for a decade before quitting to run for president in 1824. Louis Botha, Jan Smuts, and Barry Hertzog all were professional politicians before serving with the Afrikaner commandos in the Boer War. Botha became commander of the Boer forces in early 1901. After the war he served as a politician again before once more donning a uniform to fight the Germans in South West Africa in 1915. He then returned to Pretoria to continue as prime minister. Hertzog never wore a uniform in the field again after 1902. Smuts served as a general in both World War I and World War II. In the United States only Taylor and Ulysses S. Grant had conventional Israeli-style consecutive careers. Taylor retired from the Army in 1848 after over forty years and ran for president. Grant retired in 1868 after some 17 years of service over a quarter century period.
So my prediction is that for some fifteen to twenty years after Israel signs a peace treaty with the Palestinians, if such a peace treaty is ever signed, Israel will continue to have military politicians. This is important because among the center-left parties only former generals have the security credentials to be able to sell a peace deal with the Arabs. Dayan, Allon, Rabin, and Sharon all had those credentials. Without Rabin, Peres would not have been able to sell the Oslo agreements to the Israeli public. So this phenomenon of Israeli militarization should be embraced by supporters of peace rather than deplored.
Since June 1967 only two politicians have served as defense ministers in Israel who were not either former generals or professional military industry technocrats (Shimon Peres and Moshe Arens). These three were: Menahem Begin (1980-81), and Amir Peretz (2006-07). Begin deferred to whatever the Israeli general staff wanted. Peretz ended up in charge during the Second Lebanon War with a new inexperienced prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and a chief of staff from the Israeli Air Force rather than the ground forces. The next year he was quietly replaced by Ehud Barak, the most decorated soldier in Israeli history, and his political career seems to have come to an end.
Comparable military dominance of civilian institutions existed in the United States where former Civil War generals had a lock on the Republican nomination for president from 1868 to 1892, with the exception of James Blaine who was nominated in 1884 and lost to Grover Cleveland. Grant served for two terms and Ruthorford B. Hayes, Chester Arthur, and Benjamin Harrison each served for a single term as president. In South Africa former Boer generals had a lock on the premiership from 1910 to 1948. But because the South African case involves fewer politicians who were more skilled, the U.S. example is a better one to compare with Israel.
I knew as a student of American history that the United States had such a class and from doing research in South Africa I knew that it also had a class. Not wanting to rely on such a narrow base of examples I read histories of all the former British settler colonies to see if I could find a trace of any additional groups. My minimum standard was at least four military politicians who had served in parliament or the central government with a minimum of two each during two separate periods to constitute a class. Less than this would not allow me to make conclusions about the country. After I failed to turn up any candidates among the former British settler colonies I expanded my search to include all the European colonial powers that were democracies during their colonial period or within 20 years of its end (i.e. Weimar Germany). I also failed to turn up any cases.
After taking my American and South African cases I was able to divide them into three separate periods each for a potential of six cases to examine: 1) the early American republic 1780s-1790s; 2) the antebellum period 1824-1860; 3) the postbellum period 1869-93; 4) the Boer republics period 1859-1900; 5) the Union of South Africa 1910-1948; 6) the apartheid period 1975-1993. For comparison I was looking at a multiparty system with at least three parties that could be readily compared to Israeli parties and a minimum of at least two major military politicians. Only two periods fit this minimum requirements: the antebellum period and the Union of South Africa. The early American republic and the Boer republics had two-party systems and the Boers also lacked standing armies and had less than 20,000 voters in any election. And during the apartheid period South Africa had only a single elected military politician, Defense Minister Magnus Malan.
America's Indian-fighter politicians of the antebellum period ended with Zachary Taylor. Four presidents (George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Harrison, Zachary Taylor) and one vice-president (Richard Johnson) had been Indian fighters. Washington had been an Indian fighter in the French and Indian War (1754-63); Jackson and Harrison in the War of 1812; and Taylor in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, and the Second Seminole War. Except for Harrison they were mainly famous for victories over conventional armies, but the Indian fighting had significantly advanced their military careers and made their subsequent victories over the British or Mexicans possible. The same can be said of Arab-fighter politicians in Israel from Israel's first two generations of military politicians such as Yigal Allon, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ariel Sharon.
The postbellum Indian wars in the West produced no major politicians because the wars involved a professional army rather than a popular militia system and the few settlers in the West were remote from the population concentrations on the East Coast, in the Great Lakes Region, and in California. Thus the link between the serving soldiers and the politicians/war heroes were broken. But this Indian-fighter politician class was replaced by first heroes of the Mexican War and then of the American Civil War.
