De-militarization as political self-marginalization: Israeli Labor Party and the MISEs (members of Israeli security elite) 1977–2015
Udi Lebel a and Guy Hatuka b
a Department of Sociology and Anthropology , Ariel University , Israel and BESA (Begin-Saadat) Center for Strategic Studies, Israel ; b Department of Israeli Heritage and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology , Ariel University , Israel
ABSTRACT In the elections for the 19th and 20th Knesset, the Labor Party fared badly. The party list for these two election campaigns was almost completely devoid of ‘bithonistim’ – members of the Israeli security elite (MISEs). The article examines the placement of MISEs on the Labor Party list from 1977 up until the 2015 elections. It shows how, from the establishment of the state, the Labor Party was the natural home of MISEs, thereby becoming the dominant party with regard to the Israeli agenda, in which military and security issues occupy a central place. The decrease in the number of MISEs on the Labor list, and their replacement with Member of parliament who are associated more closely with civil issues, have marginalized the Labor Party in relation to the public agenda. The article shows how in Israel, a society organized around cultural militarism, the party’s demilitarization has led to political marginalization.
KEYWORDS Cultural militarism ; political marginalization ; Labor Party ; ‘bithonistim’ (MISEs); Members of Israeli Security Elite (MISEs)
Introduction
In the election campaign for the 20th Knesset (Israeli Parliament), the pro-file of the candidates comprising the Labor Party list was singularly lacking in ‘establishment’ figures, namely anyone who had served in the past as a prime minister, senior minister, mayor of a major city, or senior member of the Israeli security establishment – a key bastion of legitimacy in Israeli political culture. Among the various previous occupations of Labor Member of Parliament (MPs) in the 20th Knesset, two spheres stand out prominently: communications and civil society/social protest (Figure 1 ). The head of the party, MP Isaac Herzog, son of the late Chaim Herzog – an army general,
UN ambassador, and president of the state of Israel – is a lawyer who has held minor ministerial posts (Tourism and Welfare), served as Cabinet Secretary, and is widely known to have managed the system of non-profit organizations aimed at increasing public support for Ehud Barak in his bid for the premiership in 1999 (see Figure 1 ). The unification of the Labor Party with the newly established Hatnuah, forming a joint list called the Zionist Camp, did not significantly alter the profile of the list of candidates. Admittedly, Hatnuah’s founding leader Tzipi Livni had served as foreign minister, and Amir Peretz had served as minister of defence; but neither is readily associated in the public mind with these positions: Livni is not con-sidered an expert on diplomatic affairs or international relations, and Amir Peretz, a former chairman of the Histadrut Trade Union, is associated first and foremost with labour struggles. Moreover, these two figures held these positions during the Second Lebanon War (2006), widely perceived by the Israeli public as a failure. Thus, after the elections (as illustrated in Figure 2 ), the Zionist Camp still lacked senior establishment figures in general, and security establishment personnel in particular. 1 Figure 2 Most of the Zionist Camp MPs embarked on their parliamentary career following years of extra-establishment (not to say anti-establishment) activity and critical discourse on economic and welfare issues. They lack meaningful symbolic capital, which hinders their acceptance within the broader public as a legit-imate alternative national leadership. All of this has not only resulted in Labor being excluded from the security discourse – the central discourse in Israeli society – but has also contributed to the party’s positioning, for the first time since its establishment, as an extra-hegemonic and anti-es-tablishment entity, after many years during which the Labor Party itself represented the Israeli establishment and hegemony.
Figure 1. Segmentation of Labor Party’s MPs (in the 20 Knesset) by their source of occupation before being elected to Parliament (n=19).
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Th e current Labor representation is a direct continuation of the party’s pro-fi le in the 19th Knesset (see Figure 3 ). At that stage the party was led by Shelly Yachimovich, a former journalist who had entered the political sphere only eight years earlier. Th e sole senior security fi gure on the list was Brig.-Gen. (res.) Binyamin (Fouad) Ben-Eliezer, but because he had been engaged in politics since leaving his military career in 1984, he was not strongly identifi ed in the public consciousness with his military past. Th e new players on the Labor list for the 19th Knesset were the leaders of the social protest of the summer of
Figure 2. Segmentation of Zionist Camp Party’s MPs (in the 20 Knesset) by their source of occupation before being elected to Parliament (n=24).
Figure 3. Segmentation of Labor Party’s MPs (in the 19 Knesset) by their source of occupation before being elected to Parliament (n=15).
644 U. LEBEL AND G. HATUKA
2011. Th ese were young people whose experience in public leadership consisted of student activity or managing social networks. Most professed opposition to neo-liberalism in the economic sphere and left -wing political views.
Th us, nearly half 2 of the MPs representing the Labor Party had a history as ‘ideologues’ whose sole contact with public administration and politics up until entering the Knesset had taken the form of criticism, whether via social networks, journalism, participation in academic discourse, or student activity. Th e other MPs were familiar party fi gures, none of whom had the sort of exec-utive experience that would typecast him/her for senior ministerial positions or as a possible future Prime Minister. In particular, this article will focus on the absence of members of the Israeli security elite (referred to below as MISEs) or, in Israeli slang, ‘ bithonistim ’ – fi gures who had served as part of the Israeli security elite, which is regarded by the Israeli public as the broadest basis for legitimacy when it comes to integration within the national leadership.
Traditionally, Labor leaders have been ‘Mr Security’ fi gures, who were called upon to respond to every type of military or security issue and who took care to present – for almost every election campaign – a consolidated security plan that was supported by former senior army personnel. In the last two Knessets, in contrast, the discourse has focused mainly on welfare and economy issues, with little discourse on security – the central issue in Israeli politics.
