The Strategic Importance of Democracy for Israel

I receive a daily selection of links to articles from the Israeli Hebrew press prepared by Americans for Peace Now (sign up at peacenow.org--the links are to articles in both English and Hebrew). So I have been witnessing an ongoing assault by the Israeli Right on the structures of democracy in Israel. The Zionist Left is as weak today in the Knesset as the white South African Left was in the parliament in the 1970s. Liberalism there consisted of the English-speaking press, and in the 1980s of a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well as the Progressive Federal Party. The ruling National Party made parliament irrelevant by making other venues the focus of decision making in the National Security Management System. 

The Israeli Right, led by Israel Beitenu's Avigdor Leiberman, has gone after the Israeli NGOs and the Supreme Court. This was after they started over a year ago targeting Israel's Arab minority with the talk of mandatory loyalty oaths. For a discussion of how this is playing with Israeli Arabs see the two selections by Palestinians at Bitter Lemons.


They are now trying to pass laws designed to limit the amount of foreign funds that the NGOs can receive. They started out a couple of months ago by going after the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, which was an easier target. Now they are going after the NGOs and the Supreme Court. Because Israel lacks a constitution, but rather, substitutes for it a serious of "basic laws" passed by the Knesset, the Supreme Court is freer to craft its rulings without regard to actual text and constitutional history (much like the Warren Court in the U.S.). I can understand how this can be frustrating to the Right. At present there seems to be a battle taking place in the Right between Likud believers in European liberalism as supported by Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Menahem Begin, such as Dan Meridor, Benni Begin, and Reuven Rivlin and the Right outside of the Likud, which is based upon immigrants from the former Soviet Union and religious Jews. 

This could end up affecting more than Israel's domestic politics. Israel's status as the only real democracy in the Middle East is its last piece of strategic leverage in Washington among both parties. Previously Israel could rely on three things: first, sympathy with the Jewish state over the Holocaust; second, Israel's status as a reliable ally during the Cold War; and third, Israel's status as the only democracy in the region. It is now more than a generation--two generations--after the Holocaust and the horrors of that period have receded from a living memory to history. Since then there have been several more genocides: in Cambodia, in Bosnia, in Rwanda, and in Darfur. The Cold War has now been over for twenty years and in the new "global war on terror" Israel is as much a burden as an asset as an ally. This is a war fought mainly internally within the Arab world and the Muslim world for political dominance between fundamentalists and moderates. Israel is an asset for the fundamentalists as a scape goat for the backwardness of the societies involved. Thus, we are left with Israel's status as the only democracy in the region--which is also now under threat.

Over the last decade the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP in Turkish) in Turkey, has been fighting in the courts to remove the special privileges granted the military under the constitution. Under the constitution the Turkish military had the right to intervene to safeguard Turkey, much as the militaries in Latin America had that "duty" (at least in their own self-conception) until the 1980s. This has been a net benefit for democracy in Turkey. But at the same time the AKP has pursued a vendetta against the military in the courts. The AKP has used the conspiracy theory of the Ergenekon, a shadowy organization that may or may not exist, to justify an all-out attack on its enemies.

With the Israeli Right doing the same thing in Israel, it is hard to draw much distinction between Israel and Turkey in terms of the development of their democracies. This may not be so important in the Republican Party, where Israel is supported by Evangelical Protestants for religious reasons having to do with belief in the role of Jews in the second coming of Jesus. But among Democrats it makes a good deal of difference. Democratic legislators look to American Jews for their cues regarding Israel. As a majority of American Jews belong to denominations not officially recognized as Jewish in Israel such as Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, and Reconstructionist Judaism--they are already alienated from the religious establishment in Israel. Now if the Right outlaws their ability to financially support organizations in Israel they will be further alienated. The Israeli Right risks alienating Israel not only from its only reliable ally, Washington, but from the most important Jewish community in the diaspora.

Israelis are honest in Washington

J Street, the liberal pro-Israel and pro-peace lobby, is now holding its second conference, having held its first in October 2009. I attended the first out of both curiosity and a desire to support the organization by making a strong first showing at its first conference. Because of both my schedule and my wallet I'm forced to watch the conference by video feed from its website. I watched some of the panels by live stream on Sunday and then watched most of the recorded sessions from Sunday and Monday today. The conference ends today with a lobbying day of congressional offices. Having attended an AIPAC conference in 1995 during the Oslo conference and the J Street conference in 2009, what struck me about the former was that it was mostly intended to fire up the troops and allow politicians to compete in kissing up to the Israeli lobby. J Street instead of just conducting workshops on messaging and the upcoming election cycle in the U.S., attempted to educate its supporters about the conflict by inviting members of the Palestinian government and the Israeli Knesset to the conference to serve on panels.

