Jewish World Review May 17, 1999 / 2 Sivan, 5759
Jonathan Rosenblum
Politicians naturally prefer kissing babies and muttering inanities to
describing the policies they will follow if elected, for fear that they
might offend some group of potential voters. They seek to remain
pleasant-looking ciphers upon whom every voter can project his or her fantasies.
But voters in a democratic society presumably have an opposing interest in
forcing candidates to clarify the policies they advocate. To the extent that
individual voters cannot force the candidates to do so, it is the task of
the press.
Not in Israel.
To judge by the coverage so far in this paper, the elections have nothing
to do with the policies that will guide us over the next four years. The
elections are treated as just another form of sports or entertainment. We
have had more articles about the opposing coaches -- Carville, Finkelstein,
Sharansky's "Finkelstein'' et al. -- than about the candidates themselves.
The latter are treated as if they were nothing more than puppets endlessly
repeating the lines scripted for them.
In place of policy analysis, we receive daily "Oscars'' conferred on the
slickest TV ad. Endless polls about who is winning have replaced serious
discussion of what difference it might make. No wonder Shimon Peres felt so
bitter about the 1996 results: After all, he won all the polls except one.
Yes, all politicians lie, and never so shamelessly as in an election
campaign. But at least in America they run on a platform, produced after
extensive internal party debate, and feel compelled to put out detailed
position papers to justify their sound-bites. As a consequence, their claims
and promises can be subjected to a reality check.
Not in Israel.
One Israel did not even bother to produce a platform worthy
of the name, and for obvious reasons has made no attempt to show how its
candidate can possibly make good on even a fraction of his promises.
In America, a candidate -- especially the challenger without a record to
run on -- who avoided face-to-face debate and tough questioning, would be
laughed out of the arena.
Not in Israel.
Ironically, the absence of any serious discussion of issues is in inverse
proportion to the significance everybody attaches to the outcome of the
upcoming elections.
If the latest polls are correct, the Left will be able to form the next
government without the participation of any religious parties. The stage is
set for separation of state and religion demanded by Meretz and Shinui and
many in Labor. If that happens, it follows as the night the day that the Law
of Return must be abolished, as Yaron London and others on the Left frankly
acknowledge. Once Israel formally ceases to be a Jewish state, there is no
basis for preferential treatment of those of Jewish ancestry.
Perhaps such a separation is a good idea. But shouldn't we at least have
heard, the views on this subject of the man who can bring it all to pass?
On the crucial issue of negotiations with the Palestinians, Netanyahu
stands accused of having been an unmitigated disaster. Perhaps. If so, it
should surely be an easy matter for Barak to explain clearly what he would
have done differently in the past or will do differently in the future.
He has steadfastly refused to do so either as opposition leader or
candidate. Remaining deliberately vague, Barak can present himself to Upper
East Side supporters in America as a closet dove and to Russian immigrants
as a closet hawk.
The Left ridicules Netanyahu's common-sense mantra: "If they comply,
they'll receive; if they don't comply, they won't receive.'' But Barak has
refused for three years to address the issue of Palestinian compliance. He
has neither said whether the Palestinian Authority has complied nor whether
it matters. Asked about weapons in PA hands far in excess of those allowed
under Wye and its predecessors, his spokeswoman only repeats over and over
again, "Iranian missiles are a bigger threat.''
That response is nonsense. First, one threat does not preclude the other.
At least, we have a credible deterrent for Iranian nuclear attack, but none
for Palestinian guerilla warfare. In the latter case, the weapons at the
disposal of the Palestinian army and the areas from which they can launch
attacks are of crucial importance. Moreover, concern with Iranian nukes can
be used to justify any and every concession to the Palestinians.
In 1968, Richard Nixon campaigned on a secret plan to bring American
soldiers back from Vietnam. Ehud Barak is campaigning on a similar secret
plan to bring our soldiers back from Lebanon within a year -- a plan unknown
to him as Chief of Staff or Foreign Minister. Shouldn't we be told what that
plan is so we can judge its feasibility and the cost of implementation?
In addition, to the issues of state and religion and war and peace, there
is also that of the economy. Barak has followed Carville's 1992 script for
Clinton: "It's the economy, stupid.'' But Clinton's challenge was at least
credible on economic grounds. The supply-side economics of the Reagan-Bush
years were an economic joke.
Netanyahu, by contrast, would be thrilled to have the election determined
by a poll of leading economists. Let them compare the performance of the
Israeli economy over the last two years to that of other leading
industrialized nations. Or compare the long-range economic prospects of all
segments of the Israeli population today to what they were after the
free-spending years of 1992-1996.
Barak will not even tell us whether he favors the modified socialism of
Shlomo Ben-Ami and Avraham Shohat or a move to greater privatization of the
economy. Does he have a solution to the biannual national strikes of public
employees, each one costing the country hundreds of millions of shekels? Or
will he attempt to buy off the unions as Shohat did as Finance Minister?
Might Ehud Barak turn out to be a fine prime Prime Minister? Could be. The
problem is that we the electorate have no way of passing an informed
judgment.
And for that we have only ourselves and our assorted "wise men''
in the media to
blame.
The Leadership
We Deserve
IT IS SAID that a nation gets the leaders it deserves. If so, we all have
cause for despair as we in Israel go to the polls today, whatever the outcome.
JWR contributor Jonathan Rosenblum is a columnist for the Jerusalem Post.
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