On the eve of both elections (for the 19th and 20th Knessets), the heads of the Labor Party endeavoured to include a senior security fi gure on their list. Yachimovich succeeded in persuading Maj. (res.) Uri Sagui, former head of the IDF Northern Command and former head of the Intelligence Branch, to join, but was ultimately forced to exclude him from the list in light of a complaint of sexual assault dating back to his military past. 3 Herzog courted Maj. (res.) Amos Yadlin, a former head of the Intelligence Branch and currently the head of Tel Aviv University’s prestigious Institute for National Security Studies (and the son of a former Labor government minister). Yadlin refused to participate in the party primaries and declined Herzog’s off er that he occupy the 11th slot on the list, which was reserved for the chairman of the party to select at his own discretion. Yadlin’s sole interest was to serve as the party’s ‘security fi gure’ and its candidate for defence minister, if it won the election. 4 Th is was the fi rst time that a candidate for minister of defence, touted as such prior to the elections, was not an organic part of the party’s list for the Knessset. Not only among the public at large, but even among senior members of the Labor Party, Herzog’s commitment to appoint Yadlin as defence minister was considered to have no chance of being fulfi lled. Th us rendered ‘an almost sham candidate for the position of Minister of Defense’, 5 Yadlin attracted little public interest or media coverage. Th is fact, along with Herzog’s decision not to reserve the spot for former minister of defence and chief-of-staff Shaul Mofaz, 6 left the Labor list without a recognizable security fi gure.
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Th ere were other senior members of the security establishment who, like Yadlin, expressed direct or indirect support for the Labor Party without joining its ranks. Some, like former Mossad chief Meir Dagan and former head of the ISA Yuval Diskin, expressed their support as individuals. 7 Others organized themselves as ‘Commanders for Israel’s Security’ – a group of senior reserves offi cers who endeavoured to undermine Netanyahu’s image as a prime minister who had racked up achievements in the realm of security policy. 8 A series of advertisements in the press, under the heading, ‘Real security requires a real change’, featured photographs of these former IDF commanders and quoted their assertions that under Netanyahu, Israel’s security situation had deterio-rated. 9 However, Labor’s Knesset list – which sought to present itself as an alter-native to the sitting government – featured not a single fi gure with a military or security background whom the public regarded as possessing the legitimacy to address the country’s security situation. Moreover, some of the Labor Party candidates for the Knesset hold critical pedagogic views with regard to military discourse, and have worked in the past for demilitarization and ‘de-coloniza-tion’ of Israeli society, for example, in the form of direct or indirect support for conscientious objection, whether limited to military service in the West Bank, 10 or more broadly with regard to service in the IDF. 11
Even during the social protest of 2011, which drew attention to economic and welfare issues, most of the citizenry maintained that the Israeli–Palestinian confl ict was the most important issue facing the country. 12 A survey conducted just prior to the 2015 elections, which followed on the heels of a round of fi ghting against Hamas, found that even most Jews who supported peace talks with the Palestinian Authority believed that such negotiations would not lead to peace. 13 Th is accorded with the fi ndings of previous surveys whereby sup-porters of a political agreement with the Palestinian Authority believed that the confl ict would persist even aft er the conclusion of a peace agreement. In other words, security issues remain dominant even among left -wing Israelis. Owing to the absence of senior security personnel on Labor’s list for the 2015 elections, the party was limited to maintaining and advancing critical socio-economic discourse, which excluded it from identifi cation with the central discourse occupying the Israeli public: the security situation.
Th e Labor Party had thus become marginal to the political discourse in Israel, and this state of aff airs was extensively criticized by left -wing journalists and publicists who questioned the party’s ability to win the elections in such circumstances – a feeling exacerbated by yet another round of fi ghting against Hamas in the summer of 2014 (Operation Protective Edge). A survey of the prominent columnists for Haaretz , a news medium that openly and manifestly aspires to unseating Likud from power, off ers clear evidence of this concern. In a piece entitled, ‘Buji, wake up’, 14 the newspaper’s commentator for economic aff airs attacked Herzog for
646 U. LEBEL AND G. HATUKA
leaving the security-political stage to Netanyhau, while focusing on economic and social issues. As though anyone is going to be persuaded to vote [Labor] on the basis of the price of a Milky. Prime Ministers in Israel have always, without fail, been elected on the basis of their security credentials; not for their socio-economic platform. 15
Th e newspaper’s military commentator wrote a column titled, ‘It’s the security, stupid’, in which he stated that
the security situation – and, in particular, its ramifi cations for the citizens’ sense of personal security – continues to be a decisive factor on election day, as it has been in every election campaign since the days of the fi rst Intifada and the Oslo Agreements that followed it. 16
For his part, Haaretz’s political commentator argued that during the social pro-test, ‘when Israelis forgot about security and focused on the cost of living, the Left was tempted into thinking that its time had come’. 17 In a diff erent column he wrote that ‘the Likud is presenting an conservative, mature, “establishment” list … while its rival is suddenly coming across as a young, variegated, even radical Social-Democratic party.’ He went on to attack what he regarded as the Labor Party’s weakest link:
On the Labor’s list for the 2003 election, six candidates with a security background were included in the fi rst dozen places. Th e new list has no security people at all … Th e Likud will try to portray the Labor list as naïve, defeatist, a weakling and a pushover … a bunch of patsies … who haven’t a clue. 18
In the same vein, Ari Shavit, the newspaper’s foremost publicist, wrote, If Herzog really wants to create a revolution … he must have an experienced security team at his side … and a select group of senior army commanders. Th at is the only way that this time Israelis might vote for hope. 19
The Labor Party, as we shall see, is a party traditionally associated with concern for security, with militarism, and, certainly, with establishmentari-anism, and this image allowed it to continue to receive support from voters who did not identify with its political or economic positions. 20 When the Israeli political scene morphed into a contest between two blocs of similar size in the mid-1980s, Labor was content to have its image rest upon the symbolic capital of senior army figures of the past (especially during the two terms that Yitzhak Rabin, as head of the Labor Party, served as prime minister). Moreover, since the elections to the very first Knesset, the party (originally Mapai) has constantly assured the public that the heads of the security establishment support the party and its leadership. Was Labor’s transformation into a party devoid of senior security figures a sudden one, or has there been an ongoing process whereby senior security figures have distanced themselves from the party most closely identified with the estab-lishment of the state and its armed forces?
