The Politics of Paralysis I: Netanyahu's Safety Belt
Article Summary and Author Biography
How does Binyamin Netanyahu do it? The continued popularity of Israel's Likud prime minister, despite his derailment of a popular peace process, is the great paradox of Israeli politics. The key is the rise of the soft right, an odd mix of ultra-Orthodox Jews and secular immigrants from the former Soviet Union whose newfound influence lets Netanyahu defy political gravity. He holds their support by pandering to their distaste for Arabs and Israel's secular left. But the soft right is not only right but also soft and thus less wedded to a hard line. If Netanyahu drags Israel into a bloody confrontation, they could desert him for a more dovish candidate.
Ehud Sprinzak, a Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is the author of The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
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
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