The Elections in Israel—2003 [1 ed.] 0765802686, 9780765802682

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The Elections in Israel— 2003

The Elections in Israel— 2003 Edited by Asher Arian and Michal Shamir

Published in cooperation with the Israel Democracy Institute. The Israel Democracy Institute is an independent, non-partisan think tank dedicated to strengthening democracy in Israel. It serves the Knesset and its committees, government offices, public institutions, local government, and political parties by undertaking research and making recommendations for reform and change. In addition, the Israel Democracy Institute undertakes comparative studies of legislative, structural, and electoral systems of other democratic regimes. The IDI also aims to enrich public discourse and encourage innovative thinking by initiating discussion of topics on the country's political, social, and economic agendas, with the participation of legislators, policymakers and academics. The IDI makes its findings available through the publication of position papers and books in the Democracy Library and its other series. Editor-in-chief: Uri Dromi Administrative Head, Publications Dept: Edna Granit Publications Editor: Yael Moshieff Translation and Editing of this Book: Sagir Ltd. Production Coordinator: Nadav Shtechman First published 2005 by Transaction Publishers Published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OXl4 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2005 by Taylor & Francis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2004051789 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The elections in Israel, 2003 / Asher Arian and Michal Shamir, editors p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7658-0268-6 (cloth: alk. paper) I. Israel. Knesset-Elections, 2003. 2. Elections-Israel-History. 3. IsraelPolitics and government-1993- I. Arian, Asher. II. Shamir, Michal, 1951JQ1830.A95E434 2004 324.95694'054-dc22 2004051789 ISBN 13: 978-0-7658-0268-2 (hbk)

Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Michal Shamir and Asher Arian

vii 1

Part 1: Party System Continuity or Change? 1. On Mistaking a Dominant Party in a Dealigning System Asher Arian and Michal Shamir

13

2.

33

The Political Consequences of the Introduction and the Repeal of the Direct Elections for the Prime Minister Ofer Kenig, Gideon Rabat, and Reuven Y. Hazan

Part 2: Politics of the Election Campaign 3. Fat Parties—Lean Candidates: FundingIsraeli Internal Party Contests Menachem Hofnung

63

4.

Who’s Defending Democracy? The Battle among the Elites over the Elections to the 16th Knesset Ami Pedahzur

5.

Disqualification of Political Party ListsandCandidates for the Knesset—Were the 2003 Elections Unique? Michal Shamir and Keren WeinshalUMargel

101

6.

An Empirical Analysis of the Issue of Media Bias in Israeli Elections, 1996-2003 Tamir Sheafer and Gabriel Weimann

123

Part 3: Voting Behavior: Rational Choice and Group Perspectives 7. Coalition Considerations and the Vote John H. Aldrich, Andre Blais, Indridi H. Indridason, and Renan Levine

85

143

8.

The Winners and Losers of 2003: Ideology, Social Structure, and Political Change Michael Shalev and Gal Levy

167

9.

Religious Zionism and the National Religious Party in the 2003 Elections: An Attempt to Respond to the Challenges of Religious, Ethnic, and Political Schism Asher Cohen

187

10. Voting without Voice: About the Vote of the Palestinian Minority in the 16th Knesset Elections Nadim Rouhana, Nabil Saleh, and Nimer Sultany

215

11. From “Russians” to Israelis? Ken Goldstein and Zvi Gitelman

245

Contributors

261

Index

263

Acknowledgements Our sincere thanks to Edna Granit, Yael Moshieff, and Nadav Shtechman for their abundant help in the production process, and to those who agreed to review anonymously the articles contained in this volume.

vii

Introduction Michal Shamir and Asher Arian The 2003 elections saw Israel’s return to the family of parliamentary na tions after it experimented with the direct election of the prime minister from 1996 through 2001. The change was implemented in 2001, soon after Ariel Sharon of the Likud won the special election for prime minister that unseated Labor’s Ehud Barak. In 1996, Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu edged out Shimon Peres of Labor in an extremely tight race. The 1999 elections resulted in Barak’s defeat of Netanyahu in a landslide victory, and then in 2001 Sharon ousted Barak by an even greater margin of votes. By 2003, in apparent politi cal exhaustion, the system returned to a fixed-list method of selecting Knesset members on the basis of proportional representation. The prime minister would then be selected upon receiving the confidence of the Knesset. In the 2003 contest, it was clear who would be the next prime minister as the polls closed. The election results are presented in Table 1.1. The Likud and its leader, Ariel Sharon, were the big winners of this contest. The Likud was elected the largest party, outdistancing all others by far, including the once dominant party—Labor—which obtained that year less than half of Likud’s votes. Sharon returned to the prime ministerial post, at the head of a new and unprecedented coalition, with Shinui on his left and Mafdal (National Religious Party) and Ihud Leumi on his right. The January 28, 2003 election was held more than two years into the sec ond Intifada (Arab uprising), an extremely bloody period in the turbulent relations between Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians. Terrorist attacks abounded, and the number of civilian casualties reached an unprecedented high. Furthermore, the repercussions of the continued violence and its disas trous effects on the economy became increasingly evident, as many Israeli citizens felt the economic downturn in a very personal manner. The elections were held in a grim climate of opinion, where the public’s faith in the Palestin ians and in the prospects for peace were shattered. Seventy-two percent of Israelis surveyed in our pre-election poll,1 as in 2001, characterized Israel’s general condition as bad or very bad;2 in 1996 only 26 percent felt that way,

1

2

The Elections in Israel—2003 Table L I Results of the 2003 Knesset Elections’1 Valid Votes

percent of Valid Votes

No. of Knesset Seats

Likud Labor-Meimad Shinui Shas National Unity (Ihud Leumi) Meretz Torah and Shabbat Judaism National Religious (Mafdal) Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) One Nation (Am Ehad) National Democratic Assembly (Balad) Israel B’Aliya United Arab List

925,279 455,183 386,535 258,879 173,973 164,122 135,087 132,370 93,819

29.4 14.5 12.3 8.2 5.5 5.2 4.3 4.2 3.0

38 19 15 11 7 6 5 6 3

86,808 71,299 67,719 65,551

2.8 2.3 2.2 2.1

3 3 2 2

Green Leaf (Aleh Yarok) Herut Progressive National Alliance Greens A Different Israel (Israel Aheret) Love of Israel (Ahavat Israel) Tzomet Center Democratic Action Organization (Daam) Citizen and State Men’s Rights in the Family (Raash) Lahava Zaam - Social Justice Leeder

37,855 36,202 20,571 12,833 7,144 5,468 2,023 1,961 1,925 1,566 1,284 1,181 894 833

1.2 1.1 0.7 0.4 0.2 0.2

0

Disqualified ballots

52,409

1.6

TOTAL

3,200,773

0.1 0.1 0.1 b b b b b

99.6 percent

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0

120

Source: http://www.knesset.gov.il/electionsl6/eng/results/Regions.asp a There were 4,720,079 eligible voters; 3,200,773 participated in the elections. Of those who voted, the ballots of 52,409 (1.6 percent) were disqualified. 131,740 (4.1 percent of those who voted) cast ballots for parties that received less than the 1.5 percent minimum required. Qualifying threshold for representation (1.5 percent) - 47,226 votes. Quota per Knesset seat - 25,138 votes b Less than 0.1 percent of the vote.

Introduction

3

and in 1992 and 1999 those two answers were in the 40-45 percent range. When asked how well the government was handling problems, 81 percent thought it was doing not well at all or not well.3 This figure was down from the record high of 89 percent obtained in 2001, but higher than the respective results of 77, 53, and 69 percent in the 1992, 1996, and 1999 pre-election surveys. In addition, corruption scandals involving the Likud ruling party and Sharon personally took hold of the election campaign agenda. Sharon, how ever, led over Labor candidate Amram Mitzna on all leadership qualities, and the Likud was preferred over Labor in nearly all categories.4 The Likud, with Ariel Sharon at its head, won an extraordinary victory, leaving all other politi cal parties far behind. The Election Campaign On February 6, 2001, Ariel Sharon defeated Ehud Barak in the last election held under the direct election of the Prime Minister system. He put together a broad national unity government, which allowed him to stay in power for nearly two years, despite frequent coalition crises and constant threats and actual desertions of the Ihud Leumi, Am Ehad, Shas, Gesher and Labor. When the Labor ministers headed by “Fuad” Ben-Eliezer resigned over the budget on October 30, 2002, Sharon enlisted Benjamin Netanyahu and former chief of staff Shaul Mofaz to join his government. On November 5, Sharon went to the president, Moshe Katzav, notifying him that under the current conditions in the Knesset, the government could not continue its term, and asked him to dissolve the Knesset and announce early elections according to Article 22 of the Basic Law: The Government. Within days January 28, 2003 was set as the election date, and the short and intense campaign began. On November 19, Amram Mitzna, then mayor of Haifa, was elected in the Labor primaries to head its list, obtaining 54 percent of support over Ben-Eliezer’s 38 percent and Ramon’s 7 percent. On November 28, Ariel Sharon beat Netanyahu by 56 percent to 40 percent (a third candidate—Feiglin, obtained 3.5 percent) in the Likud primaries. Within a few weeks the politicians compiled their party lists. Labor’s primaries were held on December 9. However, public interest was focused on the Likud central party and the list of candidates that it selected. Charges of bribes, votes for sale, and involvement of activists with criminal records in the Likud party list selection process surfaced, and Prime Minister Sharon hastened to fire deputy minister Naomi Blumental, who refused to cooperate with the police investigation. Corruption scandals continued to plague the public agenda during the election campaign, with Labor party candidates accused of wrongdoing as well, and Prime Minister Sharon person ally implicated. While these developments seemed to hurt the Likud in the polls for a short while in early January, the Likud soon appeared to have recovered. In our pre-election survey, more voters regarded the Likud as more corrupt than Labor; however, a majority of voters saw both as corrupt. Except

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The Elections in Israel—2003

for voters for the Left, majorities in all other groups saw both parties as corrupt, and did not list corruption as an important consideration in their vote. Corrup tion, while prominent in the news and in the public mind, did not seem to have much actual impact on the vote. In this volume, Hofnung discusses the issues of election financing and their corrupting effects in the 2003 elections from a broad, structural perspective, and also provides recommendations for a better incentive structure that takes into account the constraints and opportunities of the electoral race. Many of the chapters in this volume relate to the decision to reject the system of direct election of the prime minister. The chapter by Kenig et al. addresses this theme directly, and points to significant effects of the reform’s adoption and repeal. The 2003 election was held under the proportional repre sentation system without direct election of the prime minister, and yet the campaign was very similar to the previous ones. The 2003 election, like the special election for prime minister in 2001, was held under the cloud of the ongoing Al-Aqsa Intifada (uprising). In 2001, the Intifada was in its fourth month and had claimed a few dozen Israeli casualties. By the 2003 elections, the violence and terror attacks had become a dreaded part of daily routine while the number of victims soared to several hundreds on the Israeli side, and many more on the Palestinian side. This context was unquestionably of primary importance in Israeli politics in 2003. Neverthe less, the issues pertaining to this round of confrontation (security, terrorism, territories, settlements, Palestinians, Jerusalem) did not dominate media cov erage of the election campaign as they had in 2001, which focused on eco nomic and social issues and on corruption (Weimann and Sheafer, forthcoming). In 2001, 79 percent in the Israel National Election Study pre-election survey named a security and foreign affairs issue as the most important issue facing the government; in 2003, the electorate was split between those issues and domestic (mainly economic) issues. Almost half of the 2003 survey declared that their personal economic situation had worsened in the last year. From this perspective, the discussion by Shalev and Levy to explore the role of class in voting behavior is especially noteworthy. An attempt to disqualify Arab candidates and lists from running in the elections was a conspicuous repercussion from the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Attempts at disqualification are not new, but according to the chair of the Central Elec tions Committee, this time was unique in the number of applications, their quality, the amount of evidence presented to the committee, the length of the deliberations and heightened emotions involved, and the boldness of the politics overall (Cheshin 2003: 11). In 2002, the Knesset passed legislation that allowed for banning single candidates, not only of lists, and also added an additional criteria for disqualification: support for the struggle of an enemy state or of a terrorist organization against Israel. The politically constituted Central Elections Committee disqualified two Arab candidates and one list,

Introduction

5

only to have these decisions reversed later by the Supreme Court. These unique developments are analyzed in the chapters by Pedahzur and by Shamir and Weinshall. In the later stages of the campaign, when Sharon and the Likud emerged as the clear front-runners, there was much discussion of the coalition possibili ties awaiting Sharon. The chapter by Aldrich et al. focuses on these instrumen tal considerations in the voters’ calculus. Sharon took much less than the permitted 42 days to form a coalition, and on February 27, 2003, he presented his newly formed coalition government to the Knesset. The coalition was made up of the Likud, Shinui, Mafdal, and fluid Leumi. Two other possibilities much talked about during the campaign, a coalition with Labor or with the ultra-Orthodox parties, were eschewed. Election Results and Voting Behavior Thirteen lists received more than the 1.5 percent threshold needed for rep resentation from among the 27 lists on the ballot (see Table 1.1). Once again, a highly fragmented Knesset was the result (see chapter 2 in this volume, Table 2.1 and Figure 2.3). The big loser in this election was the left. Labor and Meretz were down to 19 and 6 seats from 26 and 10, respectively in the outgoing Knesset. The newcomer to national politics, Amram Mitzna, the head of Labor’s list, was unable to overcome the disillusionment following the collapse of the Camp David and Taba meetings between Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak, and Yasser Arafat in 2000. Many of Labor’s voters deserted them in favor of the centrist Shinui, the big winner of the 2003 election, which grew from 6 seats in the previous Knesset to 15. Shinui’s leader, Tommy Lapid, was a well-known journalist and an outspoken presence in Israeli politics. His “outsider” image and strong opinions against the religious and the difficulties of the middle class appealed to many who wanted to break the habit of voting Labor or left, but did not want to vote Likud. The chapter by Arian and Shamir discusses Shinui’s success within the context of the dealignment and volatility characterizing the Israeli party system. On another level, the analyses by Shalev and Levy and by Aldrich et al., suggest various explanations for Shinui’s success, from class, ethnicity, and the religious-secular schism, to strategic instrumental vote considerations regarding the next coalition government. The contribution of the voters from the former Soviet Union to Shinui’s success is analyzed by Goldstein and Gitelman in chapter 11. However, the most conspicuous result of the elections was the domineering status of the Likud in the Knesset and in Israeli politics. With the newly added two Knesset members of Israel B’Aliya, the Likud numbered 40 MKs, exactly a third of the parliament. Labor, once the dominant party, was now less than half its size. Furthermore, it was rent by personal animosities and paralyzed in terms of articulating policy alternatives. Given the Likud’s size and position