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Aims and methodology of the study
By way of examining Labor’s security appeal from 1977 (the fi rst time that the party failed to win the elections) to the 2015 elections, this article focuses on the scope of senior security establishment representation in Labor Knesset lists. Th e level of such representation indicates the degree to which the list accedes to general political culture, where members of the Israeli security elite (MISEs) possess a basis of legitimacy to become part of the national leadership. (As Labor has on occasion run for elections as a joint list including fi gures from other parties, under such names Th e Alignment, One Israel, Th e Zionist Camp, etc., these joint Knesset lists are included in the analysis, as they were led by and associated in public consciousness with the Labor Party.)
Many electoral studies in Israel have treated party leaders’ personalities and ideologies as critical variables in the party’s electoral success. Th e present article seeks to focus on a diff erent element, known in journalistic parlance in Israel as the list’s ‘all-star team’. Th is is not to say that the party’s success depends on the number of security fi gures on the list but rather to illuminate this element in the totality of variables moulding the party’s image and prestige and infl uencing its reception among the public at large. Th e fi ndings are also relevant to the study of civil–military relations, with a contribution to their political party context.
In 2010, Efraim Inbar’s pioneering study, “Th e Decline of the Labor Party”, appeared, with a focus on the ideological dimension. 21 Th e present article fol-lows in its footsteps while highlighting a diff erent element: the basis of legit-imacy/charisma of the party’s list of candidates and their launch pad to the Knesset. It also traces the positioning of members of Israel’s security elite on the Labor list, which had long been considered their ‘natural home’. We do not assert a direct connection between the decline in the number of senior security fi gures on the party list for Knesset and its electoral achievements. Nevertheless, their declining numbers on the list off ers a unique perspective that may support a range of insights into the party itself and its positioning in the public sphere, as well as the positioning of the elite security fi gures within the party.
Th e research population comprises MISEs (Members of Israeli Security Elite) or ‘bithonistim’ – a term in popular Israeli discourse that refers to members of Israel’s security elite who possess symbolic capital that associates them with ‘heroism’ and the ultimate expression of the ‘new Jew’. Because the defi nition is subjective, arising from the social structuring of the concept, we will include within this category those who are perceived as such by the public. Accordingly, ‘bithonistim’ or ‘MISEs’ refer here to male former combat offi cers, holding the rank of Brig. Gen. or higher, in the IDF, the Mossad, or the GSS. Th is defi nition serves to exclude the following groups in our measures.
• Non-combat offi cers. Israeli culture is imbued with a diff erential mind-set that distinguishes between combat soldiers and those who do not engage in combat. Only those who have achieved senior offi cer status
648 U. LEBEL AND G. HATUKA
while serving as combat commanders, putting their lives in danger, are framed heroically as MISEs. Brigadier-Generals and Major-Generals who are not part of the operational structure (for instance, Intelligence, Military Advocate General, Adjutant Corps, etc.) are not included in the category.
• Brevets. Citizens who are brevetted for a defi ned period without following the usual promotion procedure (for example, a journalist appointed to the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit) are not included in the category, even if they were combat soldiers during their compulsory military service.
• Israeli Police. While the IDF, the Mossad, and the ISA are perceived by the public as heroic organizations, the police force lacks this aura and its commanders are regarded as being charged with the practical maintenance of law and order and fi ghting crime.
• Women. In Israeli discourse, women – even those holding senior rank – are not viewed as possessing a heroic military aura, mainly because women are not yet serving as senior combat offi cers.
• Former Ministers of Defence and Prime Ministers. Former Ministers of Defence or Prime Ministers who were not senior members of the security establishment prior to holding those positions are not necessarily regarded as MISEs. For example, a number of surveys have shown that Moshe Arens (Likud), who served as Minister of Defence, is widely perceived as a MISE, while Amir Peretz, who held the same position later on as a member of the Labor Party, is not perceived in the same way; he is still associated with organized labour relations and economic issues.
• Underground fi ghters. Th e term MISE as used here does not apply to combatants or commanders in the pre-state Zionist paramilitary organ-izations, because during the intervening decades they have come to be regarded as party leaders.
It should also be noted that the article does not deal with the actual military/operational record of MISEs. In Israeli culture, the successes or failures of a MISE do not aff ect the perception of him as belonging to this category. Indeed, the article’s time frame (1977–2015) might be referred to in security culture terms as the ‘post-heroic’ period as most of the military engagements during this period have not involved fully fl edged inter-state conventional warfare but rather lower intensity warfare against non-state organizations. 22
The Labor Party and the security elite
The Leadership and Symbolic Capital of MISEs
Israeli society is organized around cultural militarism. 23 Th is creates a situation in which, even aft er completing their active service, senior personnel in the security establishment possess symbolic capital that allows them to translate their military status into civic status and enjoy a greater level of popularity
ISRAEL AFFAIRS 649
amongst the public than that awarded to retired senior personnel from any other sector. 24 Th is arises, among other factors, from the ongoing confi dence of the Jewish–Israeli public in the IDF (along with the ISA and Mossad), which has been maintained in the face of the general decline in public confi dence in Israel’s public institutions 25 ; military activities that have deviated from the public consensus 26 ; and even the failure of the IDF to off er security to Israel’s citizens. 27 Th e explanation for this lies in psychosocial studies that have shown that faith in the army’s resilience has an impact on the psychological and com-munal ability to cope with stressful security-related situations. 28 In other words, it is a psychopolitical need.
