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David M. Weinberg is director of public affairs at Bar-Ilan University's Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He can be contacted at
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By David M. Weinberg
November 26, 2002
Originally published in the Jerusalem Post.
This election campaign already claims the title of the most boring race in recent Israeli political history. The end result is known in advance, and the various alternatives to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon might all be characterized as both undistinguished and inconsequential.
Review almost any aspect of this campaign and you'll discover that nothing is new. No surprises are expected; no inspiration is to be found.
Likud: Former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's race against Sharon for Likud leadership was a long shot from the outset. When it ends this week with the predictable Sharon victory, Netanyahu seems set to recede again from the limelight.
Though Bibi challenged Sharon two weeks ago to commit to a formula whereby the loser would publicly back the Likud winner and agree to serve as his deputy after the national vote, Netanyahu now appears to be preparing an alibi for sitting out the rest of the race and for refusing to serve as Sharon's deputy after January 28.
"I won't back any Likud leader who concedes the establishment of a Palestinian state," Netanyahu said this week.
No surprises. Bibi sat out the outgoing government too, despite the fact that we've been fighting a global media war and his skills as an experienced diplomat and government spokesman could have been put to good use.
To summarize: Bibi came back to run for the top job, didn't conquer, and will again sulk away. Ho-hum.
Labor: In the 1999 election campaign, Ehud Barak and Amnon Lipkin-Shahak promised to negotiate a grand peace with the Palestinians through grand concessions. It was a dumb approach back then; and since then it has been thoroughly discredited by Arafat's war. Consequently, Israelis elected Sharon because it was time to put the criminal, terrorist Palestinian Authority in its place.
With the terrorism escalating, it is hard to envision a mass voter swing in Labor's favor two months from now.
Nevertheless, Laborites inanely expect Israelis again to give the party the reins of power, so that this time it can go at the "peace process" with an even more leftist agenda! New party leader Amram Mitzna says that if he forms the next government his first decision will be to pull Israel out of Gaza - no matter how many Knesset members are in his coalition, even if he has to rely on a non-Jewish majority.
Mitzna also says there is "no need" to wait for negotiations to evacuate all the settlements, nor does he "need the approval of Yasser Arafat, Hosni Mubarak, George W. Bush or the Israeli right wing" to draw borders and build a permanent security fence.
Well, I guess you might call this approach "new" - Mitzna is calling for "Fence Now" and "Withdrawal Now" instead of "Peace Now". All the same, it is quite boring.
Who needs a new Labor leader to lead us in flight? If we want to run away in defeat with our tail between our legs, a la Lebanon, Yossi Sarid will do as leader. Labor as Meretz Party No. 2 is irksome and unnecessary.
Which by default leaves Ariel Sharon as the only "centrist" in the race. He correctly senses that the public seeks maximum internal unity, he places a high value on maintaining good relations with the Bush administration, and he wants its government to contain, if not crush, Yasser Arafat - not to negotiate with Arafat or shower him with undeserved political windfalls.
In short, what we already have is what most of the public wants. Ho-hum. A boring and unnecessary campaign.
Shinui: Tommy Lapid is back again to "enlighten" us and save us from the Haredi "hordes" menacing our freedom. Lapid will join any government, support any peace treaty, back any policy as long as Haredim aren't involved.
Of all the nastiness and vitriol during the 1999 and 2000 campaigns, Lapid's base propaganda took the cake. His slogans - "We have to stop them" - reeked of unmitigated hatred.
Remember Tommy on TV with a table-load of "criminal" grocery products? Their crime? Kosher certification. Kashrut poses an unfair tax on the secular public, he argued. Lapid complained that his hands were "tied behind my back with tefillin straps." That's a direct quote. And Shinui is set to replay the ads next month.
Why in an age of serious issues would an adult deliberately allow his stomach to go to his head on national TV? Does Lapid really expect us, this election cycle, to buy into his argument that at a time of painful economic failing and critical national security decisions the major issue is ham? Or Haredim?
Here too, unfortunately, nothing is new. The haters and propagandists who appeal to our most ignoble instincts - on the religious extreme Right as well as the anti-religious Left - come out of the woodwork every election season, drawing on government funds and public television time to broadcast their rage to the desperate and distraught of our nation.
For this we needed an election campaign?
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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