6

The Elections in Israel—2003

in the center of the policy space, Sharon could pick and choose his coalition partners, and his new government was sworn in within a month of the election. The Arian-Shamir chapter considers these election results from a long-term perspective, and investigates whether the 2003 elections signify the begin ning of a new period of Likud dominance in Israeli politics. Despite the shift to the right, the 2003 election exhibits the same voter alignments as in the past. Older, secular, better-off and Ashkenazi voters tended to the left, whereas the young, less well-to-do, more religious, and Mizrachi voters opted for the right (Shamir and Arian, 1999). Table 1.2 presents analyses of voting intentions in our 2003 pre-election survey. The first vote variable encompasses the right-religious and left bloc voters, with Center voters left out. The second vote variable juxtaposes the right-religious vs. left and center voters. When we compare right-religious with left voters, Vote (1), only on socio demographic characteristics (first column, panel I), we see that age, gender, socioeconomic status (density of dwelling and income), religion, and Mizrachi background are significant. However, once we also include in the analysis voters’ positions on selected issues and performance evaluations (panel III in Table 1.2), none of these variables remains statistically significant. When only issues are added (panel II), age, ethnicity, and religiosity remain the only significant socio-demographic factors. Security and foreign affairs issues con centrating on the territories dominated issue voting and performance evalua tions. Performance evaluations in this area are a more important determinant of the vote than performance evaluations in the economic area. Of the three issue dimensions, the cleavage over the territories outdistances the two do mestic issues of state-religion and economic policy. Comparing the Vote (1) and Vote (2) results, we see that age is a significant factor distinguishing right and left voters, but not right vs. left+center voters.5 The left was deserted by the young, who flocked to the center and to the right, and therefore there is no significant difference in age when the center is com bined with the left. We also note that once all variables are included in the analysis (panel III), income, religiosity, and ethnicity remain significant in distinguishing between voters for the right and left+center voters beyond their issue positions and evaluations. In terms of issues, in both equations, the territorial issue predominates. However, the socioeconomic issue is more im portant in distinguishing left from right voters, whereas the state-religion is sue is more important in predicting right from left+center voters. These differences highlight the shift in the locus of the religious-secular cleavage from the left to the center, and the socioeconomic divide between the two camps, which is expressed in income and ethnicity differences when we look at the left+center bloc vs. the right, but in a socialist vs. capitalist cast when we try to distinguish left from right. These results are reviewed in the Shalev and Levy chapter, which sets out to establish class voting and class politics in

Introduction

7

Table 1.2 Vote 2003a: Logistic Regressions

Variable I. Socio-demographic

Age Gender Density of Dwelling Education Income Religious Observance Ethnic Background

Vote a ) Right vs. Left B (s.e.)

-.10*** -.40* .49* -.12 -.26*** -1.10*** -.60* N=652

Vote (2) Right vs. Left+Center (s.e.) b

(.04) (.19) (.25) (.14) (.08) (.13) (.25) 73 percentb

-.03 -.25 .42* -.20 _ 26*** -1.13*** -.66** N=760

(.03) (.17) (.21) (.13) (.07) (.12) (.22) 72 percent

(.05) (.25) (.29) (.17) (.10) (.19) (.31) (.16) (.11) (.13) 85 percent (+12 percent)c

-.02 -.28 .02 -.19 -.17* - .79 * * * -.76** 221*** -.33*** . 37***

(.04) (.21) (.24) (.15) (.09) (.26) (.26) (.12) (.09) (.10) 81 percent (+9 percent)

II. Socio-demographic + Issues

Age Gender Density of Dwelling Education Income Religious Observance Ethnic Background Territories Socioeconomic State-Religion

-.12** -.43 .05 -.15 -.16 -.83*** -.86** 1.55*** -.54*** -.20 N=627

N=732

III. Socio-demographic + Issues+ Performance Evaluation

Age Gender Density of Dwelling Education Income Religious Observance Ethnic Background Territories Socioeconomic State-Religion Performance - Economic Performance - Security

-.13 -.30 .52 -.13 -.18 -.53 -.43 1.03*** -.56** -.35 1.76*** 2.13*** N=623

(.08) (.41) (.46) (.27) (.16) (.31) (.47) (.25) (.18) (.21) (.32) (.28) 95 percent (+10 percent)

-.01 -.32 -.04 -.26 -.21* _ 74*** -.65* 73*** -.23* -.42** 1.13*** 141***

N=726

(.05) (.26) (.30) (.19) (.11) (.19) (.32) (.15) (.12) (.13) (.20) (.19) 89 percent (+8 percent)

a Dependent variable 2003: (1) Vote Right vs. Left Bloc (Center left out); (2) Vote Right vs. Left and Center. The data cover Jewish voters only (N= 1,083). For details on the wording and the coding of the variables, see Shamir and Arian, 1999, Appendices A and B. b Total percentage of correct predictions. c Change in percentage of correct predictions.* p=15

is also reported.) Since large numbers of cases are involved, Table 8.2 utilizes stringent criteria of statistical significance (one asterisk requires a t value of at least 5, compared with the conventional minimum of 2). The results resoundingly affirm the strong independent influence of both ethnicity and class on voting, even after controlling for locality characteris tics that proxy for deep ideological cleavages. Ethnicity exerts the strongest influence on voting, irrespective of which party or election is considered. Still, except for the Likud,7 the net effect of class on the vote is substantial, despite the fact that living standards are quite strongly correlated with two of the variables controlled in the regression: ethnicity (r = -.52) and the presence of the ulta-Orthodox (r = -.48). A second important question that can be addressed with the help of regres sions is: What changed and what remained the same between 2003 and the

The W inners and Losers of 2003

177

previous elections? The results show that the standardized effects of both ethnicity and class are strikingly similar for 1999 and 2003. The only shifts of any note are that the Likud became more attractive to Mizrachim and Shas less so. Thus, the socio-structural bases of partisan support exhibit marked conti nuity in spite of the profound shifts in the distribution of party support that occurred in the most recent elections. Finally, we tested for the possibility that class and ethnic voting are contin gent on the ethnic character of localities. This can be inferred from comparison of results for Ashkenazi and Mizrachi areas. (For the sake of brevity these are only reported for Shas and Shinui.) The main result for Shas, foreseen by our chart, is the far greater importance of class voting in Mizrachi localities. The determinants of Shinui’s success vary substantially with the ethnic character of the locality. In Ashkenazi communities, the party benefits from secularism (the absence of the ultra-Orthodox) and affluence. In Mizrachi areas, ethnicity is the key factor. These relationships are similar in 1999 and 2003, although the exceptions are interesting. In Mizrachi localities the 2003 elections saw the emergence of a class vote for Shinui and a decline in Mizrachi support for Shas. The result for Shas clearly reflects the return of many Mizrachim to the Likud. The result for Shinui probably stems from the relatively high concen trations of FSU voters in some Mizrachi areas (notably in development towns). Discussion: (R einterpreting Electoral Success and Failure in Israel How can the Likud’s reclaiming of the political center, the rise of Shinui, and the decline of Shas be explained? To what extent do these outcomes reflect a fundamental change in the political preferences of non-Arab voters? Given the extent of the partisan shifts that took place in 2003, it is perhaps surprising that many of our findings point to stability. This is particularly true of the strong and persistent effects of class and ethnicity on issue positions and party choice, effects that are suggested by Shafir and Peled’s analysis. In rela tion to issues, other than the overall rightward shift of opinion, our analysis indicates greater continuity than change in the positions of parties on Israel’s left-right spectrum. We maintain that in order to resolve the paradox of sharp shifts in voting against a background of ostensible social and ideological continuity, it is necessary to situate the impact of class on voting within the wider political and political-economic context of the 2003 elections. In addition, because our empirical findings alone cannot answer the questions we have posed, interpreta tion must play a major role. Here we try to build on the Shafir/Peled model, which was our analytical starting-point, while also debating its assertions. Likud, Shas, and Mizrachi Voters What explains the Likud’s remarkable success at the polls in 2003? It is doubtless true that the Likud’s position, which privileges military responses

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The Elections in Israel—2003

to Palestinian resistance and supports an ethnocentric concept of Israeliness, resonates with the reescalation of armed conflict since October 2000. Our empirical exposure of the Likud’s centrism, its ideological proximity to the “median voter,” would appear to confirm this view. Yet, as contemporary com mentators repeatedly observe, the Likud holds amorphous and contradictory positions on crucial issues. Indeed, the party’s spectacular losses in the 1999 elections (Mendilow, 2002) were attributed to its lack of a clear-cut stance on controversial questions. What, it might be asked, turned this same equivocal ness into an asset in 2003? Clearly, the changing context is what made the difference. But still, it is worth considering a counterfactual scenario. In principle, the most important changes of circumstance in the intervening period—the failure of the Clintonsponsored peace process, the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, and the violent turn in relations between Arabs and Jews inside Israel—might have under scored the urgency of more thoroughgoing Israeli concessions and brought a resounding victory to the left. It was the militaristic and ethnocentric biases deeply ingrained in Israel’s state institutions and in the hegemonic core of Jewish-Israeli culture that acted as “switchmen,” directing the responses of both elites and the mass public onto the ideological tracks that are the Likud’s home ground. As we noted in the introduction, this is consistent with Kimmerling’s (2001) argument that militarism and Jewishness are the deep cultural pillars on which non-Arab Israeli society stands.8 It is not consistent with Peled and Shafir’s emphasis on liberalization and peacemaking, which, in retrospect, only partially and conditionally sidelined these more enduring elements of “being Israeli.” Peled and Shafir were thus not only unduly opti mistic about the viability of the peace process, but also overly attentive to the contentious features of political culture at the expense of its less contingent core. The predictive failure of their analysis does not invalidate Shafir and Peled’s theoretical framework however, especially its insight that Israel’s enduring identity dilemmas are implicated in conflicting interests and struggles for power, privilege, and material resources. In the present context this raises the question of who stands to gain from supporting the Likud and how? At a glance the Likud’s “beneficiaries” are hard to identify. Our results showed that in 2003 it succeeded in attracting voters that were relatively diverse, both socially and ideologically. This heterogeneity lends further credence to the view that the Likud succeeded because of congruence between its chief policy thrust and the ideas that dominate the consciousness and discourse of Israeli Jews. On the other hand, the continuing Mizrachi bias in the Likud constituency, and the specific importance of the Mizrachi vote swing from Shas to Likud, indicate the need to probe the specific motives of this group of supporters. Shafir and Peled’s interpretation of the Likud’s advantage among Mizrachim since 1977 emphasizes their rejection of Labor’s republicanism, which had

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been used to marginalize both Mizrachim and the veteran Ashkenazim who led the Herut party (Shapiro, 1991). They build on Peled’s earlier work on Shas (Peled, 1998, 2001), in which he argued that the party’s rapid ascendancy in the 1990s was best explained in terms of political economy and the national conflict that together placed Mizrachi Jews in a contradictory position be tween middle-class Ashkenazim and the Palestinian lower class, rather than the traditionalist cultural preferences of Mizrachi voters. In terms of the mul tiple citizenship paradigm, Shas’s variant of ethno-nationalism was seen as an alternative to both the republican and liberal discourses of citizenship pro pounded by the dominant Ashkenazim, which excluded or devalued Mizrachim. Instead, Shas promotes a religion-based conception of Israeliness that accen tuates the value of the principal form of cultural capital of poorer Mizrachi voters, viz., traditional Jewishness. We accept this interpretation, with two modifications. First, Peled correctly argued that there are good reasons to expect Mizrachim to ally themselves symbolically with the Ashkenazim, their antagonists in class terms, rather than the Arabs, who are the national adversaries of all Jews. But he failed to recog nize that this can be achieved by rejection of the Arabs as well as by identifi cation with the Jews. It is no accident that the heyday of Shas’s religious-Jewish vision of Israeli identity occurred when the Israeli-Palestinian dispute ap peared to be moving towards resolution and the integration of Mizrachim by virtue of their Jewishness was threatened by the rising status of Israeli Arabs and the emergence of a post-Zionist discourse on the far left. The subsequent resurgence of the conflict hence explains the return of many Mizrachim to the Likud. With the Oslo process “dead,” with Jews thrown together in a shared experience of victimization by terror and with Arab citizens’ political legiti mation at a new low, Mizrachim could once again easily position themselves as virtuous Israelis simply by being patriotic Jews. At the same time, we should be wary of generalizations that bracket “the Mizrachim” as a single homogeneous category. Our ecological analysis strongly suggests that Shas’s success among the Mizrachim is acutely sensitive to their class situation. We also interrogated the survey data for distinguishing charac teristics of voters who remained loyal to Shas in 2003. Results not presented here suggest that the ultra-Orthodox and women predominated among the loyalists, but were absent among deserters to the Likud. The religious bias is consistent with Shas’s shift towards the ultra-Orthodox camp over the years (Chetrit, 2001; Levy and Emmerich, 2001; Ben-Haim, 2003), although both effects may also have an economic dimension. By way of illustration, Shas’s school system has freed many Mizrachi women for employment as well as directly providing jobs as teachers and principals. Our second comment on Peled’s analysis is that the significance of status politics in driving Mizrachi support for Shas should not be allowed to over shadow the role of class interests. Shas has not only promised to offset social