Even in the so-called ‘post-heroic’ period, the security establishment remains the primary basis of legitimacy for entry into public life and leadership posi-tions. Groups calling for withdrawal from Lebanon or from the West Bank, or for selective conscientious refusal, have achieved their public standing by virtue of being headed by reserves offi cers or other fi gures associated with military symbolic capital (bereaved families, combat commanders, IDF pilots, etc.). 29 Likewise, MISEs have been appointed to manage crises in spheres such as sports and education because they are perceived as better managers than senior personnel in the civil sector. 30
Since the establishment of the State, MISEs have been regarded as national icons, both during their service and aft er retirement. 31 In the political context, their main advantage is that although most of them have a very clear political and party affi liation, they are viewed by the public as the ‘antithesis of party politicians’ 32 ; as being committed to the public interest rather than self-interest; as apolitical and uncompromisingly committed to national values; and as being focused on national goals rather than being engaged in party politics.
MISEs and the Labor Party DNA
Cultural militarism is a dominant component of the Labor Party’s DNA, more than any other party in Israel. Th e IDF is named aft er the Hagana (literally, ‘Defence’) – the paramilitary underground organization that the labour move-ment established in 1920. David Ben-Gurion, the party’s legendary leader, is regarded as the founder and moulder of the IDF, and his military pronounce-ments are literally set in stone at military bases and headquarters. As such, the Labor party was the natural habitat of both the political and the military elite during the early years of the state, 33 creating a security–political complex that was inseparable so long as it remained in power. 34
Th e phenomenon of former senior army offi cers in the Knesset list of the Labor Party was far more extensive than in any other political party. 35 Th e Mapai list for the very fi rst Knesset (1949) featured three senior offi cers in active service; aft er the elections, having completed their role as a ‘marketing
650 U. LEBEL AND G. HATUKA
tactic’ for the party, they resigned from the Knesset but continued to be viewed as affi liated with it while they continued their military service.
Yoram Peri studied the careers of former army offi cers until 1973 and found that those of them who entered the political arena did so within the framework of the Labor Party. Peri also examined political preferences among IDF offi cers and found that the level of support for Labor in this group was almost twice the level in the general population. Peri’s fi ndings led him to characterize the Israeli Labor Party as paralleling other political parties around the world that were a ‘natural ideological home’ for military offi cers, such as the Conservative Parties in Norway and Sweden, Germany and others. 36
Labor adopted two strategies to maintain its dominance as the ruling party. One was to mould a militaristic Israeli zeitgeist . Baruch Kimmerling defi nes it as ‘civil militarism as conceived by the Labor Party, which was built on ‘the religion of national security’. 37 Th e other was to exclude its political rivals from association with the military and security ethos, which led to processes of party selection in the army in order to block the advancement of offi cers who were not identifi ed as Mapai supporters. 38
MISEs: From the military to the Labor Party
Up until 1978, there were four IDF Chiefs of Staff who, upon concluding their mil-itary service, became MPs, government ministers, or ambassadors representing the Labor Party. Th e fi rst government headed by a MISE was formed by Yitzhak Rabin (Labor) in 1974. Th is government was, in fact, a sort of ‘General Staff ’ in its own right: it included, along with Rabin, another fi ve senior security fi gures. Historically, the Labor list always included the ‘ultimate security authority’, colloquially referred to as ‘Mr Security’ (from Moshe Dayan to Ehud Barak). Whenever an imminent election campaign raised the question of who would be perceived among the public as ‘Mr Security’, the candidates were always former senior security personnel on the Labor list who were competing for the ‘potential Minister of Defence’ spot. Reinforcing the identifi cation of Labor and its leader with the military and security realms was the fact that fi ve out of seven prime ministers representing the party chose to hold the security portfolio along with the premiership, in contrast to prime ministers from other parties.
Th e results of Labor primaries likewise indicate that its members and sup-porters prefer leaders who are MISEs over those associated more with civil concerns. Th e fi rst four times that primaries were held for the party leadership, senior reserves offi cers were chosen over civilian candidates: Rabin (1992), Barak (1997), Ben-Eliezer (2001), Mitzna (2002). 39 It has even been posited that the absorption of senior military offi cers in the Labor Party is institutionalized to the point where this process sometimes supersedes electoral considerations. 40 Th is model, created by Labor, became enshrined in Israeli political culture and was eventually adopted by its competitors.
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Political upsets need MISEs
Notably, since the 1977 ‘upheaval’ which brought Likud to power for the fi rst time since Israel’s creation, political upsets have occurred only when Likud was chal-lenged by parties whose leading candidates for Knesset included MISEs. In the 1992 elections, Likud was beaten by Labor headed by Rabin and a list of six other senior military men. In the 1999 elections, Likud was again beaten by Labor, this time headed by Lt.-Gen. (res.) Ehud Barak, with another four senior military men on the list. In the 2006 elections, Likud was beaten by Kadima, headed by Ehud Olmert, who was not a military man himself, but in a symbolic sense was identifi ed with Maj.-Gen. (res.) Ariel Sharon, who had formed and headed the list until he suff ered a stroke and was hospitalized. Th e Kadima Knesset list included fi ve MISEs.