In South Africa the African-fighter politicians of the South African (Transvaal) Republic came to an end with the conquest of that republic by the British in 1900. They in turn were replaced by politicians who were senior officers in the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). These politicians were quite numerous during the decade of 1907-1917. But many were forced to retire from politics for having sided with the Afrikaner rebels in 1914 who fought on the side of the Germans/neutrality in order to prevent South Africa from siding with the Allies. Louis Botha died in office as prime minister in 1919. This left just two members of the class: Jan Smuts, Botha's assistant, and James Barry Munick Hertzog. Smuts and Hertzog remained rivals until 1934 when their two parties fused. Hertzog retired from politics in 1942 a broken man and Smuts retired in 1950 after having lost the 1948 election to the National Party. The two world wars failed to produce any military politicians largely because the Union Defense Force was a professional army and it fought in East Africa and France in World War I and in North Africa in World War II.
So based on the experiences of the United States, South Africa, and Israel in the 19th and 20th centuries I concluded that three things are necessary to produce a class of military politicians. First, there must be a conscript or militia system rather than a professional army. Second, there must be settler self-rule within twenty years of the end of serious fighting with the native population. Third, there must be a serious if not existential threat posed by the resistance of the natives to the settlers. The other settler colonies lacked military politicians for three main reasons. First, the imperial army was responsible for the defense of the colony. Second, the settlers lacked self rule during the period of fighting with the natives. Third, the native resistance never posed a serious threat to the settlers during the 19th and 20th centuries. In several colonies two or even all three of these conditions applied.
Israel's military politicians, like those of the United States and South Africa, belong to several different political parties and have a range of political beliefs. The main difference among the groups is that the Afrikaners and Americans had intertwined political and military careers rather than sequential careers as in Israel. For example, Washington served as a British army officer, then as a politician in Virginia's House of Burgesses, then as the commanding general in the American Revolution and finally as the president. Jackson had an early political career in the 1790s. He then withdrew to concentrate on a career as a planter and as a general in the Tennessee militia. He then became a regular U.S. Army general in 1814 and served for a decade before quitting to run for president in 1824. Louis Botha, Jan Smuts, and Barry Hertzog all were professional politicians before serving with the Afrikaner commandos in the Boer War. Botha became commander of the Boer forces in early 1901. After the war he served as a politician again before once more donning a uniform to fight the Germans in South West Africa in 1915. He then returned to Pretoria to continue as prime minister. Hertzog never wore a uniform in the field again after 1902. Smuts served as a general in both World War I and World War II. In the United States only Taylor and Ulysses S. Grant had conventional Israeli-style consecutive careers. Taylor retired from the Army in 1848 after over forty years and ran for president. Grant retired in 1868 after some 17 years of service over a quarter century period.
So my prediction is that for some fifteen to twenty years after Israel signs a peace treaty with the Palestinians, if such a peace treaty is ever signed, Israel will continue to have military politicians. This is important because among the center-left parties only former generals have the security credentials to be able to sell a peace deal with the Arabs. Dayan, Allon, Rabin, and Sharon all had those credentials. Without Rabin, Peres would not have been able to sell the Oslo agreements to the Israeli public. So this phenomenon of Israeli militarization should be embraced by supporters of peace rather than deplored.
Since June 1967 only two politicians have served as defense ministers in Israel who were not either former generals or professional military industry technocrats (Shimon Peres and Moshe Arens). These three were: Menahem Begin (1980-81), and Amir Peretz (2006-07). Begin deferred to whatever the Israeli general staff wanted. Peretz ended up in charge during the Second Lebanon War with a new inexperienced prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and a chief of staff from the Israeli Air Force rather than the ground forces. The next year he was quietly replaced by Ehud Barak, the most decorated soldier in Israeli history, and his political career seems to have come to an end.
Comparable military dominance of civilian institutions existed in the United States where former Civil War generals had a lock on the Republican nomination for president from 1868 to 1892, with the exception of James Blaine who was nominated in 1884 and lost to Grover Cleveland. Grant served for two terms and Ruthorford B. Hayes, Chester Arthur, and Benjamin Harrison each served for a single term as president. In South Africa former Boer generals had a lock on the premiership from 1910 to 1948. But because the South African case involves fewer politicians who were more skilled, the U.S. example is a better one to compare with Israel.
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