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and economic exclusion by raising the status of Mizrachim, but its schools and religious institutions also furnish concrete means for satisfying the mate rial interests of the economically disadvantaged. This alternative route to social protection is reflected in our data on voter ideologies. Shas supporters are relatively favorable towards economic collectivism (socialism is preferred to capitalism), but results not reported earlier indicate that they are the only group of Jewish voters whose support for expansion of the welfare state is noticeably lukewarm. This is because Shas has served disadvantaged Mizrachim by a differ ent strategy of redistribution, based on state subsidization of religious institu tions, parochial schools, and settlement in the occupied territories. These subsidies create jobs and lower the cost of childcare, religious studies, and housing, strengthening Shas in much the same way as state subsidization of the Histadrut historically fortified Mapai (Levy, 1995; Tessler, 2001). Thus, a combination of cultural and class explanations goes a long way towards explaining the Mizrachi vote swing from Shas to the Likud in 2003. Mizrachim were especially susceptible to the symbolic appeal to core Israeli values that was embodied in the Likud’s new centrism because, at a time when the resurgent conflict with the Palestinians stressed the common destiny of Jewish Israelis, their symbolic status as Jews could be validated without in voking a religious conception of Jewishness. Not all of them succumbed to the Likud temptation, however. Those Mizrachim who remained loyal to Shas in 2003 were those who could least afford to break with the party economically and/or were most serious about religion in their personal lives. The Dovish Left and Ashkenazi Voters Configurations of class, ethnicity, and culture are also identifiable on the opposite pole of the spectrum, helping to explain the fate of Shinui, Meretz, and Labor at the polls in 2003. Whereas Labor’s decline may be easily attrib uted to political circumstances (its role in the previous national unity coali tion; its lack of a credible and undisputed leader, etc.) this will not suffice to explain why support for Shinui has skyrocketed while Meretz suffered de cline. Ideology offers a partial answer to this question. Our findings showed that in relation to both hawkishness and political liberalism, Shinui’s support ers differed from the other dovish parties and were located midway to the Likud. It might be argued that Shinui’s less stringently “leftist” ideology made it more attractive to the left-wing electorate following the outbreak of the Intifada, in comparison with the declining legitimacy of Meretz’s conspicuously “proArab” positions on the one hand, and Labor’s blurred image on the other. But just as we saw vis-a-vis Shas, ethnic particularities and the class composition of the party’s constituency suggest that this is only part of the story. Like Labor and especially Meretz, Shinui attracts very little support from Mizrachim and voters with low socioeconomic standing.9 The similarities between the socio-demographic profile of Shinui’s non-Russian supporters

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and Meretz voters accentuate the puzzle of why the political fates of these two parties were so different in 2003. Writing prior to this parting of the ways, Shafir and Peled emphasized the commonalities of the discourse propounded by Meretz, Shinui, and the Labor party factions that collectively came to represent the liberal, affluent, and dovish segment of the Ashkenazi middle class. In retrospect, it is clear that “peace and privatization” was always a loose common denominator for these groups, and has become increasingly so in the new millennium. As Uri Ram (2000) pointed out, the twin transformations of globalization and peacemaking in the 1990s underscored a perennial contra diction between the domestic and geopolitical aspirations of the Israeli left. Meretz’s own left wing explicitly embodied this contradiction, with its aspira tion to make peace without succumbing to privatization. Shinui, on the other hand, was always less dovish (a difference accentuated after Yosef Lapid took over) and more capitalist oriented. After the collapse of the Camp David summit in the summer of 2000, these differences between the two parties became even more relevant to their respec tive constituencies. But previously, during the 1990s when the middle classes continued to benefit from the new geopolitical and economic order, Meretz could still be seen as a genuine representative of the liberal citizenship dis course. Subsequently, when the peace process stalled, the terms of Meretz’s competition with Shinui for the support of affluent or would-be affluent voters were altered. Shinui’s particular attraction to three specific groups explains its current ascendency over Meretz. Middle-class Ashkenazi voters were attracted by Shinui’s enmity towards Shas, which symbolized deeper discontent with the social and economic as well as political gains achieved by Mizrachim during the 1980s and 1990s. It is true that Meretz militantly echoed the cry of “anything but Shas!” that was popular among left-wing voters after Ehud Barak’s election in 1999. But by 2003 the party was tainted by its problematic collaboration with Shas in Barak’s coalition government. Shinui’s vociferous anti-Shas campaign in the 2003 elections consolidated its advantage. FSU voters’ attraction to Shinui is also consistent with the hypothesis of ethnic competition over material and symbolic resources. Here, too, ethnic animosity was the most visible expression of this competition. But no less importantly, those immigrants who had more favorable economic prospects were attracted by Shinui’s pro-market orientation. In addition, given the lack of religiously certifiable Jewishness of many Russian immigrants, they have a clear interest in liberal or republican criteria of membership and merit rather than Shas’s religiously based ethno-nationalism. At the same time, FSU voters recoil from Meretz (which agrees with Shinui that Israeliness should be consti tuted on non-religious grounds) because of its socialist heritage. Younger and first-time voters bear the weight of most military service that the upsurge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict demands. They appear to reject Meretz’s

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extreme dovishness, even though they might otherwise be attracted to its insistence (shared with Shinui) that all citizens, including the ultra-Orthodox, ought to comply with the republican obligation to serve in the army. Hence, although our findings are incongruent with Shafir and Peled’s an ticipation that the middle class would remain loyal to its “peace and privatization” program, class interests did play a major role in the vote shifts on the left.10 Shinui’s voters are the most affluent (or would-be affluent) among the left, and their vote for the more hawkish Shinui did not endanger their class interests. This is evident in the current government’s economic policy, which promotes the vision of a neo-liberal Israel. Nonetheless, the shift of votes from Meretz (and to a lesser degree from Labor) to Shinui was also bound up with a shifting notion of Israeli identity. The resurgence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict revitalized Jewish ethno-nationalism on the left, helped drive these voters away from Meretz’s “universalism,” and, by the same token, sharpened the conflict between the “secular” middle class and the “religious” lower class. Under these circumstances, those seeking to re-cast their vote within the confines of the Jewish-Israeli consensus found Shinui’s combination of liber alism and ethno-nationalism more attractive than what any other party on the left had to offer. One final reflection is in order. The linkages that we have posited between class interests and partisan choice are for the most part indirect—based on the “objective” class situation of the agents but not always on their “subjective” consciousness. Shas and Shinui exhibit the most consistent relationship be tween these two realms. They, to a greater extent than the other parties being considered here, not only express cultural and ethnic rivalry but also represent opposed pairings of social basis and perceived class interest: middle-class and “pro-capitalist” Shinui supporters versus the lower-class and “pro-socialist” Shas electorate. In the Israeli setting, however, this overlap only partially evolves into overt class politics. The reasons for this are explained by Shafir and Peled’s model, to which we now return. Conclusion We began by suggesting that neither the return to single-ballot voting nor the ideological preferences of non-Arab voters are adequate explanations for the major vote swings in the 2003 elections. We proposed that a reaffirmation of the effect of class voting would better account for the outcomes of the elections. In order to provide a firm interpretive base for the empirical finding according to which class shapes voting, we also made use of Shafir and Peled’s model of “multiple citizenship,” with a view to augmenting its capacity to explain the connections between class interests, cultural manifestations, and voter preferences. Our major findings show that Shafir and Peled still offer the most adequate framework available for analyzing the effects of class and ethnicity on the

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voting of non-Arab Israelis. Their model’s postulation of the key axis of politi cal conflict in Israel as a struggle between liberalism and ethno-nationalism offers an explanation for positions on the hawk/dove cleavage, rather than simply defining it as another issue. It also explains why this struggle is charac terized by issues of ethnicity. This interpretation is confirmed by evidence that vote swings among Mizrachim occurred mainly within the confines of the right, whereas the Ashkenazi vote shifted mainly within the left. However, their model is limited by the assumption that the various discourses of citizen ship are mutually exclusive. As we argued in the previous section, this per spective may have been applicable during the era of domestic dissent and Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement, but not in the context of the 2003 elec tions, which were marked by internal consensus and external confrontation. The political consequences are most visible in the gains made by the Likud and Shinui, parties that both advocate, albeit to differing degrees, key ele ments of all three of the citizenship discourses. We do not mean to imply that the restructuring of the relationship between the three discourses is in some sense the inevitable consequence of external pressures. It is important to recognize the mediating role of political leader ship in defining the contours of the public debate, and also the specific inter ests of the state in highlighting one discourse and obscuring another (Levy and Emmerich, 2001). In their dual capacity as politicians and state execu tives, government leaders have used both rhetoric and policy to invoke the twin “meta codes” that reshaped the consciousness of non-Arab voters. After the failure of the Camp David talks, Prime Minister Barak and Foreign Minis ter Ben-Ami sought to reinvoke the hegemonic consensus and regain legiti macy by accentuating the significance of the “Jewish holy places” (Kodshei Yisrael). When Ariel Sharon came into office, he and his Foreign Minister Shimon Peres asserted that military might is the necessary response to the Intifada, as well as the need to secure the Jewish character of the State. The major beneficiary of this ideological restructuring was the Likud, but Shinui was also bolstered by the disengagement of the peace process and economic liberalism. As Peled himself has pointed out,11 this disengagement is evident in the policies of the Sharon-Netanyahu government. These represent a synthesis between economic neo-liberalism and militant ethno-nationalism. By the same token, Shinui’s electoral success appears to result from its unique combination of political and economic liberalism with a centrist (under current conditions, hawkish) position towards Arabs and the national conflict. Yet the resurgence of the hegemonic militaristic and Jewish discourses does not necessarily con tradict developments in the political economy. The fact that issues of eco nomic reform are once again overshadowed by Arab-Israeli bloodshed is one explanation for the timing of the extensive reform program introduced by Netanyahu and the Finance Ministry. The renewed salience of militarism and

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ethno-nationalism may therefore actually serve the proponents of economic liberalization.12 To recapitulate, Shafir and Peled erred not only by failing to anticipate the violent resurgence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the subsequent re vival of the hegemonic Zionist consensus, but also by overstating the di chotomy between ethno-nationalism and liberalism. This was made apparent in 2003 by the vote swings between Shas and the Likud on one side and Meretz and Shinui on the other. While the constituencies of both right and left remained clearly identifiable by class and ethnicity, we have shown that less privileged Mizrachi voters were not strictly confined to the religiously based identity offered by Shas, and neither were more privileged Ashkenazim exclu sively committed to liberalism. The Likud’s posture made its “less religious” version of ethno-nationalism appealing to those Mizrachim whose class inter ests were less contingent on Shas’s success, and thereby re-established itself as the political home of the Mizrachim. Similarly, Shinui successfully addressed the interests of middle-class Ashkenazim in economic liberalization, while its evocation of their “secular” variant of ethno-nationalism allowed these voters to reclaim their position as patriotic Jews— a position incompatible with Meretz’s “radicalism.” Thus, Shas’s losses on the right and Shinui’s gains on the left, affirm the prevalence of class voting in Israel, while at the same time demonstrating how the national conflict, status competition, and cultural di versity continue to keep class voting from developing into class politics. N otes 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

We use the term non-Arabs, instead of Jews, as it better reflects the composition of the Israeli population following the 1990s immigration from the FSU (Lustick, 1999). We sometimes use the term “Russians” as a shorthand reference to “new immigrants from the former Soviet Union.” Like the terms Ashkenazim and Mizrachim, which we also apply loosely, this reflects the way they are used in the public realm, itself a comment on the ethnicized character of Israeli society (Levy, 2002). The Arian-Shamir questionnaire presents difficulties for studying class voting, since it provides no information on respondents’ occupations and its measure of family income/expenditure is problematic (Shalev and Kis, 2002:71, n4). The SES indica tor in Table 8.1 is based on the following composite formula (where all the variables are binary): high education [college degree]—low education [up to 12 years] + low housing density [under 1.3 persons per room]—high housing density [at or above 1.3 persons per room] + high family expenditure [the top two of the five categories offered]—low family expenditure [the bottom two categories]. The results ranged between -3 and +3 before we converted them to standard scores. We conducted a series of stepwise logistic regressions testing a range of predictors of the probability of voting for each one of our five parties. The SES indicator was entered along with eight others measuring age, sex, ethnicity, and key attitudinal variables. The study of the 1999 elections utilized data on smaller units, Statistical Areas, which are typically towns or city neighborhoods. Although the present research relies on a

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smaller number of less internally homogeneous units, we obtained very similar results for the 1999 elections to those reported by Shalev and Kis. 6. The presence of the ultra-Orthodox in a locality is measured by a scale based on two indicators (percent of Yeshiva-educated men and non-response to the census). “Settle ments” is a dummy variable for localities in the occupied territories. We also experi mented with a dummy variable for “development towns” and a measure of “Russian dominance” but found they had negligible effects on the results. 7. Meretz in 2003 is also an exception. However a conditional regression for 2003 that is not reported in Table 8.2 shows evidence of a class vote for Meretz outside of Ashkenazi communities. 8. Specifically, Kimmerling (2001, esp. chapters 6-7) refers to two “meta codes.” One is the “military-cultural complex,” featuring kochaniyut and bitchonism, which is to say that Arab-Israeli relations are instinctively interpreted using the language of “security” and resolved by the use of force. The other is the “Jewish” collective identity common to all Jewish Israelis that blurs the boundaries between nationalism (Zionism) and religion (Judaism). 9. The average SES score of Shinui supporters was depressed by Shinui’s large contin gents of Russian supporters and young first-time voters. Nevertheless, data from an analysis of voter transitions not reported here shows that Shinui’s voters in both of these groups were noticeably more affluent than their counterparts who voted for other parties. 10. An analysis, not reported here, of voting transitions between 1999 and 2003 supports this claim. Shinui’s recruits from the left were not only younger but also more affluent than those who remained loyal to either Labor or Meretz. Ideologically they were much more capitalist in their worldview (they were also more secular and less dovish, but not as sharply). In fact, a standard deviation of more than 1.3 separated the positions of Meretz loyalists and deserters to Shinui on the socialism/capitalism question. 11. Peled’s remarks were made at a workshop convened to discuss the Shafir/Peled volume at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem on May 9,2003. 12. We do not mean to imply that this combination can triumph in the long run. The welfare state still remains an indispensable means whereby to legitimate the burdens imposed on Israeli citizens by the war with the Palestinians. The fiscal and distribu tional costs of settlement and military conflict make it virtually impossible for the welfare state to make way for “free markets.”

