AS an israeli, I am ashamed. An incumbent prime minister has been compelled to resign because of personal corruption. How awful!
As an Israeli, I am proud. An incumbent prime minister has been compelled to resign because of personal corruption. How wonderful!
Democracy has triumphed. In his delightful little book, “The Trial of Socrates”, I.F. Stone defined the peaceful removal of a political leader as a hallmark of democracy. Who will be Ehud Olmert’s replacement as Kadima party chairman, who will then almost automatically become prime minister, unless he or she fails to put together a governing coalition — in which case new elections will take place, probably at the beginning of 2009.
The real choice is between two candidates: Tzipi Livni and Shaul Mofaz. They could hardly be more different. First of all, because it is man against woman. For the first time in Israeli history, there is a straight confrontation between the genders. (When the late unlamented Golda Meir was appointed prime minister in 1969, after the sudden death of Levy Eshkol, she had no competitors.)
Their background reflects the two extremes of Jewish Israeli society; Mofaz is an “Oriental”, born in Iran, an outsider. Livni is a native-born Ashkenazi Israeli, an insider. She is also a “princess” — her father was a leader of the Irgun underground and (like Olmert’s father) a member of the Knesset.
But the real difference is between the forces they represent.
As a professional soldier, Shaul Mofaz represents the force that has dominated Israel from its very beginning: The “security establishment”. This vast complex has unmatched political, economic and ideological power. Since all major political parties have degenerated into cynical trade unions of party hacks, without an ideology or any real political program, the army is now, in my view, the only real party in Israel.
It is not the Turkish Army or the Pakistani Army. It is an instrument of a democratic system, fully obedient to the civil authority. But behind this façade it is much more: It is an economic empire that consumes by far the largest share of the annual budget, a pressure group, a political lobby, an ideological center.
IT is, in a way, a religion. Nothing trumps security in Israel, and when its name is mentioned, everything else is forgotten. Like almost any religion, it is connected with huge economic interests. The “security” industry, with its production of weapons and other military equipment, plays a central role in the Israeli economy and in its exports, turning the 20 or so tycoons who dominate our economy into natural allies of the generals. Dwight Eisenhower would recognize the pattern. Also, the army is the sole ruler of the occupied territories (as, indeed, demanded by international law). For a nation at war, it is natural that the army also shapes the national ideology. The media are willing, indeed eager, collaborators. Peace is a silly concept for effete, weak-kneed wimps. It is also, of course, a complete and dangerous illusion.
All this is reinforced by an immense network of ex-officers, the “ex” being only formal. With a few honorable exceptions, all ex-army officers belong to the same club and hold the same beliefs. Since the army looks after its own, senior officers who leave the army in their middle 40s, as is usual, generally find high positions in industry, the public services or the political parties — extending the army’s “sphere of influence”.
What this means is that very many people have — mildly put — a vested interest in the absence of peace. Mofaz personifies all of this. He belongs to this complex, he made his career there as a general, chief of staff and minister of defense. No one has ever heard him voice an original thought — his whole mental world is shaped by the army. In all his jobs he has been reliable and diligent mediocrity.
Military dominance of Israeli affairs has one hidden effect: it excludes women. The macho, he-man atmosphere of the army has no place for them.
This was brought up some years ago by a feminist group called New Profile, which declared its goal to be the demilitarization of Israeli society. Perhaps by accident, it is this group which the attorney general decided to prosecute this week for anti-army activities, inciting against joining the army, helping draft evaders, advising potential recruits to pose as mental cases and such.
Livni is not just a foreign minister, a job traditionally despised by the security establishment, but also a civilian and, even worse, a woman. That is what makes this choice so tempting.
In public, the two candidates say almost the same. They repeat the usual mantras. But there are the (almost) hidden agendas. There is the racist angle, the sin that does not dare speak its name. Like the race factor in the US elections, the “ethnic” factor may play a far bigger role here than we like to admit. Orientals tend to vote for Mofaz, Europeans — Ashkenazis — for Livni.
There is the gender factor. Women may tend to vote for one of their own.
And there is the military factor: A vote for Livni is — consciously or mostly unconsciously — a vote against the military domination of our lives.
What kind of states(wo)man would a Prime Minister Tzipi Livni be? No one can know, perhaps not even she herself. Her basic mental world is right-wing. Her world view is centered around the concept of a Jewish state. Jewish in the old Jabotinsky way of thinking: Not in a religious sense (Jabotinsky was quite secular) but in a 19th century nationalistic one. That could lead to peace based on a sincere belief in the two-state concept (to which Mofaz, too, pays lip service). But I would not count on it.
Mofaz we know. Livni we don’t know. That may lead some Kadima members to vote for Livni.
