Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From Alan Dowty

Having induced the Labor party to enter his coalition, Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled to present his new government on Tuesday. The unwieldy result of his labors is a coalition of five parties with 69 seats, or 74 if he succeeds in adding the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Jewry between now and then.

Netanyahu will thus become the fifth prime minister in Israel’s history to make a comeback after having lost the office or left it under duress. The persistence of familiar faces in Israeli politics may say something about the stability of the political order—or the way in which the system stifles the emergence of new leaders.

Netanyahu bought Labor support by, among other things, offering no fewer than five ministries to a party that holds only 13 seats in the Knesset, setting a new standard for the ratio of ministers to seats. Applying the same arithmetic to his deals with Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu and the Sephardi ultra-orthodox Shas party, he now faces the impossible task of finding available chairs at the cabinet table for all of the Likud worthies who deem themselves deserving of the honor. Consequently this may be the most bloated government ever, with as many as 28 ministers and seven deputy ministers; in other words, nearly one of every three Knesset members may be in the government.

Even after splitting existing ministries in two, for the sole purpose of creating new posts in the cabinet, and appointing ministers without portfolio, some key Likud figures will be left out in the game of musical chairs. Netanyahu’s first distraction, therefore, will be possible major defections in his own party. He may, as he did in 1996, delay delivering the bad news to those being left out until an hour or two before presenting his government.

But that will not be the last coalition crisis. As many as five or six of the Labor members of Knesset might defect from the coalition, and in any event the by-laws of the Labor party require a new primary election for party leadership within 14 months of losing in a general election. Given the discontent within the party against Ehud Barak’s leadership, his tenure as defense minister could easily be cut short a little over a year from now, and in that case Netanyahu would need either Kadima or United Torah Jewry in order to retain a majority.

But that will not be the last crisis. By some accounts, the long-pending investigation of Avigdor Lieberman for corruption may soon come to a head, and if he is indicted he would be forced to resign from his promised position as foreign minister. Without Lieberman, it is unclear whether Yisrael Beitenu would hold together or remain as the second party in the government.

Nor is that the last likely crisis. The militantly secular Yisrael Beitenu and Shas are miles apart on many issues, but especially on the issue of conversions and civil marriage. Reportedly a committee will be appointed to find a compromise acceptable to both sides—an unlikely proposition by all accounts. If it does not achieve this goal in 15 months, Yisrael Beitenu will be free to pursue its own program. So expect fireworks in a year or so.

Given this tricky agenda, it is not surprising that Tzipi Livni has predicted that the government will last no more than a year, and on that basis has confidently led the Kadima party into expectant opposition. What may be surprising is the nature of the challenges that Netanyahu must overcome in order to stabilize his government: domestic and political rather than foreign and security-related. Since there is no Palestinian partner at present with whom a credible settlement could be negotiated and, more importantly, implemented, the new government will not have to contend with the kind of fierce international (especially U.S.) pressure that some have naively predicted.

Instead, Netanyahu will probably push the Syrian channel as a substitute to deflect what pressure there is. The Syrian option has much going for it, so much so that the last six Israeli prime ministers (including Netanyahu in his first incarnation) have all given it a try. The main obstacle is that Likud’s platform rejects withdrawal from the Golan Heights, without which there is no point talking with Syria. But Netanyahu proved to be an opportunist the first time around, so who knows?

In any event, the foreign priority for any Israeli government will be the Iranian nuclear issue, not the Palestinians or Syria.

And almost lost in the shuffle is the announcement that Israel has carried out a successful test of its Iron Dome defense system against short- and medium-range missiles, a system projected to offer 95-percent protection of areas bordering Gaza. This is potentially of much greater significance than any of the current political horseplay.