References Andersen, Robert, and Meir Yaish. 2003. “Social Cleavages, Electoral Reform, and Party Choice: Israel’s ‘Natural’ Experiment.” Electoral Studies 22 (3): 399-423. Ben-Haim, Avishai. 2003. “The Great Revolt.” M a’ariv Weekend Supplement, 18 April (Hebrew). Brooks, Clem, and Jeff Manza. 1997. “Class Politics and Political Change in the United States, 1952-1992.” Social Forces 76 (2):379-408. Chetrit, Sami Shalom. 2001. “Catch 17: Between Haredism and Mizrachiut.” In Y. Peled, ed., Shas—The Challenge oflsraeliness, 21-51. Tel Aviv: Miskal—Yedioth Ahronoth Books and Chemed Books (Hebrew). Della Pergola, Sergio. 1991. “Voting Behavior.” In U. O. Schmelz, S. DellaPergola, and U. Avne, eds., Ethnic Differences among Israeli Jews: A New Look, 79-101, 98-204. Jerusalem: Hebrew University Institute of Contemporary Jewry. Diskin, Abraham. 1991. Elections and Voters in Israel. New York: Praeger. Dogan, Mattei and Stein Rokkan. 1969. Quantitative Ecological Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.

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Huckfeldt, Robert, and John Sprague. 1993. “Citizens, Contexts, and Politics.” In A. W. Finifter, ed., Political Science: The State o f the Discipline //, 281-303. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association. Kimmerling, Baruch. 2001. The Invention and Decline oflsraeliness: State, Society, and the Military. Berkeley: University of California Press. King, Gary. 1997. A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem: Reconstructing Indi­ vidual Behavior from Aggregate Data. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Levy, Gal. 1995. “And Thanks to the Ashkenazim...: The Politics of Mizrachi Ethnicity in Israel.” M.A. Thesis, Department of Political Science, Tel Aviv University (Hebrew). Levy, Gal. 2002. “Ethnicity and Education: Nation-Building, State-Formation, and the Construction of the Israeli Educational System.” Ph.D. diss., London School of Eco nomics and Political Science. Levy, Gal, and Zeev Emmerich. 2001. “Shas and the ‘Ethnic Phantom.’” In Y. Peled, ed., Shas— The Challenge o f Israeliness, 126-58. Tel Aviv: Miskal - Yedioth Ahronoth Books and Chemed Books (Hebrew). Lustick, I. S. 1999. “Israel as a Non-Arab State: The Political Implications of Mass Immigration of Non-Jews.” Middle East Journal 53 (3):417-33. Matras, Judah. 1965. Social Change in Israel. Chicago: Aldine. Mendilow, Jonathan. 2002. “The Likud’s Campaign and the Headwaters of Defeat.” In A. Arian and M. Shamir, eds., The Elections in Israel, 1999, 197-220. Albany: State University of New York Press. Peled, Yoav. 1998. “Towards a Redefinition of Jewish Nationalism in Israel? The Enigma of Shas.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21(4):703-27. Peled, Yoav, ed. 2001. Shas— The Challenge o f Israeliness. Tel Aviv: Miskal - Yedioth Ahronoth Books and Chemed Books (Hebrew). Ram, Uri. 2000. “The Promised Land of Business Opportunities: Liberal Post-Zionism in the Global Age.” In G. Shafir and Y. Peled, eds., The New Israel: Peacemaking and Liberalization, chapter 9. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Segiv-Shifter, Tami, and Michal Shamir. 2002. “Israel as a Laboratory for the Study of Political Tolerance.” Deot Be A m 6:1-16 (Hebrew). Shafir, Gershon, and Yoav Peled. 2002. Being Israeli: The Dynamics o f Multiple Citizen­ ship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shalev, Michae,l and Sigal Kis. 2002. “Social Cleavages among Non-Arab Voters: A New Analysis.” In A. Arian and M. Shamir, eds., The Elections in Israel, 1999,67-96. Albany: State University of New York Press. Shamir, M., and A. Arian. 1999. “Collective Identity and Electoral Competition in Israel.” American Political Science Review 93 (2):265-77. Shamir, Michal, and Asher Arian. 1982. “The Ethnic Vote in Israel’s 1981 Elections.” Electoral Studies 1 (3): 315-31. [Hebrew version in Yonathan Shapiro, 1991. The Road to Power: Herut Party in Israel. Albany: State University of New York Press.] Smith, Hanoch. 1969. Everything About the Elections in Israel. Tel Aviv: Cherikover (Hebrew). Tessler, Ricki. 2001. “The Cost of Revolution.” In Y. Peled, ed., Shas— The Challenge o f Israeliness, 210-278. Tel Aviv: Miskal—Yedioth Aharonoth Books and Chemed Books (Hebrew). Weiss, Shevach. 1997.14,729 Missing Votes: Summary Analysis o f the Results o f Elec­ tions to the Fourteenth Knesset and the Premiership—1996. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad.

9 Religious Zionism and the National Religious Party in the 2003 Elections: An Attempt to Respond to the Challenges of Religious, Ethnic, and Political Schism Asher Cohen

Introduction “The NRP,” as humorously expressed by the journalist Uri Orbach, “is the only party for which most of its supporters do not vote” (Orbach, 2002:42-43). This paradox is the embodiment of the convoluted and complex reciprocal relationship between the vast majority of religious Zionists and the NRP. For many of them, the NRP continues to be the focus of considerable and varied attention, and mainly the subject of criticism, although a large proportion of them do not vote for it. This is not the usual type of criticism leveled by voters of a rival party, but criticism characterized by a style and atmosphere more suited to a family affair, with a mixture of fervor, emotion and hope, expecta tion and disappointment. Party activists and leaders seem to consider all reli gious Zionists as prodigal children who need to be returned home. The party slogan in 1999, “The NRP is right at your side,” had two messages: one relat ing to the party’s position in the right-wing camp on a political level, and the second message touching on the party’s concern for its voters in spheres that go beyond political representation. The party’s slogan for the 2003 elections, “Safeguarding our home,” also hints at the same two messages in the political and the social-cultural spheres. Considerable weight was given to broadcasts presenting religious Zionists voting for the Likud as “suckers,” voting for a party in which they suffer from under-representation. These broadcasts are not only part of the party’s strategy to increase its strength; they reflect its aspira187

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tion to see the decisive majority of religious Zionists under its wing, as a political expression of the unity of the religious Zionist camp, differentiated and defined in cultural and ideological terms. This chapter will consider the very existence of such unity and the possibility of recreating it. The hope and aspiration of enlisting the support of the majority of religious Zionists for the NRP is based on its historic achievements in the distant past, and its exceptional and one-time success in the more recent past. Until the political reversal and rise of the Likud to power in 1977, the NRP regularly achieved between ten and twelve seats in the Knesset. After four election campaigns between 1981 and 1992, in which it only obtained between four and six Knesset seats, in the 1996 elections the party succeeded in approach ing its former glory with nine seats. In the 1999 and 2003 elections, the NRP returned to its regular level since the political upset in 1977: five seats in 1999, and six seats in the 2003 election (Figure 9.1). This chapter will analyze voting patterns of the religious Zionist public in two inter-related and inter-connected circles: one circle will deal with an analysis of the breakdown of votes and voting patterns for the NRP, which has the support of about half of the religious Zionist public; and the other circle will examine the breakdown of votes and voting patterns of religious Zionists for other parties which are the NRP’s main rivals for the same potential group of voters. The discussion will focus on three fault lines crossing the religious Zionist camp: political, ethnic, and religious. These three fault lines explain Figure 9.1 NRP Election Achievements 1949-2003

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the fact that about half of the religious Zionists vote for other parties, and the difficulty of the NRP in recreating its achievements of the past; furthermore, these fault lines run across NRP voters themselves, making it hard for the party to form a clear policy that will properly reflect and satisfy its varied voting public. Electoral History of the NRP: Nostalgia for a Party That Addresses Internal Schisms Religious Zionism has historically been involved in a constant and multi faceted effort to confront the tensions and conflicts resulting from the encoun ter between the two basic commitments defining its essential nature: on the one hand, its commitment to Zionism, to the State of Israel and to modernity; and on the other hand its commitment to religious tradition in its orthodox form (Luz, 1985; Cohen, 1998). This is true both on the philosophical-theo retical level as well as the practical-political plane. Religious Zionism as a political movement—and religious Zionists as individuals—regularly cope with the question of their proper position between the other two camps: the ultra-Orthodox, non-Zionist camp and the Zionist, non-religious camp. This constant challenge is what underlies the formation of trends, groups and streams that are distinct from each other in their general outlook, their political posi tion, and their patterns of behavior in the religious sphere. The potential for a political split has been apparent from the very inception of religious Zionism: from the period of the Yishuv through to the beginning of the 1950s, different approaches were reflected in the political split between the Mizrachi movement and the Hapoel Hamizrachi movement. In the 1920s, there was even a split within Hapoel Hamizrachi itself over the question of whether to join the Histadrut General Labor Federation, since it was controlled by workers’ movements characterized by a militant, secular ideology. The Mizrachi movement was bourgeois in character, close to the Revisionist move ment, and aspired to draw closer and cooperate with the ultra-Orthodox camp. Hapoel Hamizrachi was a socialist movement with ties to the workers’ move ments. Ever since the waves of immigration from Arab countries in the years following the establishment of the state, the ethnic split between Ashkenazi and Mizrachi was added to all these differences. After the Six Day War in 1967, a political schism began to develop between hawks and doves. The different fault lines prompt the question: How is it possible to gather such a variety of approaches and streams under one political roof? As noted, until the 1977 elections for the ninth Knesset, the NRP regularly gained between 10 and 12 seats. During this period the NRP was a sectoral party, that is, a party representing a sub-culture differentiated by its values and lifestyle, manifested by a comprehensive system of institutions and organiza tions related to the party, in the economic, social, religious, and cultural spheres. The NRP presented and defined itself, ever since its establishment in the mid-

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1950s, as the sole political representative of the religious Zionist camp as a whole. There was no significant attempt made in the party system to question this by presenting any political alternative. In the electoral sphere, it enjoyed the support of the large majority of voters identified as religious Zionists. None of this, as noted, is evidence of the existence of any conceptual, social or religious uniformity in religious Zionism: within the party there was an inter nal regime of institutionalized factionalism, within which different groups could organize inside the party, making it a kind of federation of sub-parties operating under one political roof. In this way, the NRP was able to contain a wide spectrum of approaches with, at one end, rabbis from the Mizrachi move ment who were close to Agudat Yisrael; and at the other end, members of the religious kibbutz movement who were considered to represent the left-wing, open and modem Hapoel Hamizrachi movement. In relating to the potential for political schism underlying the conceptual split, Don-Yihye explains that “the common social-conceptual basis prevents the factional division from becoming a factor that seriously threatens the party’s unity and its ability to act” (Don-Yihye, 5740 [1979]: 28), in other words: the common ideological ground was stronger than the different shades of religious Zionism. The elections to the tenth Knesset in 1981 made it clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that the common social-conceptual basis and the institutionalized factionalism were of no use, and hence do not provide a sufficient explanation for the party’s stability in the past. In this election, the NRP lost half its strength and only won 6 mandates. It should be emphasized that this was not a gradual and ongoing decline over several elections, but a sharp drop between one election campaign and the next. In electoral terms, it ceased being a sectoral party, if only for the reason that half the camp preferred to support other par ties. Menachem Friedman (1982) explained the disintegration of the NRP by the transition among religious Zionists, especially its younger supporters, from a sense of fear and anxiety to a feeling of security and superiority. Against the background of the rule of Mapai, in its various incarnations, over the party system, there was a constant fear of possible damage to the ideological and material interests of the religious Zionists. The rise to power of the Likud in 1977 wiped out with one blow the permanent sense of anxiety. The new re gime in general, especially under the leadership of Menachem Begin, was characterized by positive ties to religious tradition and was not seen as having the potential to harm religious interests. Accordingly, many religious Zionists were able to support other parties without fear of the negative implications that were liable to result from electoral damage to the NRP. The main common ground, therefore, was the common threat and not necessarily the shared ideol ogy. The moment the threat was removed the fault lines became an electoral split. From this point on, parties emerged that were characterized by a direct appeal to the religious Zionist voters, presenting themselves as a fitting politi