Nachman Shai, a former academic expert on the Israeli nuclear deterrent and now an MK for Kadima, was very open. "There is no chance for electoral reform or for a constitution with the coalition parties." This means that Israel is incapable of producing the type of party system that will produce the two-party coalitions that ran the peace process in Dublin. It was these coalitions that allowed the dominant party to give up Ireland's constitutional claim to Northern Ireland. Israel has the much tougher task of giving up a physical occupation and hundreds of settlements after 43 years.

Oren Magnezy, a former aide to Ariel Sharon who is now an MK in Kadima was honest about Israeli decision making. "We work at an emotional level when making decisions. Its a lot about messaging. We have an obligation to reach Israelis in the Center who aren't liberals or Left like J-Street." Another Kadima MK, Yoel Hasson said, "Not all Israelis want peace. Some don't want it because they know the price that must be paid for peace and they don't want to pay it."

Dahlia Scheindlin, a public opinion analyst, was blunt: "The Left is toxic in Israel right now. Israelis don't like to think in the long term. This is a problem. They need a leader with a vision." She cited a polling survey to claim that 45% of Israeli Jews self identify as Right, 27% as Center, and 17% as Left. She claimed that those in the Center behave much more like the Left than like the Right when it comes to the solution to the Conflict. She also said that a larger percentage of Kadima supporters than Labor supporters listed peace as their top concern in politics. Here is a link to an article by her on her presentation at the blog 972.

"Among young people the dominant sentiments are nationalism, patriotism, and Zionism," according to Scheindlin. "This is the narrative of resignation." They grew up in the last decade with the failure of Camp David and the Al-Aksa Intifada as well as with two wars. They are volatile and could drift to the Center or even the Left depending upon how events unfold.

Daniel Ben-Simon, a Labor MK, saw the split in Labor as positive. "A month ago Labor moved to the opposition. Before I was between Israel Beitenu (Israel is Our Home--a right-wing party supported mostly by Russian immigrants) and the most radical members of the Likud. I felt like a hostage! Now Labor is like a family--no quarrels, no factions." I guess he grew up in a small family.

Shai said, "We need Labor on the Left. Otherwise we are not in the Center. We need the Left back and to weaken the Right. We need fifty seats between Kadima, Labor and Meretz so that we can attract the moderate Right into a coalition."  Labor now has eight seats and Meretz only three; polls show Labor receiving about the same number of seats in the next election.  Kadima has 28 seats and is polling at about 31 seats. 

The MK panel of Kadima and Labor MKs thought that any type of boycott of Israeli products was bad, rather it was only of products made by settlers in the West Bank or from Israel proper. "Any boycott of the West Bank is bad because it unites all the settlers," said Yoel Hasson.

The problem is that Hamas wants to delay any solution of the conflict until it is a clear majority among the Palestinians and can negotiate for peace on its terms. It will therefore carry out actions that will help keep the Israeli Right strong during the next election.

Israeli doves are expecting J Street to work as a deus ex machina to deliver Washington to impose a peace agreement on the Israelis and Palestinians. But as former Chief Negotiator for the Middle East Dennis Ross said in a plenary speech, "For peace to succeed the parties have to own it; to own it they have to invest in it." In other words Washington cannot do for Jerusalem and Ramallah what they cannot do for themselves.  Ross knows this from personal experience over eight years in the Clinton administration and a career in three previous administrations as well as his present job in this administration.

The Start of the Northern Ireland Peace Process

This post will look at the conditions that existed in Northern Ireland in the late 1980s and early 1990s that gave rise to the peace process there. I will then compare them to the situation in the Middle East today.

The start of the peace process is usually dated to the Hume-Adams talks in 1988. The peace did not stabilize until the implementation of power sharing for a third time in May 2007--19 years later. This illustrates that making peace in native-settler conflicts is a long process. The Hume-Adams talks were a dialogue between the leaderships of Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), the two nationalist or Catholic political parties in Northern Ireland. They came about initially because both of the two party leaders, John Hume of the SDLP and Gerry Adams of the SDLP, wanted to convince the other of the validity of his view of the conflict. Adams blamed the conflict on the "illegal British occupation of the North of Ireland" whereas Hume saw it as a result of the division among the people (or peoples) of Ireland. Hume, like the Fine Gael party in the Republic, believed that it was up to the nationalists to reassure the unionists of their position within a united Ireland. Adams wanted to drive the British out and the unionists in.

The six rounds of dialogue in 1988 ended without a conclusion, but with both parties having exchanged formal position papers several times. The two leaders renewed the dialogue in 1992. By that time Hume had convinced the Northern Ireland Secretary to formally state in a speech that Britain had no selfish economic or military interest in Northern Ireland, a contention that Hume had argued during the talks with Adams. The dialogue in 1992 was exposed by a nationalist journalist who saw Adams emerging from Hume's home one day. The two leaders agreed to write the draft of a memorandum that Dublin could then show to London as the basis for a peace process sponsored by the two governments.