MISEs – a critical electoral resource for the Left
Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994, it (and/or its constituent organizations/organizations under its jurisdiction) has waged a terror war against the Israeli civilian population, ensuring that the security issue remains at the top of the public agenda in Israel. Th is fact, along with the positioning of Labor as a left -wing party since the signing of the Oslo Accords (1993), has intensifi ed its particular need to integrate MISEs within its leadership. Th eir image as uncompromisingly committed to security prevents them from being identifi ed as ‘left -wing’ and therefore makes them a valuable resource particularly for left -wing parties. 41 In addition, over the course of Israel’s political history, the public has become accustomed to having most of its generals maintaining centrist views. 42
It should be noted that when Labor prime ministers who were MISEs came to power, they were never elected as left -wingers per se, but rather as leaders who, owing to their military past, were not directly associated with the Left . Rabin, as noted, was elected in 1992 aft er serving as Minister of Defence under Yitzhak Shamir, and before he became committed to the Oslo conception. Barak was elected in 1999 because he persuaded new voting sectors (especially immigrants from the former Soviet Union) that, as the most decorated general in the IDF, he stood the best chance of beating terror. Sector-focused marketing pitted Lt.-Gen. Barak against Capt. Netanyahu. 43 Sharon, who led Likud to victory in the 2001 elections, campaigned as a leader who, in contrast to the Labor Party, would be able to subdue the Palestinian Authority, thus transforming his militarist image from a handicap into an advantage.
Former elite security fi gures are a resource not only for left -wing parties, but for any attempt to advance a peace process, as their presence serves to frame the process, which involves territorial compromise and/or steps that reduce Israel’s capacity to ensure security for its citizens, as legitimate and safe. 44
652 U. LEBEL AND G. HATUKA
Historically, then, the concentration of MISEs in the Labor Party has made it relevant to the political realm, which, in Israel, is connected to the security issue. In fact, with the exception of the ‘Whole Land of Israel’ concept, every political program that has become part of the public discourse in Israel over time and has gained widespread legitimacy, was created, disseminated, and advanced by Labor security fi gures. A lack of MISEs therefore serves to exclude the party from the debate concerning Israel’s political objectives.
Security personnel and the Labor Party – 1977–2015
As Figure 4 shows, the percentage of MISEs on the Labor list has followed a sharp decline from the 18th Knesset onward. From the 9th to the 17th Knessets the percentage of security fi gures among the fi rst thirty candidates on the list remained relatively stable at 14.8%. Since the 18th Knesset, this rate has fallen to 5.5%. Th is trend is even more pronounced if we focus on the ‘face’ of the party – those candidates slated to put together the new government if the party wins the elections (see Figure 5 ). Up until the 18th Knesset, about a quarter (24.4%)
Figure 4. Percentage of MIES in the Labor Party’s candidate list for parliament (1-30 places).
on the list)
Figure 5. Percentage of MIES in the Labor Party’s candidate list for parliament (1-10 places).
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of the top 10 places on the Labor list, on average, was occupied by MISEs. For the 19th Knesset, the top 10 places on the Labor list included only one MISE (10%), with none at all in the top ten places for the 20th Knesset.
Figure 6 takes a closer look at the number of MISEs in the top 10 places. Starting from the 9th Knesset elections, Labor’s candidate for Minister of Defence was always unveiled to the public, and it was always a MISE. In the 13th Knesset it was Rabin, who also headed the list and led the party to vic-tory. In the elections for the 14th Knesset, following Rabin’s assassination, the party was led by Shimon Peres. Ahead of the 15th Knesset the party ‘got back to itself ’ and placed Barak, another MISE, at its helm. For the 16th Knesset the list was headed by Amram Mitzna – whose military symbolic capital, it must be acknowledged, had already worn off to some degree: he had left the army with the rank of Maj.-Gen. some 16 years previously, and was now identifi ed by the public mainly as mayor of Haifa. Senior security fi gures were placed relatively low on the list of top 10 candidates for the 17th Knesset. For the 18th Knesset the Labor list was headed by Barak – a MISE, to be sure, but one associated with the politico-security failures that had characterized his previous term as prime minister (the failure of the Camp David summit and the outbreak of the ‘Second Intifada’ in September 2000, violent confrontations between security forces and Arab Israelis). In the midst of Labor’s term in offi ce, Barak formed a new, independent Knesset faction, along with another MISE – Maj.-Gen. Matan Vilnai. For the elections to the 19th and 20th Knessets, the Labor list featured no signifi cant MISEs. While Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who was 5th on the list for the
Figure 6. The location of MISE’s in the Labor list of candidates to parliament.
654 U. LEBEL AND G. HATUKA
19th Knesset, is a Brig.-Gen. in the reserves, he had left the IDF more than 30 years earlier. Th us, there has been an ongoing decline in the representation of ‘star’ security fi gures – an electoral resource – among the Labor Party leadership.
Figure 7 illuminates the public’s association of MISEs with the Labor Party, by showing the percentage of MISEs in each Knesset who actually represent Labor. From the 9th to the 17th Knesset, nearly half (44.3% on average) of the MISEs serving in the Knesset belonged to the Labor Party, while the other half were spread among the other Zionist parties. In other words, when Israeli citizens saw an MP who had in the past belonged to the security elite, there was an almost 1:2 chance that they were looking at a Labor MP. Starting from the 18th Knesset, Labor is home to only 20.3% of the total Knesst MISEs. Th us its equation with security has been weakened.