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cal alternative to the NRP. Some of them, such as Tehiya, TAMI, Moledet, and the National Union, did not present themselves as religious Zionist parties but they included religious Zionists and saw these voters as part of their potential for support. Other parties, such as MEITZAD-Morasha, Meimad, and Tekuma, were established as clearly religious Zionist frameworks. At the same time, the Likud party became a permanent rival for the pool of religious Zionist votes (Table 9.1). The 1996 elections require special discussion because, on a one-time basis, the NRP won 9 seats, an achievement that comes close to its achievements during the period when it was a sectoral party. That this success was an anomaly is evident in the fact that in the two following election campaigns, in 1999 and 2003, the NRP returned to its regular status since 1981: 5 seats in 1999 and 6 seats in 2003. How do we explain that the fault lines ceased to have an effect in one isolated election campaign? It appears that these elections prove Friedman’s claim (1982) that underlying the NRP’s achievements in 1977 was a sense of fear and anxiety about harming religious Zionist interests. The 1996 elections took place after four continuous years of developments and events that, for many religious Zionists, brought back the sense of anxiety and led them to band together again around the NRP rather like rallying to the flag. First of all, the Labor party—the later incarnation of Mapai—was in control and the NRP was in the opposition; secondly, during this period the Oslo Accords were signed, at complete odds with the position of the large majority of religious Zionists; and finally, the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by Yigal Amir, who was identified as a religious Zionist, and more precisely, KahaneNationalist, brought with it an unprecedented wave of severe public criticism of the religious Zionist camp in general, and many of its religious leaders in particular. The elections took place in the summer of 1996, some seven months after Rabin’s assassination, at a time when the religious Zionist camp was suffering the effects of the harsh criticism leveled against it immediately after the assassination. It can be assumed that all these conditions and circum stances together caused feelings of anxiety to resurface among the religious Zionists. Even if this anxiety was not the same as that which developed during the period of Mapai, it can be assumed that many of those who had left the NRP since the 1980s expressed their protest at the criticism leveled against them by voting for the party once again, although only on a one-time basis. Likud’s rise to power in 1996, led by Netanyahu, gave back to religious Zion ists the sense of security that they had lost in the previous years. Electoral history repeated itself exactly: the rise of the Likud to power in 1977 led to the disintegration of the NRP, which declined from 12 seats to 6 seats. Likud’s return in 1996, after a period of Labor rule, caused a second collapse and the NRP went from 9 seats to 6 seats. The results of the 2003 elections, which are the focus of this discussion, are an almost exact replica of the outcome in 1999. NRP’s increase from 5 to 6

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The Elections in Israel—2003 Table 9.1 NRP Achievements since the Establishment o f the State

Knesset

Year

1

1949

2

1951

8.3

56,730

10

3

1955

9.1

77,936

11

4 5

8

1959 1961 1965 1969 1973

9.9 9.8 8.9 9.7 8.3

95,581 98,786 107,966 133,294 130,349

12 12 11 12 10

9

1977

9.2

160,787 12

10

1981

4.9

95,932

6

11

1984

3.5

73,530

4

12

1988

3.9

89,720

5

6 7

%

Voters

Seats Remarks

10

The Mizrachi and Hapoel Hamizrachi parties ran on a joint list with the ultraOrthodox parties Agudat Israel and Poalei Agudat Israel. The list won 16 seats (Mizrachi 2 and Hapoel Hamizrachi 8). In this election, two religious Zionist lists ran separately: the Mizrachi list won 2 seats and Hapoel Hamizrachi won 8. A joint Mizrachi and Hapoel Hamizrachi list called the United Religious Front ran in this election, one stage before the establishment of the NRP as a united list in the same year.

Avner Shaki and Meir Kahane ran in this election. They did not pass the threshold, but came near to it; the Likud party was established and its strength increased dramatically, winning 39 mandates after the Herat-liberal party bloc had only won 26 mandates in 1969. This election campaign concludes the period of electoral stability that began with the establishment of the state, in which the party regularly won at least ten seats. The ethnic split came to the fore with the establishment of TAMI, and the political split appeared in the establishment of Tehiya. Running in these elections, in addition to Tehiya - Tzomet and TAMI, Shas and Morasha, which included Rabbi Haim Drackman’s MEITZAD In these elections Tehiya was joined by Tzomet and Moledet from the right, and Meimad which campaigned independently.

Religious Zionism and the National Religious Party in the 2003 Elections

193

Table 9.1 (cont.) 13

1992

5.0

129,663 6

14

1996

8.1

240,271 9

15

1999

4.2

140,307 5

16

2003

4.2

132,370 6

Alongside Tehiya, which did not cross the threshold, and Tzomet and Moledet, some other splinter groups of right wing parties also ran, such as that of Rabbi Levinger. Tzomet joined the Likud, Tehiya disappeared from the political map, and Moledet was left as the only right-wing party. In these elections the National Union appeared, including Herut (led by Benny Begin), Tekuma (people who had left the NRP) and Moledet. The National Union includes Israel Beitenu led by Lieberman, and does not include Hemt (led by Kleiner), which ran independently.

mandates should not mislead us. The NRP gained an extra seat thanks to a particularly effective surplus votes agreement that worked to its benefit. Com pared with the 140,307 votes it won in 1999, in 2003 the party lost some 8,000 votes, a loss that can be attributed to a large degree to the dramatic decline in the overall voter turnout. The NRP won the support of 132,370 voters, and these, together with the religious Zionists who voted for other parties, will be the focus of the discussion below. General Breakdown of NRP Voters in the 2003 Elections In settlements over the Green Line: Over the past decade, the NRP has been described more than once as the settlers’ party. If we judge this description according to the relative support the party receives in settlements over the Green Line, it is indeed clearly well-founded: in these settlements support for the party is 3.42 times higher than its average level of support country-wide. NRP supporters over the Green Line are some 11 percent of all the party’s voters, even though the overall electoral weight of this sector is only slightly more than 3 percent (Table 9.2). In agricultural and community settlements belonging to regional councils within the Green Line: In these settlements the NRP has a higher level of support than the national average, 5.66 percent as compared with 4.2 percent. This is a result of the wide-scale settlement activity of the Hapoel Hamizrachi movement, which in many respects acted like the settlement movements of the workers’ party, setting up 16 kibbutzim and dozens of moshavim. It should be emphasized that NRP’s influence in agricultural settlements was much higher

194

The Elections in Israel—2003

in the past, and it was supported both by Ashkenazi as well Mizrachi voters. As will be clarified below, since 1977 the NRP lost ground in all population sectors, with the most dramatic decline among the Mizrachi population, in cluding in moshavim whose residents belong to this group. In Jewish urban areas (including mixed settlements): These settlements represent 75.3 percent of all voters in the 2003 elections. When analyzing voting patterns, urban areas are divided into socioeconomic clusters accord ing to the ranking of the Central Bureau of Statistics. Cluster 1, which includes settlements with the lowest ranking, has only one Jewish settlement, Beitar Illit, which is over the Green Line, and therefore this cluster has not been included in the analysis. Clusters 2 and 3 and Clusters 9 and 10 have been merged, since in Cluster 2 and Cluster 10 there are only three Jewish urban areas. An examination of the breakdown of support for the NRP shows equal support for the party in all socioeconomic clusters. The exceptions are Clus ters 2-3, which include the low ranking settlements, and Clusters 9-10, which include the high-ranking settlements. Whereas in Clusters 2-3 the NRP enjoys a level of support that is considerably higher than average (5.34 percent), in Clusters 9-10 its support is much lower than average (2.44 percent). In Clusters 4-8, support for the NRP ranges from 3.61 percent to 4.53 percent, close to the average level of support in urban areas, which is 4.06 percent (Figure 9.2). I will discuss the differences between the election campaigns and the overlap between the socioeconomic ranking of the settlements and the ethnic origin of the population at greater length below, in the section dealing with the ethnic dimension. Table 9.2 General Breakdown of Voting for the NRP by Sector and Type of Settlement

Urban areas within the Green Line Settlements belonging to regional councils within the Green Line Judea, Samaria, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights Double envelopes Non-Jewish settlements Country-wide result

No. NRP voters

% of votes for the NRP

96,458

4.06

72.87

75.30

12,310

5.66

9.30

6.90

14,606

14.38

11.03

3.22

7,789 1,207 132,370

4.99 0.39 4.20

Relative Relative weight of weight of sector among sector among NRP voters all voters

5.88 0.91 100%

4.95 9.61 100%

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195

Figure 92 Support for the NRP in 1977,1996, and 2003 in Urban Areas, according to Socioeconomic Breakdown

Voting Patterns of Religious Zionists, for the NRP and Its Rivals: The Political, Ethnic, and Religious Aspect The Political Split between Radical Hawks, Pragmatic Hawks, and Doves The preliminary assumption in the attempt to discern the voting patterns of religious Zionists for other parties is that in each settlement and each polling station characterized by a particularly high percentage of votes for the NRP, there will be a significant concentration of religious Zionists who vote for other parties. This assumption is confirmed by an examination of polling stations characterized by the greatest degree of loyalty to the NRP. From a review of all polling stations in the 2003 elections, it emerges that throughout the country there are 148 polling stations where the NRP receives over 30 percent of the votes, according to the following breakdown: From the polling station results it appears that even in the few stations characterized by a high level of loyalty to the NRP there is a population of around 20-30 percent of religious Zionists who vote for other parties. Exclud ing the 25 urban polling stations, where some voters are not religious Zionists given the more open nature of the urban location, all the other 123 polling stations are located in settlements with a clear religious Zionist character and enable us to investigate the voting patterns of this population for other parties. It should be emphasized that there are religious settlements, primarily those with a Mizrachi population, where the percentage of votes for the NRP is even

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The Elections in Israel—2003 Table 9.3 148 Polling Stations with the Highest Level of Support for the NRP in the 2003 Elections

% of support for Urban polling Polling stations the NRP stations within the Green Line 70% - 80% 2 0 60% - 70% 1 11 50% - 60% 2 14 40% - 50% 6 15 30% - 40% 12 16 Total 54 25

Polling stations Total number over the of polling Green line stations 4 6 4 16 19 35 39 18 24 52 148 69

Table 9.4 Breakdown of Votes in Polling Stations W here the NRP Won More than 30 Percent of the Votes in the 2003 Elections No. of No. stations voters of settlement

UTJ Shas Herat NU

Judea, Samaria &Gaza and Golan Regional councils Urban areas

Type

NRP

Likud Labor Shinui Meretz

69

24,238

1.18

4.22

8.86

26.45

44.05 10.49

0.44

0.66

0.19

54

14,528

2.97

7.65

2.31

7.53

51.17 17.82

4.42

1.40

1.17

25

11,987

6.45

9.41

3.37

7.72

40.11

4.59

3.94

1.27

19.26

lower, and these will be discussed at a later stage in the section dealing with ethnic breakdown. From a comparative analysis of the results in clearly religious settlements (other than urban polling stations), it emerges that the percentage of support for the NRP in settlements within the Green Line (regional councils) is higher than the percentage of support for the party in settlements across the Green Line, in Judea, Samaria and Gaza Strip and in the Golan Heights (Table 9.4). An examination of the two types of settlement shows that about half the reli gious Zionists support the NRP while the other half support other parties. If we relate to the NRP as a center-field player in the political spectrum, we will see that there are significant differences in the voting patterns for other parties between the settlements within the Green Line and those that are over the Green Line. In the former, right-wing parties—the National Union and Herat—enjoy three times the support they have in settlements inside the Green

Religious Zionism and the National Religious Party in the 2003 Elections

197

Line, and together, in the settlements over the Green Line, have three times the support of the Likud. Voting patterns are reversed in settlements within the Green Line, where the Likud has approximately twice as many supporters as the National Union and Herat. To this should be added the deep differences in percentages of support for the Labor party, Shinui, and Meretz: in settlements within the Green Line, these parties have an electoral hold of around 7 percent to 8 percent, while in settlements beyond the Green Line their support is marginal and is only in the region of 1 percent (Table 9.4). It can be assumed that support for the Likud in the 2003 elections reflects, to a large degree, moderate positions that can be defined as pragmatic hawks or even centrist. This assumption is based on the election results, in which the Likud under Ariel Sharon was presented as a party that was moving substan tially towards the center. Striking evidence of this can be seen in Sharon’s refusal to withdraw his declared support for the establishment of a Palestinian state, support that even led to failed attempts at a counter-movement within the Likud. Further evidence can be seen in the voting patterns in religious kibbutzim inside the Green Line, considered to represent die moderate politi cal position in religious Zionism. This trend was striking in the 1988 elec tions, in which Meimad stood as an independent party and won 29.6 percent of the votes in the religious kibbutzim, compared with 31.4 percent won by the NRP (Reichman and Hashan, 5751 [1990]). An examination of the results of the 2003 elections in the 10 religious kibbutzim with the highest percent age of support for the NRP shows that the Labor party and the Likud have a far stronger hold in this population than in the religious Zionist public in general (Table 9.5). Despite the reservations and caution required due to the time that has passed, it can be assumed that Meimad’s decision to join the Labor party list and the developments that have taken place since the signing of the Oslo Accords have led some people with moderate views to support the Likud. Table 9.5 Results of the 2003 Elections in the 10 Religious Kibbutzim with the Highest Level of Support for the NRP Name o f kibbutz Lavie EinZurim Ein Hanatziv Alumim Be’erot Yitzhak TiratZvi Sde Eliahu Kvutzat Yavne Shluchot Sa’ad

NRP 59.51 56.83 53.95 51.94 50.00 49.73 48.28 46.70 44.57 40.30

Likud 17.39 16.97 20.72 29.13 21.09 22.68 20.98 23.69 22.87 26.20

Labor 4.08 8.12 10.53 5.34 9.38 12.30 9.77 12.07 13.95 17.13

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198

According to the generally accepted definitions distinguishing between left, right, and center, it is completely and unequivocally obvious that the majority of religious Zionists position themselves on the right. The average rate of support for the Oslo Accords between 1994 and 1997 among the reli gious population was 18.3 percent. Of the religious population 18.7 percent defined themselves as belonging to the left or center, compared with 81.3 percent defining themselves as belonging to the right (Herman and YuchtmanYa’ar, 1998: 61-72). Similar averages also emerge from other studies carried out during the 1990s (Peres and Yuchtman-Ya’ar, 1998: 95-101). The existence of a hawkish attitude with a radical religious-messianic hue within religious Zionism, combined with the identification of the majority of religious Zionists as right-wing, contributed and still contributes to generali zations that fail to describe the actual reality, which is far more complex. Add to this the fact that the NRP is for the most part identified as a clearly hawkish party. The error of these generalizations is that they fail to make the necessary distinction between radical and uncompromising hawks and pragmatic hawks supporting positions identified in the past with the political left and character istic of a significant number of NRP voters. This distinction is made possible by a more defined and focused examination of attitudes. Below, we will see that among NRP voters themselves there is a not insignificant group of people with moderate views. Research by Pedahzur et al. (Pedahzur, Hirsch, and Canetti-Nissim, in press) on the right-wing parties in the 2003 elections indicates that the degree of hawkishness of Likud voters is low relative to the party’s right-wing image. Important for our purposes is the finding that NRP voters are relatively moderSettlements should not be dismantled in the framework of a peace treaty Likud

