The Politics of Paralysis I: Netanyahu's Safety Belt

THE RISE OF ISRAEL'S SOFT RIGHT

Foreign observers have always had trouble understanding Israel's complex politics and following the twists and turns of the Jewish state's foreign policy. But nothing in Israeli political history has raised eyebrows like the ascendancy of Binyamin Netanyahu, who unexpectedly edged past Shimon Peres of Labor in the 1996 elections. Despite Netanyahu's razor-thin margin of victory, repeated diplomatic blunders, and derailment of a peace process that is overwhelmingly supported by Israelis -- nearly 60 percent, according to polls by Tel Aviv University's Tami Steinmatz Institute of Peace, support the Oslo accords -- the young Likud prime minister is poised to win a second term. Netanyahu's continued popularity is the great paradox of Israeli politics today.

The key to the Netanyahu enigma is a new configuration of domestic forces that has allowed him to rule the country comfortably and commit foreign policy mistakes with electoral impunity. Netanyahu relies today on a conservative alliance comprising three major forces: Israel's nationalist right, its radical right, and its soft right. The first two groups have long been part of Israel's political landscape. What is new is the soft right, an odd melange of ultra-Orthodox Jews and secular immigrants from the former Soviet Union, whose newfound influence lets Netanyahu defy political gravity.

THE WAY WE WERE