Are Any Lessons to Be Learned from the Israeli Elections?

March 19 2015

Several, according to Haviv Rettig Gur:

The Israeli left, to be sure, did better than it has done in almost a generation. It rallied around the Labor party, energized the base, [and] sent thousands of volunteers to “get out the vote.” And it lost. Spectacularly. . . . The right learned that Likud is its great indispensable party, the big tent to which it rallies in times of danger. That ethos of underlying unity among the usually bickering factions of the right headed off . . . the left’s most potent challenge in almost two decades. . . .

Overall turnout spiked in this election, and the smart money held that this rise would favor the left. It was leftists, after all, who have been missing from previous elections. But in the wake of Likud’s stunning surge in the final count, a surge predicted by no poll and no pollster, the simple fact is inescapable: right-wingers came out to vote, right-wingers who haven’t bothered to vote in recent elections, right-wingers who did not like or support Netanyahu —all felt compelled to save Israel from the prospect of a left-wing victory. . . .

Why did turnout rise so dramatically? Simple: the majority of the Israeli electorate continues to distrust the left’s judgment. It is a trust deficit rooted in a more general distrust of Palestinian intentions, of the Obama White House, and of other touchstones of left-wing policy. In hindsight, it may be one of the bitter ironies of this campaign that Labor’s own slogan, “It’s us or him,” may have done as much to guarantee Netanyahu victory as anything Netanyahu may have done.

Read more at Times of Israel

More about: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel & Zionism, Israeli politics, Labor Party, Likud

 

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023