UTJ

NRP

40.5%

45.9%

50.0%

Israel B’Aliya 53.9%

Shas 69.5%

National Union 75%

Herat 85.7%

No land should be given to the Palestinians even in the framework of a peace agreement NRP

Likud

UTJ

38.5%

41%

45.2%

National Union 70.2%

Israel B’Aliya 73.4%

Shas

Herat

74.5%

100%

The State of Israel should object to the establishment o f a Palestinian state as a condition for a political solution Likud

NRP

Shas

48.9%

65%

73.9%

Israel B’Aliya 75%

UTJ 77.5%

National Union 81.2%

Herat

100%

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199

ate hawks, positioning the party to the right of the Likud but close to it. The data below relate to the percentage of respondents agreeing with the position presented, based on research by Pedahzur et al. An analysis of the defined positions shows that 50 percent of NRP voters would agree to settlements being dismantled in the framework of a peace agreement, over 60 percent of them would agree to giving land up as part of such an agreement, and 35 percent are likely to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state. In a weighted scale positioning these findings between 1 (the least hawkish) and 6 (the most hawkish), only a moderate connection is found between the hawkishness index and support for the NRP as compared with support for other parties: Likud

NRP

UTJ

3.39

3.72

3.98

Israel B ’Aliya 4.59

Shas 4.76

National Union 4.81

Herut 5.85

The fact that there is a significant minority in the NRP with moderate views also emerges from other research studies: as part of the peace index project carried out at the beginning of December 2002, some two months before the last elections, defined positions were examined vis-a-vis the voting intentions of respondents. Segmentation by voting intentions in the elections shows that 46 percent of NRP voters expressed support for negotiating with the Palestin ian Authority, as compared with 58 percent of Likud voters (Ya’ar and Herman, 2002). In the most up-to-date survey carried out in the wake of the political processes, in June-July 2003, the overall level of support for the Road Map was 56 percent. Among NRP voters the rate of support was 33 percent (Ya’ar and Herman, 2003). Weighting the findings shows that among NRP voters there is a large and significant group, between 30 and 40 percent, of people holding very moderate views relative to the extreme right wing image of the NRP. The Ethnic Split The analysis of polling stations where support for the NRP is over 30 per cent does not include religious settlements where the majority of the popula tion is of Mizrachi origin—since in these settlements support for the NRP has dropped sharply—nor does it include municipal polling stations, where sup port for the NRP is even lower. Table 9.6 shows the results for 20 out of the 31 settlements where the NRP gained more than 75 percent of the votes in 1977. The clear and unequivocal picture that emerges in comparing the 1977 results with the results of the 2003 elections sums up the NRP’s electoral story over the past generation in the ethnic sphere. All ten of the settlements ranked last in the 2003 elections are characterized by having a Mizrachi population and

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The Elections in Israel—2003

Table 9.6 The 20 Settlements Where the NRP Received over 75 Percent of the Votes in 1977, as Compared with the 2003 Results Name of settlement

1 2

UTJ

Shas

Herat

Nir Galim 0.80 2.80 0.40 Keshet 0.93 0.00 2.80 3 Merkaz Shapira 0.24 8.94 0.97 4 Kfar Maimon 0.00 1.87 1.87 Kerem Yavne 5 14.45 9.25 2.31 6 Nechalim 3.05 2.37 3.05 Bnei Darom 7 0.00 0.00 2.12 8 Masuot Yitzhak 0.00 0.30 0.91 Kfar Pines 0.80 1.20 4.02 9 10 Kfar Haroeh 2.20 1.32 3.08 11 Shibolim 3.91 8.38 0.56 12 Mahasiya 3.11 21.74 0.00 13 Kfar Ya’abetz 1.30 17.26 1.30 14 Dalton 1.90 26.63 2.99 15 Shokda 0.97 34.95 0.00 1.61 31.73 1.61 16 Shalva 17 Melilot 7.79 12.34 0.00 18 Aviezer 0.00 9.63 0.92 19 Zimrat 4.68 52.05 1.17 20 Zarua 1.65 33.06 0.00

National NRP Union 1977

2.80 17.29 4.83 12.36 3.47 7.95 7.94 6.38 8.84 12.33 4.47

0.00 3.26 3.53

0.00 4.82 0.65 4.13 1.17

0.00

88.00 83.00 89.00 81.00 77.00 80.00 78.00 77.00 82.00 79.00 78.00 84.00 83.00 78.00 76.00 76.00 82.00 81.00 77.00 83.00

NRP 2003

79.20 74.77 68.36 67.42 67.05 67.01 65.08 65.05 64.26 57.27 30.17 26.71 22.48 19.29 16.50 14.06 11.69 10.55 7.60 2.48

Likud Labor

6.80 3.74 9.90 12.36 2.31

4.40

0.00 1.69 1.87

0.00 12.01 2.20 16.93 14.89 16.06 15.20 46.93 39.75 39.09 40.76 40.78 40.96 57.79 47.71 30.99 55.37

3.70 5.47 0.80 3.08

1.12 5.59 3.58 0.82

0.00 0.00 0.65 8.26 0.58 0.83

Note: Settlements are presented in descending order according to the results of the 2003 elections: from the place where the NRP received the greatest support (Nir Galim) to the least support (Zarua).

are among the settlements established after the large wave of immigration from Arab countries, in the early years after the state was established. All ten of the top-ranking settlements have an Ashkenazi population. In some settle ments the NRP has disintegrated and become an insignificant and marginal party. Thus, for example, in Zarua and Zimrat, where the NRP won 83 percent and 77 percent, respectively, of the votes in 1977, support in 2003 was re duced to 2.48 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively. A similar picture, although on a different scale, emerges from an examination of all settlements with a majority of Mizrachi residents. Apart from the enormous gap between the settlements with respect to the percentage of support for the NRP, it appears that in those settlements with a Mizrachi population there is fierce electoral competition between the Likud

Religious Zionism and the National Religious Party in the 2003 Elections

201

and Shas, usually leaving the NRP far behind. This fact is particularly striking if we remember that Shas lost six seats in the last elections, which is one-third of the support it enjoyed in 1999. In most places this significant drop was of no benefit to the NRP, and moreover by comparison with the 1999 results it lost as much as Shas, and its votes went to the Likud (Table 9.7). At the same time, it should be noticed that in two out of eight settlements (Shokda and Dalton) the NRP’s strength actually increased. Examining 37 settlements with a Mizrachi population, a similar picture emerges: in 8 of them the NRP’s strength in creased, while in the others it declined and the votes went to the Likud. These findings show that if Shas continues to lose votes in the future, the NRP will be able to compete with the Likud over some Shas voters in the Mizrachi sector. A similar picture appears in the urban areas with a low socioeconomic ranking, where although the NRP has a permanent hold, the main competition continues to be between Shas and the Likud. The similar electoral hold of the NRP in all socioeconomic clusters and population groups is particularly strik ing if we compare its level of support with the support for Shas and Shinui (Figure 9.3). An examination of the support for Shas and Shinui shows a clear and un equivocal connection between the rate of support and the socioeconomic ranking. While Shas has a level of support far above its national average among the lower socioeconomic groups and a much lower level of support in the higher socioeconomic groups, Shinui has a higher than average level of support among the higher population groups and less support in the lower clusters. The connection between the socioeconomic rank and the ethnic origin of the majority of the population is well known and needs no supporting evi dence. Clusters 2-3, the lowest in rank, and to a considerable degree also Cluster 4, include development towns whose population is mainly of Mizrachi Table 9.7 A Comparison o f the Voting Results for Shas, the NRP, and the Likud in the 1999 Elections and the 2003 Elections in 8 Settlements with a M izrachi Population

Mahasiya Dalton Shokda Shalva Melilot Aviezer Zimrat Zarua

Shas 99

Shas 03

NRP 99

NRP 03

42.05 52.59 60.00 36.80 27.59 18.78 56.38 66.96

21.74 26.63 34.95 31.73 12.34 9.63 52.05 33.06

31.82 10.14 14.29 29.37 11.49 24.08 14.89 4.35

26.7 19.29 16.50 14.06 11.69 10.55 7.60 2.48

Likud 99

Likud 03

15.91

39.75 40.76 40.78 40.96 57.79 47.71 30.99 55.37

22.88 15.24 13.75 35.63 17.14 17.55 12.17

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The Elections in Israel—2003

Figure 9.3 Comparison between Votes for Shinui, Shas, and the NRP in Urban Areas according to Socioeconomic Cluster

Comparison between votes for Shinui, Shas and the NRP by socioeconomic cluster (in percent)

origin, and the reverse: Clusters 9-10, the highest in rank, include small urban areas whose population is largely Ashkenazi. An examination of the break down of votes for the NRP shows that at the two socioeconomic poles the NRP is far from its country-wide average: in Clusters 2-3 it has higher than usual support—5.34 percent, and in Clusters 9-10 its support is lower than aver age—2.44 percent. In Clusters 4-8 support for the party is closer to the na tional average. Even though the NRP has, over the past generation, lost many votes against an ethnic background—first to TAMI, then to Shas, and regu larly to the Likud—its electoral support in the development towns is still no lower than in other urban areas, and is even slightly higher than average (Figure 9.2). It appears that the Ashkenazi image that the NRP has acquired is due, among other things, to two reasons: first, the relative weight of Clusters 2, 3 and 4, to which the development towns belong, is low and represents slightly more than 13 percent of all votes, while the areas in Clusters 7 and 8 represent over one-third of all votes; secondly, since the 1977 elections the NRP has lost many more Mizrachi votes in development towns than in other sectors. It can be seen that in 1977 support for the party broke down unequally between clusters: in the low clusters the NRP had a very high level of support as compared to the high clusters. Its particularly dramatic decline, especially in the develop ment towns where the majority of the population is Mizrachi, led to the present balanced picture of the breakdown of support for the party (Figure 9.2).

Religious Zionism and the National Religious Party in the 2003 Elections

203

The Religious Split: Between National Ultra Orthodox, and Religious Liberals The conservative Ultra Orthodox stream, to which the vast majority of classic ultra-Orthodox belong, rejects modernity in an effort to preserve the integrity of Halacha and the authority of the religious leadership in a defined social and cultural environment. Liebman (1982: 231) describes this stream by the term “neo-traditional,” and emphasizes that this is not a continuing trend of the traditional world but the shaping of a new response to the chal lenges of the modem world and its values (Samet, 1979). The slogan of this stream, “The Torah prohibits new,” reflects its essence and nature: consider able inflexibility and intolerance towards any deviation from Halachic norms; religious extremism manifested in shaping the religious world of Halachic restrictions (Friedman, 1990:80-87); and a commitment to obey “Torah knowl edge,” which has become a social-cultural code to expand the authority of the religious leadership and its application not only to the clearly Halachic sphere but to every sphere of life and to the social and political situation (Achituv, 1997; Bacon, 1997; Katz, 1997; Kaplan, 1997). All these are intended to form a social environment, including institutions, frameworks, and rigid bound aries, whose purpose is to keep the believer away from the temptations of the modem, secular, and permissive environment. The Modem Orthodox stream, by contrast with the conservative ultra-Orthodox stream, aspires to accept modernity and preserve Halacha without social and cultural isolation from the modem world. Liebman (1982: 231239) distinguishes three trends within this stream: (a) the adaptive trend: this trend is manifested in the reinterpretation of religious tradition from the point of view that there is no contradiction between it and modernity, and contains a certain degree of apologetics; (b) the compartmentalist trend: this trend is based on the perception that there are aspects of the human situation charac terized by religious neutrality, and hence it is legitimate that they should come under the influence of modernity. Safrai calls the practical expressions of this approach “schizophrenia” and estimates that the majority of the reli gious-nationalist public in Israel lives with this contradiction that has no conceptual justification, particularly with regard to deviations from accepted Halachic norms (1999: 591). Sheleg notes that one of the innovations charac teristic of the new religious-nationalists is “that they see no contradiction between patterns of behavior.. .clearly considered to be ‘secular’ and their selfawareness as being religious” (2000: 55); (c) the expansion and domination trend: this trend is characterized by an acceptance of modernity and its reinter pretation through religious tradition. It expands the religious outlook so as to include modernity as well (in fact, it contains a domination of the traditional religious perception over modernity) and it is expressed in two ways: a change in religious tradition or a change in modem values without harming tradition.