Figure 8 illustrates not only the lack of MISEs among Labor MPs but also the phenomenon of their joining the competition (Kadima, Likud). It also indicates that the reduction of MISEs on the Labor list to the point of disappearance is not refl ected in a parallel process among other parties vying for dominance. While there has been a general drop in the number of MISEs making their way into politics, this phenomenon is manifest most clearly in the Labor Party. It should also be pointed out (as it is not refl ected in the diagram) that MISEs affi liated with Labor’s competitors are not only more numerous but also enjoy a qualitative advantage in terms of their political marketability. 45
Figures 9 and 10 trace the new MISEs joining the Labor list for Knesset. Th ese diagrams fulfi l a dual function: they off er perspective on the public perception of the degree to which Labor continues to be a natural home for MISEs, while also showing the extent to which the party is perceived by MISEs themselves as an appropriate address, insofar as such a move indicates that they regard the party as a ‘natural home’ or ‘winning brand’ that is worthy of their affi liation.
MISEs MISEs
Figure 7. Percentage of the Labor’s MISE’s out of all MISE’s in a current parliament.
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Figure 8. Percentage of MISE’s in every parliament: how many MISE’s are parts of the Likud Party? The Labor Party? And the whole parliament?
New MISEs on the Labor list, by Knesset
4+Avigdor Kahalani
3
Amran Mitzna
Efraim Sneh
Ezer Weizman
Chaim Herzog
2
Eyal Ben Reuven
Ami Ayalon
Danny Yatom
Matan Vilnai
Ehud Barak
Uri OrFuad Ben Eliezer
Mordechai Gur
Chaim Barlev
1
20th
Knesset19th
Knesset
18th
Knesset17th
Knesset16th
Knesset15th
Knesset14th
Knesset13th
Knesset12th
Knesset11th
Knesset10th
Knesset9th
Knesset
Figure 9. How Many New MISE’s joined the Labor Party List of candidates running to the Parliament?
New MISEs on the Labor list as their first party, by Knesset
4+Avigdor Kahalani
3
Amran Mitzna
Efraim Sneh
Chaim Herzog
2
Ami Ayalon
Danny Yatom
Matan Vilnai
Ehud Barak
Uri OrMordechai Gur
Chaim Barlev
1
20th
Knesset19th
Knesset
18th
Knesset17th
Knesset16th
Knesset15th
Knesset14th
Knesset13th
Knesset12th
Knesset11th
Knesset10h
Knesset9th
Knesset
Figure 10. How Many New MISE’s joind the Labor Party List of candidates running to the parliament, are part of a political party’s list for their fi rst time?
656 U. LEBEL AND G. HATUKA
Figure 9 documents the MISEs who joined the Labor Party in anticipation of each election campaign. It is clear that since the 18th Knesset, no MISE has chosen to join Labor, and the lone MISE on the Zionist Camp joint list for the 20th Knesset found himself relegated the 24th spot.Figure 9
Figure 10 focuses on those MISEs from Figure 9 for whom Labor was their fi rst political affi liation, thereby excluding examples such as Ezer Weizman, whose Yahad Party joined the Labor list for the 12th Knesset aft er having pre-viously served as Likud’s Minister of Defence. Th is diagram therefore looks at the ‘stars’ 46 whose entire symbolic capital is bound up with their military status. Since the 17th Knesset, the Labor Party has no elite security ‘stars’ on its list.Figure 10
Conclusion
Among their televised election campaign advertisements, Labor and Likud devote a special broadcast to the presentation and glorifi cation of their leading MISE and his heroic past. Th e public is thus reminded that this is someone who has made critical decisions in the heat of battle, who has put his life in danger, who has become a symbol of leadership, and has served as a personal and professional role model for a great many soldiers. In the absence of MISEs meeting the criteria discussed in this article, Labor chose, in anticipation of the 20th Knesset, to undertake a ‘heroization’ and ‘securitization’ of its chairman, Isaac Herzog. Herzog performed his military service in Unit 8200 – a rear unit that engages in intelligence-gathering (listening, wire-tapping, code breaking) rather than operational decision-making. A former senior offi cer in the unit laughed off the broadcast, asserting that the heroism and bravery demonstrated there amounted, at most, to ‘nerdy courage – the sort of courage that involves quick thinking, endless cups of tea, and mountains of biscuits’. In the broadcast, accompanied by images simulating a battleground, Herzog’s colleagues in the unit described his alleged quick decisions, their impact on the conduct of the combat forces, and – most of all – the fact that, by virtue of his service in the unit, ‘Buji understands Arabs’.
More than a refl ection of the post-heroic military cultural era 47 – an issue deserving of discussion in its own right – the broadcast expresses the weakness of the Labor Party in the last two election campaigns. In an ongoing process that reached a climax in the 19th and 20th Knessets, Labor has undergone a gradual de-militarization. 48 As such, it has become increasingly marginal to Israeli discourse, in which issues of security, the army, and survival top the agenda – all the more so in recent election campaigns, when Israel had just emerged from military confl icts (in Lebanon and in Gaza).
Among Israeli political scientists there is a common tendency to defi ne periods of Israeli politics in terms of the status of the Labor Party in each. Th e period from the establishment of Mapai up until 1973 is regarded as the ‘era of
ISRAEL AFFAIRS 657
dominance’; the period between 1974 and 1981 is the ‘era of post-dominance’; and the period since 1981 is the ‘two-bloc’ era, with public support for Labor and the Likud at more or less equal levels. 49 At the time of the writing of this article, Labor thus fi nds itself in what might be called the ‘era of political mar-ginalization’. 50 Some scholars argue that the reason for this marginalization is ideological, and that it began with the Oslo Accords 51 ; others have identifi ed the reason as institutional – a corollary of the establishment of Kadima and the transition of the political arena from a two-party reality to a three-party reality. No doubt other explanations exist. Th is article has attempted to highlight a particular variable that might also have contributed to this development: the composition of the Labor list for Knesset.