It has since been revealed that by the late 1980s the IRA was honeycombed with British double agents either working for the Special Branch (intelligence) of the Royal Ulster Constabulary or for the British army. These agents were either blackmailed by the British into working for them, went over to the British to avenge punishment beatings administered by the IRA or joined the organization in order to serve as double agents. As a result of their efforts most of the IRA's (and INLA's ) military operations failed with many members being either arrested and imprisoned or killed in ambushes. At the same time the political wing of the movement, the IRA, was held back from achieving its potential electoral return due to public opposition to the armed struggle in general and to IRA atrocities and operations gone bad. Adams and Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein's chief negotiator and today the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, wanted to cash in their chips and attempt to reap as much benefit as they could from ending the armed struggle.

Sinn Fein's main problem was the IRA' s rank and file activists, who had been recruited to fight and go to prison for a united Ireland. So Adams and McGuinness argued to the unsophisticated but dedicated members that Sinn Fein would establish itself as a viable party in both parts of Ireland and then work to force a united Ireland on the British, the unionists, and Dublin. The argument was that Sinn Fein would grow large enough in the Republic that it could force the two main parties to include it in any coalition government and it would then force the main coalition party to carry through with a united Ireland. This was a case of hope prevailing over reality. Adams and McGuinness also assured the IRA that it would never have to disarm as it had not surrendered or been defeated.

The IRA called a ceasefire at midnight on the last day of August 1994 in response to the joint declaration (Downing St. Declaration) of the two governments laying out the principles of a peace process in December 1993. Six weeks after the IRA the three main loyalist paramilitary organizations (UDA, UVF, Red Hand Commando) also called a ceasefire and offered an apology to the families of their victims. The Ulster Unionist Party under the leadership of Jim Molyneaux was reluctant to enter into negotiations. Under British pressure, Molyneaux resigned as party leader after 16 years and was replaced by David Trimble, who at the time was seen as the hard-line candidate. Following elections in June 1996 negotiations began among the two governments and the main unionist parties, Alliance, and the SDLP. Sinn Fein was excluded because the IRA had broken its ceasefire in February 1996 with a massive bombing in London. After both the British and Irish governments were replaced in the summer of 1997 by governments seen as more sympathetic to the Republicans, the IRA declared a ceasefire in July 1997. In September 1997 Sinn Fein entered the negotiations. The Democratic Unionists of Ian Paisley and the UK Unionists both walked out of the talks when Sinn Fein entered.

Serious bargaining took place for about six weeks from late February to early April 1998. On April 9, 1998 an agreement was signed known formally as the Belfast Agreement and informally as the Good Friday Agreement. The agreement called for power sharing in Northern Ireland between unionists and nationalists in exchange for Dublin giving up its claim to Northern Ireland and cooperation between Belfast and Dublin on a number of matters ranging from tourism to fisheries and forest management. Prisoners of all paramilitary organizations that had gone on ceasefire and recognized the agreement were to be released within two years. All parties were to use their maximum influence to ensure that decommissioning came about by the time prisoners were released. The IRA claimed that it would never disarm as it was not a party to the agreement.

In December 1999 power sharing began on a tentative basis and Dublin amended its constitution to end its territorial claim to Northern Ireland.

It would appear that at this point in time Hamas has not given up its belief in the political utility of armed struggle--a combination of guerrilla warfare and terrorism. Neither for that matter have many elements within the rival Fatah party. Neither have the parties on the Israeli Right such as the Israel Beitenu (Israel is Our Home) party and the Beit Israel party and parts of the Likud. They are all opposed to a two-state solution of the conflict. Washington insists on mediating the peace process solo, with only a token role for the Europeans, the Russians, and the UN. The SDLP has no equivalent party in terms of strength (during the 1990s) among the Palestinians and the Israeli equivalent of the Ulster Unionist Party, Labor, has been rapidly shedding members of Knesset (MKs) since 1996. The Labor Party is incapable of heading a coalition government. It was Washington's Israeli peace partner from 1969 to 2000.

The IRA finally decommissioned its weapons (or the bulk of them) in September 2005, some 36 years after it split from the Official IRA. Fatah did not come under moderate leadership dedicated to a two-state solution without the armed struggle until 2005--some 47 years after it was created in Kuwait. Hamas was created in 1988. Don't expect a major change in policy for another 20 or 25 years at least.  Remember the Provisional IRA and Fatah were/are secular organizations; Hamas is religious--its name means zeal.