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The Elections in Israel—2003

The slogan of religious Zionism, “the Land of Israel for the People of Israel according to the Torah of Israel,” matches this approach in that it expresses the desired combination of Zionist commitment and religious commitment. The Modem Orthodox stream is divided into two camps. One, which we will call religious liberal, implements expansion and domination by means of adaptation, in other words, by adapting the religious tradition to the present situation by reinterpreting the tradition. The religious kibbutz, especially in its early days, is a clear example of this camp. Although its people were aware of the lack of correlation between the kibbutz framework and Halachic ruling as formulated until then, they were not deterred from “leaping into the Halachically unregulated” (Fishman, 1990: 141). Geiger (2001) sums up the contemporary expression of the religious-liberal camp in the field of philoso phy and theory by the term “new religious Zionism.” This term has a number of central aspects: a declared positive view of modernity and its influence on shaping values and positions, according to which modernity is another source in addition to religious sources; the view of Halachic ruling as a social and cultural process in which it is possible to draw on external sources regarding the removal or moderation of earlier rulings which do not fit accepted practice today; the use of philosophical and historical method to shape ethical and Halachic positions; and finally, a willingness to criticize rabbinic authority not only in non-Halachic spheres but even in the sphere of Halacha itself. As for patterns of behavior, the majority of religious liberals are characterized by considerable openness, involvement in their non-religious surroundings and the adoption of secular patterns, some of which do not suit Halachic norms, particularly as these are viewed by the conservatives. The second camp in the Modem Orthodox stream, the national ultra Or thodox, rejects the demand for change in religious tradition and Halachic adaptability. It stands for a monistic view expressed in sanctification of all areas of life and their subordination to the requirements of Halacha, in clear contrast to the compartmentalization trend, which sees some areas of life as neutral in religious terms. What is seen by their critics as religious extremism is seen by the national ultra-Orthodox as a religious intensification reflected in meticulous attention to keeping the commandments (Liebman, 1982: 237238). Adherence to Torah knowledge, a pattern which, in the past, character ized the ultra-Orthodox camp whose political manifestation was the United Torah Judaism party (UTJ), became one of the characteristics of the national ultra-Orthodox and even became a subject for internal debate with regard to the performance of the NRP (Sheleg, 2000: 38-42). After the signing of the Oslo Accords, some national ultra-Orthodox adherents whose origins lay in religious Zionism began to draw closer to other ultra-Orthodox groups, which adopted nationalist attitudes. This process, according to Horowitz (1994), involved abandoning the approach of Rabbi Kook, which was characterized by sanctification of statehood and the state. By contrast, Don-Yihye (1997)

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points to the conceptual variety in the circles of the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, expressed in various different approaches, none of which unequivocally ques tions the approach sanctifying statehood and the state. Uri Orbach (2002) summarizes in his humorous style the two figures repre senting the two approaches: the religious liberal is “a religious person who does not inhale religion.. .does not feel a commitment to every law and ruling.. .the young man hangs out in pubs.. .the adult has had enough of the religious par ties, his wife is a feminist, they work in the liberal professions and live well in the big city. No head covering for the wife, no fringes for the husband, they live in mixed society and don’t like the ultra-Orthodox and their kids’ rabbis” (ibid.: 34). The national ultra-Orthodox, on the other hand, is characterized by “a large knitted yarmulke, graduate of an advanced yeshiva, fringes hanging out, bearded. The television, if any, is well concealed.... His wife covers her hair and his children study more hours of Torah in a religious school” (ibid.: 61). The survey whose findings are presented below covers 526 respondents from the religious public, living in seven urban areas in the center of the country: from Rehovot (Cluster 7) in the south through Modi’in (Cluster 7), Ramat Gan (Cluster 8), Givat Shmuel (Cluster 8), Petach Tikva (Cluster 7), Kfar Saba (Cluster 8), and up to Netanya (Cluster 5) in the north. It should be emphasized that the survey does not represent all religious Zionists, since it does not include settlements over the Green Line, in regional councils and in development towns, but it does reflect the lion’s share of the population in the three clusters which together make up 55 percent of all voters and of NRP voters. The survey was not intended to examine the breakdown of votes, which has already been examined above, but to check the degree of connection between religious self-definition and voting patterns among the majority of religious Zionists.1 In the survey, questions relating to religious behavior are apparently sub ject to two types of bias. One is a bias arising from the mental and emotional difficulty of a person defining himself as religious to admitting to any devia tion from the religious norms. The other bias is the reverse: people with a strong religious commitment are liable to choose less radical answers due to a feeling that their patterns of behavior do not meet the strict religious standards that they wish to achieve. Despite the distortions and the caution required when analyzing the findings and drawing conclusions, the findings of such a survey are important and useful. Possible answers to most of the questions are formulated as different degrees of a particular pattern of behavior. The person selecting an answer does so in awareness of the other degrees. For example, even if we do not know exactly what the respondent means when he defines himself as “religious liberal” or “national ultra-Orthodox,” the fact that he has chosen this definition is significant against the background of the fact that he has been given the possibility of taking refuge in the conventional, common, and accepted definition of “religious.” In the same way, it is significant that

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there are religious people who define themselves as keeping the command ments “to a partial degree,” particularly in view of the fact that they have the opportunity of softening their answer by choosing one of the three higher definitions. Hence, even if the findings should not be seen as a precise repre sentation of patterns of behavior among the religious Zionist public, they can be seen as an indication of the main trends. In the questionnaire, respondents were given 5 options by which to define themselves: ultra-Orthodox, national ultra-Orthodox, religious, religious lib eral and traditional. From the findings, it emerges that the vast majority, 71.6 percent, define themselves as “religious”; 19.7 percent define themselves as “religious liberal”; and 8.7 percent define themselves as “national ultra-Or thodox.” By contrast with the prevailing generalizations with regard to reli gious Zionism, it appears that there is a large gap between the image of religious radicalization and the way in which religious Zionists define themselves. It is particularly significant that the number of those defining themselves as “reli gious liberal” is more than double the number of those defining themselves as “national ultra-Orthodox.” It is reasonable to assume that some religious Zionists recoil from using terms other than the term “religious.” First of all, the choice of a different definition is liable to be interpreted, among other things, as admitting to a split whose existence some people do not admit to or which they would prefer not to exist. Secondly, the two other terms have very negative associations in religious Zionism. The term “ultra-Orthodox” (haredi) arouses a sense of close ness and even belonging to the ultra-Orthodox, which is uncomfortable for some of the respondents who see themselves as part of religious Zionism. The term “liberal,” on the other hand, is liable to be identified with the secular or with a deviant religious permissiveness to which it is uncomfortable to admit. In order to overcome this bias, some of those defining themselves as “reli gious” were attached to one of the other two groups (“national ultra-Ortho dox” and “religious liberal”). First, clear responses and patterns of behavior were identified among voters defining themselves as national ultra-Orthodox and religious liberals. After this, “religious” respondents whose answers and patterns of behavior were the same in all indices were attached to one of the two groups. Taking into account patterns of behavior in order to determine group affili ation balances out the picture between national ultra-Orthodox and religious liberals: 44.8 percent are “religious”; 26.8 percent are “national ultra-Ortho dox”; and 28.4 percent are “religious liberal.” These findings are evidence of a very varied continuum of patterns of behavior in the religious sphere, with the national ultra-Orthodox at one end, and the religious liberals at the other end—whether they specifically define themselves as such or whether the defi nition is based on their patterns of behavior. In terms of the connection be tween the way people define themselves and the degree of their religious

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observance, the following findings emerge: around 91 percent of national ultra-Orthodox report that they are “meticulous” or “very meticulous” in their observation of the religious law. On the other hand, some 75 percent of reli gious liberals report that they observe the laws “to a large extent” or “in part.” It can be concluded from this that the large majority of respondents do indeed associate the term “religious liberal” with some degree or another of Halachic permissiveness. As noted, the findings are far from reflecting the entire range of expressions of religious divide among religious Zionists. The multi-hued self-definitions and patterns of behavior are the tip of the iceberg of disputes and divisions regarding a long line of issues, too many to enumerate. One of the subjects expressing this split is the question of the status of the rabbinical authorities, particularly with regard to political topics and moves. In the first years of the state, “Torah Knowledge” was the salient characteristic of the conservative, ultra-Orthodox camp, institutionalized in Agudat Yisrael’s Council of Torah Sages (Friedman, 1990: 107-114). One of the important characteristics of the development of national ultra-Orthodoxy is the adoption of the Torah Knowl edge approach, which led to debate between the different approaches, includ ing within the NRP, with a different issue coming up each time (Bar-On, forthcoming; Sheleg, 2000: 38-42). Another striking manifestation of the deep religious split can be seen in the processes of division in the state religious education system. Eldad Cohen (5763), in a field study, describes the division of a single state religious school into a number of schools with a national ultra-Orthodox orientation. Issues such as mixed classes of boys and girls, the appropriate ratio between religious education and general education, style of dress, adaptation of family lifestyle to the values of the school and so forth led to a situation in which religious Zionists, unlike in the past, no longer send their children to the same schools. It appears that there is nothing like these splits in the process of socialization to express the depth of the schism between religious liberals and the national ultra-Orthodox. It is reasonable to assume that if this had been a clear and sharp division splitting religious Zionists into two distinct groups, there would also have been a clear and distinct political split. However, as we have seen above, between these two groups there is a middle group characterized by mixed patterns combining both liberal and ultra-Orthodox trends. An examination of the breakdown of voting patterns of respondents shows that even though there is a connection between voting patterns and patterns of religious behavior, the NRP is the meeting point of voters of all shades of religious Zionism. Approximately 66 percent of the national ultra-Orthodox support the NRP, as compared with 30 percent who support ultra-Orthodox parties and parties to the right of the NRP. Around 43 percent of religious liberals support the NRP, as compared with 27 percent who support parties to

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the left of the NRP (some 30 percent of religious liberals support right-wing parties for political reasons). The fact that the NRP is the electoral meeting point of different social groups presents it with a complex challenge in its attempts to regain its achievements of the past, during the period when it was a sectoral party. Summary and Conclusions: The NRP—between a Rock and a Hard Place Amnon Shapira, former secretary-general of the Bnei Akiva youth move ment and one of the spokespeople of the religious liberal stream in the news paper Hatzofeh, declared just before the NRP Knesset list was put together that “Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu is not fit to lead religious Zionism” (Shapira, 2002). The background for this was publication of Rabbi Eliyahu’s objection to the inclusion of a woman in the NRP list. Two responses to the article, which appear on the newspaper’s Internet site, demonstrate the full force of the reli gious split described above: a man named Netanel “protests against holding a Torah scholar in contempt” and adds that “ it must be understood that Torah sages.. .are higher beings.. .and the most we can say is that we do not understand them...but in the end we submit to their judgment because their thinking is deeper than ours.” It is doubtful whether the most conservative ultra-Orthodox could formulate better the absolute commitment to the concept of “Torah Knowledge.” A writer named Rafi, in a completely opposite response, begins his letter to Amnon Shapira with the words “space is too short for me to even summarize my anger towards Eliyahu & Co....Eliyahu’s involvement in the NRP is so deep that we, the sane ones amongst us, need to re-evaluate our path.” It is not inconceivable that both writers voted for the NRP in the last elections. By the same token, it is possible that the first supported United Torah Judaism, on the basis of his understanding of Rabbi Eliyahu’s approach, while the second decided to give his vote to the Likud. Even if we assume that these are two particularly extreme responses, they prompt us to ask to what degree is the party able to contain the two of them under one political roof. If we add to this the gaps that are seen at the political level, the question arises not only as to the NRP’s ability to improve its electoral achievements in the future, but even with regard to its ability to survive, in view of these splits. In contrast with the prevailing assumption that there is a trend towards religious and political radicalization among most religious Zionists, the 2003 elections reflected considerable variety and even division among religious Zionists and among NRP voters in three spheres: in the ethnic sphere, there is a gap between Mizrachi and Ashkenazi; in the religious sphere, there is a continuum of approaches and patterns of religious behavior, as well as deep gaps between the camps at the two ends: the national ultra-Orthodox and the religious liberals; and, in the political sphere, there is a range of opinions from clear hawks, through pragmatic hawks and across to people with centrist or dovish views. Between the latter two areas of division there is a correlation:

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affiliation with the national ultra-Orthodox group goes with a clearly hawkish position, while affiliation with the religious liberal group goes with a more pragmatic hawkish or centrist position. This correlation is manifested politi cally in the national ultra-Orthodox vote going to parties to the right of the NRP (the National Union, Herat, and the ultra-Orthodox parties), whereas the religious liberal vote goes to parties to the left of the NRP (Likud, Labor, Meretz, and Shinui). The correlation is clearer and more significant in the national ultra-Orthodox group than in the religious liberal group: among reli gious liberals it is possible to find groups with hawkish attitudes voting for parties to the right of the NRP, but it is almost impossible to find a national ultra-Orthodox vote going to parties to the left of the NRP. As noted, the NRP serves as a kind of centerfield player, where the two fault lines meet. As opposed to those who vote for parties to its left and to its right, NRP voters come from many different groups: in the religious sphere, its vot ers are national ultra-Orthodox and religious liberals as well as religious people who combine the patterns of behavior of the other two groups. In the political sphere, some NRP voters are characterized by clear hawkish positions while others have a more pragmatic hawkish or even centrist approach. The wide variety among religious Zionists in general, and especially among NRP voters, presents the party with electoral and political challenges that are difficult and complex, and may even be insoluble. In the electoral context, the natural aim of increasing political strength becomes particularly hard to achieve against the background of the ethnic, religious, and political splits among religious Zionists. Voting for Labor and Likud on the one side, and for the National Union and Herat on the other side is a reflection of the difficulty in gathering such a broad range of positions under a single political roof. In the ongoing political context, gaps among NRP voters are liable to make it hard to formulate positions and policies. Shaping a clear and unequivocal policy identified with one of the approaches—religious liberal or national ultra-Orthodox, radical hawk or pragmatic centrist—is liable to lead to inter nal agitation, in the best case, and to severe criticism, even leading to with drawal of support from the party and to political schism, in the worst case. Criticism will come from party supporters who feel that their approach, their position, and even their very identity are significantly damaged. The NRP’s problem is that such a development does not depend at all on its policy. The fault lines presented in this chapter represent a real potential for upheaval in the event that any clear and unequivocal decision is taken in any one of the spheres, no matter what decision is taken. We cannot enumerate here the many responses to the NRP’s decision to join a coalition with Shinui and without the ultra-Orthodox, and the examples below are just a drop in the ocean. In a letter headed “Will Lapid make up a minyan [religious quorum]?” a reader declaring himself to be someone who has voted for the NRP all his life wonders at the fact that the party has “be

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trayed its ultra-Orthodox fellows” and declares: “in the next elections, I will not be voting NRP, for the first time in my life” (Lemer, 2003). Zvi Moses (2003) describes the NRP’s process as a “remedial experience” and welcomes “the distinction between the NRP and the ultra-Orthodox.” Is it possible to bridge the different approaches? In many respects, the middle road of compromise is liable to best express the largest group of NRP supporters who live between the two extremes. However, such a road is liable not to satisfy supporters who clearly belong to either the national ultra-Ortho dox or the religious liberal groups. Moreover, the NRP does not control the political public agenda. Many issues that are liable to come up present, from the NRP’s standpoint, real potential for an internal shakeup. The completely opposing responses to coalition collaboration with Shinui after the last elec tions—enthusiastic support on the one hand, and absolute rejection on the other hand—are likely to reflect what will take place when issues of far greater importance are discussed. How will the NRP respond to a possible political plan by the Likud includ ing handing over land or even the evacuation of settlements, which will re ceive the support of a clear majority of citizens including, as we have seen, a large number of its voters? What will be its policy with regard to the proposed new charters reorganizing issues of religion and state? For the first time since the 1970s, the NRP finds itself the only religious party in a coalition that includes Shinui. This composition almost guarantees repeated confrontation over issues of religion and state among the partners in the government. Fur thermore, these confrontations are likely to take place against the background of severe criticism from the ultra-Orthodox parties left in opposition: how will the party cope with Shinui’s secular policy, while the ultra-Orthodox are voic ing severe criticism in the background? There is no doubt that as a result, the issue of the status, authority, and influence of the rabbis over the party will come up time and time again. In the introduction, we described the history of religious Zionism as a continual and multifaceted coping with the tension resulting from the en counter between the two fundamental commitments: to Zionism and moder nity on the one hand, and to religious tradition in the Orthodox sense on the other hand. In this respect, the 2003 elections and the religious and political fault lines among the religious Zionists reflected in the results of these elec tions are nothing more than another chapter, and not the final one, in the conceptual and political confrontation still facing the multi-hued and restless religious Zionist society.