In this sense, what is at hand here is a process of strategic self-marginaliza-tion 52 rather than a party falling victim to negative social structuring or stigma-tization: a party which, by its own hands, chooses the list that has contributed to its marginalization. We contend that this process of political self-margin-alization began in the run-up to elections for the 18th Knesset, with the party drawing up lists that create political dissonance: the party image does not accord with the ‘spirit of the times’ and the ‘Israeli situation’ during recent election campaigns. Th is contrasts with the situation during the early decades of state-hood, when there was a complete overlap between the ‘spirit of the times’ and the image of the party among the public, facilitated by its investment in what Duverger calls ‘the sociological factor’ which awarded it moral superiority over its competitors. In contrast, recent elections have displayed oblivion towards the sociological factor – at least as far as inclusion of MISEs is concerned, with the Labor list creating dissonance and leading to political marginalization.
Within the context of our limited focus – the connection between Labor’s Knesset list and the Israeli security elite – we might conclude that the party has become the victim of its own success. It is this party which, in order to be perceived as the natural leadership for the new state, undertook political militarization, such that Labor became the ‘natural’ home for the security elite. Th is exploitation of cultural militarization in Israel gave the party its status and attracted broad public support. Labor was not an avant-garde party that sought to introduce extreme positions. Rather, it was the party of ‘the state’, the establishment, the army – whose leadership, from the perspective of the public, possessed the broadest basis of legitimacy and charisma for integration among the national leadership – primarily owing to their security past.
In this context, our fi ndings accord with the accumulated research on ‘party image’, which has been found to infl uence voter behaviour (both among the party’s traditional voters and among fl oating votes) to a greater degree than other factors such its leader, its past performance, or the party platform. Th e party’s political proposals are diffi cult for the public to analyse, assess, and distinguish from those of competing parties. Th erefore, the party image rests mainly on the personal composition of its list, which represents one of the
658 U. LEBEL AND G. HATUKA
leading variables aff ecting the way in which the party is framed, accepted, and positioned in the public consciousness. 53
Even new parties, competing for seats in the 20th Knesset for the fi rst or second time, included MISEs on their lists. Th e Centre-Left party Yesh Atid placed a former ISA head at number fi ve, while the Centre-Right Kulanu party awarded number two spot to a Major General in reserves who left the army within the last decade. Th is was the fi rst time that both these men had been part of an election campaign. Since the formation of this Knesset, Labor MPs have absented themselves from a range of debates concerning the conscrip-tion law, Israel’s deterrence of Iran, and other discussions concerning security issues, because – through the infl uence of Israeli culture – ‘those’ discussions are attended by MISEs. Th is has merely served to amplify the party’s marginali-zation and to decrease public support for it, according to surveys; not because the party expressed views that were unacceptable, but because it expressed no view at all in those security-related discussions. In fact, this has become the reality of not only the Labor Party, but the entire Israeli Left , which in the past had featured MISEs even in its most extreme parties, while now they are entirely absent.
As noted, it is not argued that there is a linear connection between the reduction in the number of MISEs on the Labor list and its declining elec-toral achievements. Nor does the article attempt to investigate the reasons for the absence of MISEs: this may refl ect a preference to join more conservative parties, or emanate from some other reason. Rather, it seeks to present one particular factor, apparently operating in tandem with other processes, which has brought about the political marginalization of the Labor Party within the Israeli political arena. Judging by the party’s list of Knesset candidates, this marginalization may be the product of a change of identity. In other words, it may be that the composition of the Labor list is not a mistake or a tactical error, but rather the unavoidable outcome for a party that is integrated in the milieu of a new, post-modern elite. 54 Th is new identity of the party creates even greater reliance on the mobilization of ‘establishment fi gures’ – and certainly those perceived as belonging to the security elite – to assure voters that the party seeks renewal rather than revolution. As noted, all the political upheavals in Israel have relied on MISEs (who are part of the hegemony), who lent the victorious parties a responsible and non-partisan image. Labor, as represented by its list for the last two general elections, has become an anti-establishment avant-garde party which lacks the most signifi cant political capital required for a sober image of responsible leadership in Israel: members of the Israeli security elite.
As this article went to print, a survey was published in Israel indicating that Lt.-Gen. (res.) Benny Gantz, who served as Chief of Staff up until just a few months ago, is the only fi gure who, if he took the helm, might restore Labor to its former preeminence. 55 In the wake of this survey, Ran Adelist, a left -wing
ISRAEL AFFAIRS 659
political commentator and one of the founders of the Peace Now movement, penned a column titled, ‘Th e only cards in the pack are “bithonistim [MISEs]”’, where he called upon Labor chairman to unite within his party all the former MISEs who are not already part of Israel’s party politics: former Chiefs of Staff Ashkenazi and Gantz, former Intelligence chief Yadlin, and former head of ISA Diskin. He explained that the Labor Party is in need of what he called ‘security supplements’: ‘Th at’s how it is in Israel, especially in Israel right now.’ Th e only solution, he asserted, would be a network of generals surrounding Herzog what could color him and the Labor Party with Leadership Capital:
Not just one, but a network, and not just their names, but a sketching of future roles – anything to create a front that would assure the lost electoral center that they are better equipped than Netanyahu to restore quiet. 56
Notes
1. Th e sole senior offi cer to enter the Knesset (by virtue of the merger with Hatnuah) was Maj. (res.) Eyal Ben Reuven. As the 24th candidate on the Zionist Camp list, he was clearly not going to be part of the country’s leadership, even if his party landed an election windfall. His background was therefore not highlighted in the election campaign, and he remained outside of the public consciousness.
2. Forty percent in the 19th Knesset; 46% in the 20th Knesset. 3. Yachimovich, “Yachimovich Megiva le-Uri Sagui”. 4. Verter, “Ha-Bayit shel Kulanu”. 5. Lis, “Yadlin Lo Yeshev Ba-Reshimat ha-Mahaneh ha-Tzioni”. 6. Lis, “Yadlin Hitztaref le-Mahaneh ha-Tzioni, Mofaz Nishar ba-Hutz”. 7. Karni and Eikhler, “Diskin Tomekh be-Herzog”. 8. Oren, “Th e ‘Mr. Security’ image”. 9. http://www.cis.org.il/about
10. Ifargan, “Waiting for a denouncement?”; Gontege, “Where did Yossi Yona Disappear” ; Tuchfeld, “Mavo le-Politika”.
11. Bar-On, “Merav Michaeli”. 12. Heller, Public Opinion in Israel . 13. Peace Index, http://www.idi.org.il/media/3930818/Peace_Index_February_2015-
Heb.pdf 14. ‘Buji’ is Herzog’s nickname. 15. Strassler, “Kum Hitna’era Buji”. Milki is the Israeli most popular Yogurt. 16. Harel, “Zeh ha-Bitahon, Tembel”. 17. Shalev, “Ha-Ruah ha-Ra’ah shel ha-Kayitz”. 18. Shalev, “Ba-Avodah Tafsu Amerika”. 19. Shavit, “Ha-Mesimah shel Herzog”. 20. Arian, “Voter Behavior,” 154. 21. Inbar, “Th e Decline of the Labor Party.” 22. Kober, “From Heroic to Post-Heroic Warfare.” 23. Kimmerling, “Patterns of Militarism.” 24. Bourdieu, “Symbolic Capital and Social Classes.” 25. Bar-Tal et al., “Th e Paradox.” 26. Lissak, Iyyunim be-Historia ha-Hevratit , 446. 27. Lebel, Politics of Memory , 2013.
660 U. LEBEL AND G. HATUKA
28. Peltz et al., Does Civilians’ Trust . 29. Lebel, “Second Class Loss.” 30. Lebel and Dahan-Kaleb, “Marshaling a Second Career.” 31. Keren, “National Icons and Personal Identities.” 32. Goldberg, “Th e Growing Militarization,” 390–391. 33. Etzioni-Halevy, “Civil–Military Relations.” 34. Lebel, “Cracks in the Mirror.” 35. Lissak and Horwitz, Metzukot be-Otopia , 249. 36. Peri, “Party–Military Relations.” 37. Kimmerling, “Patterns of Militarism.” 38. Peri, “Party–Military Relations.” 39. Goldberg, “Th e Growing Militarization,” 387. As Goldberg notes, in 2002, the
candidates included two senior reserves offi cers (Brig.-Gen. [res.] Binyamin Ben-Elizer and Maj.-Gen. [res.] Amram Mitzna, and MP Haim Ramon). Th e military men together received 93% of the vote; Mitzna won, with 53%.
40. Golderg, “Th e Growing Militarization,” 389. 41. Ibid., 389. 42. Ibid., 390. 43. Epstein, “Th e Infl uence.” 44. Lebovitz, “Regional Framing.” 45. Th us, for example, in the elections for the 20th Knesset, the Likud list included
a former Chief of Staff and a former head of the ISA – both within the fi rst decade of their leaving the security establishment. Since the 18th Knesset, the Labor Party has lacked candidates with an elite security background of this calibre. Th e hierarchy of MISEs in Israeli discourse is deserving of discussion in its own right, and we address it elsewhere (Lebel and Hatuka, in preparation).
46. Horkin et al., “Ha-Dugman ve-ha-Miktzo’an”; Mevorakh et al., “Bein Ratzionaliut le-Teritorialiut.”
47. Kober, “From Heroic to Post-Heroic Warfare,” 96–122. 48. We use the term “de-militarization” rather than “de-securitization” because the
former denotes, inter alia , a cultural phenomenon and pertains to ethos (see Smyth, “Th e Process of Demilitarization”), while the latter refers to the public framing of social problems (see Huysmans, “Th e European Union”). Th e process by means of which MISEs attain their status is one of “cultural militarization,” and the “securitization” of many spheres of life is just one of the by-products of this process (Kimmerling, “Patterns of Militarism”).
49. Goldberg, Ha-Mifl agot be-Yisrael ; Doron, “Yisrael – Demokratia Birokratit?” 50. Kamenista, “Th e Process.” 51. Shiloah, “Aliyatah ve-Kerisatah”. Shiloah, a Mapai veteran who became a right-
wing activist in his later years, describes the ideological upheaval of the Labor Party as a ‘sex change’.
52. Boss et al., “Strategic Self-Marginalization.” 53. Fernandez-Vazkuez, “And Yet It Moves”; Smith, “Positioning Political Parties”;
Smith, “Th e 2001 Election.” 54. Lyotard, Th e Postmodern Condition . In the Israeli context, this milieu values
cosmopolitanism, universalism, post-militarism, post-colonialism and even post-nationalism, exemplifying the civil–military gap (Lebel, “Casualty Panic”).
Th e authors would like to thank Uzi Ben-Shalom, Batia Ben-Hador, Nissim Leon, Moshe Levy, Netta Steiner-Lebel, and – especially – Dr. Eithan Orkibi, Mr. Vincent Reyes and Ms. Kaeren Fish – for their constructive comments and editorial assistance.
Disclosure statement
No potential confl ict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Udi Lebel is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ariel University and a senior researcher in BESA (Begin – Saadat) Center for strategic Studies, Bar Ilan University.
Guy Hatuka is an MA student in the Department of Jewish Heritage and is a teaching assistant in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ariel University.
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