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Appendix Details o f Urban Jewish and Mixed Settlements and Their Position according to Socioeconomic Clusters

C luster

2-3

4

5

6

7

8

9-10

R elative w eight o f total vote

3.55%

9.83%

20.2%

5.0%

18.57%

16.71%

1.43%

A lichin

G ivat Ada

Tel A viv

M accabim -Reut

Gan Yavne

T elM ond

Pardesiya

Ram ot Shavim

A zor

K far Saba

M eitar

Rehovot

Ram at Y ishai

Ram at H asharon

Settlem ent N etivot in low O fa lrim position in K. Y earim cluster Rechasim K .M alachi Bnei Brak Sderot Y eruham O r Akiva

K iryat G at A cre Dim ona H atzor H aglilit Elad Safed B eit Shem esh M a’alot A shkelon M igdal H a’em ek Shlom i M itzpe Ramon Ram ie

Settlem ent in high position in cluster

T irat H acarm el Lod Bnei Ayash Beersheva A fula K .E kron Arad Jerusalem U pper N azareth K. Shemona Or Yehuda

B eit Shean

Be’er Y a’akov

Ashdod

K. Yam

Tiberias

Yavniel K far Yona Hadera K. A ta Netanya Yokneam

B at Yam Gedera E ilat N esher N ahariya B eit Dagan Kadima Rosh Ha’ayin A tlit M enacha miya

Zoran Holon Petach Tikva K. B ialik M azkeret B atya

Hod H asharon Shoham Even Yehuda

M odi’in

M evasseret Zion

Rosh Pina

G anei Tikva

H aifa

G. Shmuel

R ishon Lezion

Ram at Gan

Yehud N esZ iona Binyam ina Zichron Y a’akov

M etulla H erzliya K inneret K iryat Ono Yesod Hama’alah Ra’anana K far V eradim K iryat Tivon

Karm iel

K far Tavor

Pardess Hanna

G ivatayim

M igdal Yavne

Shavei Zion Kochav Y air Lehavim Neve Efraim H ar A dar K far Shm ariyahu Omer Savyon

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The Elections in Israel—2003

Note 1.

The survey was carried out by means of written questionnaires that the respondents were asked to return by mail. The questionnaires were distributed in religious neigh borhoods, in residential buildings intended for the religious public in mixed neigh borhoods, and among religious people living in mixed neighborhoods, based on a list of addresses taken from synagogues. 3,580 questionnaires were distributed and 555 were returned by mail, representing 15.5 percent. Twenty-nine respondents who defined themselves as “ultra-Orthodox” or “traditional” were taken out of the sample since they do not belong to the group of religious Zionists, the segment of the population that the survey was investigating.

References Achituv, Yosef, 1997. “Tensions and Changes in Religious Leadership.” In Ze’ev Saffai and Avi Saguy, eds., Between Authority and Autonomy in Jewish Tradition, 56-83. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad and the Ne’emanei Torah veAvoda Movement. Bacon, Gershon, 1997. ‘Torah Knowledge and Pre-Messianic Suffering.” In Ze’ev Safrai and Avi Saguy, eds., Between Authority and Autonomy in Israel’s Institutions, 84-94. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad and the Ne’emanei Torah veAvoda Movement. Bar-On, Benny (forthcoming). “The Torah Knowledge Debate in Religious Zionism.” In Israel Harel and Asher Cohen, Religious Zionism—An Anthology o f Studies in Memory ofZevulun Hammer, 9th ed. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute. Cohen, Asher, 1998. The Tallit and the Flag—Religious Zionism and the Vision o f the Torah State in the Early Days o f the State. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute. Cohen, Eldad, 5763 (2003). “Religious Zionism—Between National Ultra-Orthodox and Religious Liberals: A Reflection of the Social-Religious Split in Religious Zionism in the Education System.” Post-graduate thesis, Bar Ilan University. Don-Yihye, Eliezer, 1997. “Religious Fundamentalism and Political Radicalism: the Na tional Yeshivas in Israel.” In Anita Shapira, ed., Independence— The First Fifty Years, 431-470. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center. Don-Yihye, Eliezer, 1998. The Politics o f Survival: Solving Disputes Regarding Religion and State in Israel. Jerusalem: Florsheimer Institute for Political Research. Don-Yihye, Eliezer, 5640 (1979). “Stability and Change in the Sectoral Party: The NRP and the Youth Revolution.” State, Government and International Relations 14:25-52. Fishman, Aryeh, 1990. Between Religion and Ideology. Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute. Friedman, Menachem, 1990. Ultra Orthodox Society—Sources, Processes and Trends. Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. Friedman, Menachem, 1982. “The NRP in Flux—The Background to its Electoral De cline.” State, Government and International Relations 19-20: 105-122. Geiger, Yitzhak, 2001. “The New Religious Zionism.” Akademot XI: 51-77. Herman, Tamar and Ephraim Yuchtman-Ya’ar, ed. 1998. Religious—Secular Relations in Israel: Social and Political Implications. Tel Aviv: Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research. Horowitz, Avner, 1994. “Religion and State 1993— Creating and Agenda.” In Avner Horowitz, ed., Religion and State Yearbook 5753 5754 (1992-3), 100-123. Jerusalem: The Center for Jewish Pluralism of the Movement for Progressive Judaism in Israel. Horowitz, Avner, 1996. “Religious Zionism—From Zionist Radicalism to National Fa naticism.” In Dana Arieli-Horowitz, ed., Religion and State in Israel, 41-55. Jerusa lem: The Center for Jewish Pluralism of the Movement for Progressive Judaism in Israel.

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Kaplan, Laurence, 1997. “Torah Wisdom—A Modem View of Rabbinic Authority.” In Ze’ev Safrai and Avi Saguy, eds., Between Authority and Autonomy in Jewish Tradi­ tion, 105-145. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad and the Ne’emanei Torah veAvoda Movement. Katz, Ya’akov, 1997. ‘Torah Wisdom—The Unquestioned Authority Claimed By Halachic Scholars.” In Ze’ev Safrai and Avi Saguy, eds., Between Authority and Autonomy in Jewish Tradition, 95-104. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad and the Ne’emanei Torah veAvoda Movement. Lemer, Moshe. 2003. “Will Lapid Make Up a Minyan?” Basheva, 13 March, p. 6. Liebman, Yishayahu, 1982. “The Development of Neo-Traditionalism Among Orthodox Jews in Israel.” Trends XXVII: 231-250. Luz, Ehud, 1985. Parallels Meet. Tel Aviv: Am Oved. Moses, Zvi. 2003. “A New Post-traumatic Unity.” Hatzofeh, 13 March. Orbach, Uri, 2002. My Grandfather was a Rabbi. Jerusalem: Keter. Pedahzur, Ami, Sivan Hirsh, Daphna Canetti-Nissim. (forthcoming). “Whose Victory? An Empirical Analysis of the Popular Vote for the Right-Wing Camp in the 2003 Elections.” Israel Affairs. Peres, Yochanan, and Ephraim Yuchtman-Ya’ar. 1998. Between Consent and Dissent. Jerusalem: The Israel Democracy Institute. Ravitzky, Aviezer. 1993. The Revealed End and the Jewish State. Tel Aviv: Am Oved. Reichman, Shalom, and Maya Hashan. 5751. “Voting Patterns for Meimad for the 12th Knesset.” State, Government and International Relations 34: 85-90. Safrai, Ze’ev. 1999. “Religion, Halacha, Tradition and Modernity.” In Nachum Ilan, ed., A Good Eye—Dialogue and Debate in Jewish Culture, 582-602. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad. Samet, Moshe, 1979. The Conflict Over Institutionalizing Jewish Values in the State o f Israel. Jerusalem: Hebrew University. Shapira, Amnon. 2002. “Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu is Not Fit to Lead Religious Zionism.” Hatzofeh, 24 November. Sheleg, Yair. 2000. The New Religious: A Contemporary Look at Religious Society in Israel. Jerusalem: Keter. Ya’ar, Ephraim, and Tamar Herman. 2003. “72% of Jews in Israel Think That the Pales tinians Will Not Fulfill Their Side of the Agreement.” H a’aretz, 8 July, p. 4B. Ya’ar, Ephraim, and Tamar Herman. 2002. “The Peace Index—November 2002.” Internet site of the Peace Index.

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Voting without Voice: About the Vote of the Palestinian Minority in the 16th Knesset Elections Nadim Rouhana, Nabil Saleh, and Nimer Sultany

Introduction The elections held in Israel in January 2003 were the first Knesset elections to be conducted after the October 2000 demonstrations of the Arab Palestinian minority. Relations between Israel and its Palestinian citizens have been un dergoing a serious change since these demonstrations which came after the second Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories started in September 2000. We maintain that during this period, a new hegemony has been taking shape in Israel that is redrawing the boundaries of citizenship for the Palestin ian minority (Rouhana and Sultany, 2003). In addition, there is a growing sense among many in the Arab minority that the boundaries of citizenship are becoming narrower and that the foundations of their citizenship are growing weaker (Rouhana, 2001; Yiftachel, 2002). Furthermore, their potential influ ence on Israel’s internal and external policies, even policies regarding their own community, has always been minimal. If so, how shall we understand their participation in Israeli parliamentary election? It has always been difficult to explain the Arab minority’s political objec tives and patterns of participation in Israel’s elections based on models and theories that explain electoral behavior in democratic countries. After the October demonstrations, it is even more difficult to employ such models. Watershed developments such as these require a new perspective: Just as the explanation for the high participation rate during the early period of the mili tary government (1948-1966) was no longer valid for the periods that fol lowed, the same is true for the period following the October demonstrations. 215

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Different theoretical models have been presented to describe the Arab population’s relationship with the state and its electoral behavior (see, for example, Al-Haj and Yaniv, 1983; Ghanem, 2001; Jamal, 2002; Kaufman and Israeli, 1996; Landau, 1993; Lustick, 1980; Rouhana, 1986). One of the mod els is the “modernization theory,” which links the increase in political partici pation to the rise in the standard of living and education, as well as the rise of new social movements (including pressure groups and protest movements), which was characteristic of Western society (Bell, 1999; Dalton, 1998; Ingelhart, 1997; for a critique of the application of the modernization theory to the Arab minority, see Sa’di, 1997). Other researchers have adopted the “institutional structure theory,” according to which the structure of institutions and political procedures in the state (such as granting the right to vote, the electoral system, the laws relating to parties, their registration and financing and the like) are the factors that determine the level of political participation (Jackman, 1987; Powell, 1986). Conversely, some researchers have adopted the “agency theory,” which emphasizes mobilization for political participation through classic mobilization institutions (parties, movements, labor unions, religious move ments and so forth) and describes these institutions’ modes of operation (Putnam, 1995, 2000; Rosenstone and Hansen, 1993). These theories do not provide a satisfactory explanation of Arab participa tion in Israel’s parliamentary elections; in fact, at times reality and theory contradict one another. For instance, this holds true of the modernization theory: The highest voting rates among the Arab minority were actually noted in the 1950s and 1960s, while “modernization” was at its outset. High voting rates were also maintained afterwards, even though the level of modernization did not rise significantly. The institutional structure theory also fails to ex plain the high participation rates despite the means of state control surveil lance used on the Arab citizens—especially political activists and leaders—and despite their inability to influence the decision-making process in Israel. Over the past two decades, for example, voting rates were high despite the particu larly low level of political influence. Finally, the agency theory can indeed explain situations where parties and labor unions mobilize citizens to vote for them by promising to serve their interests in the Parliament and vis-a-vis the establishment. However, application of this theory to the participation of Arab citizens in the elections disregards central characteristics in the state’s ethnic structure, which prevent effective representation of the minority’s interests and of different groups within it. Since Israel’s establishment, the ability of Arab citizens to exert political influence on the circles of decision-making has been marginal (if not nonex istent). Due to their national affiliation, the Arab citizens were automatically placed outside the Jewish-Zionist consensus that dictates the boundaries of political legitimacy and state identity. We are aware of the argument that the Israeli regime is characterized by collectivism (Ben-Eliezer, 1993) and thus

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the Jewish citizen does not have real influence on the decision-making proce dure either, but when applying this analysis it is necessary to distinguish between a dominated minority and the dominant majority. The majority has a greater range of possibilities for exerting influence and enjoying the benefits of the influence its elites exert. Merely by being part of the dominant majority, the Jewish citizen enjoys the benefits of the privileges majority enjoys in an ethnic state (for example land distribution), and by choosing to become affili ated with some powerful groups within the majority, he or she can exert some influence. The possibilities for influence open to the Arab citizen, both indi vidually and collectively, are more limited. Furthermore, when Arab citizens organize and raise demands on a collective basis, they are perceived by the majority and the establishment as a threat to the existing political order or even to the state itself. Ghanem and Rouhana (2001) have recently explained Arab electoral be havior according to a model of the crisis of the national minority in an ethnic state. Jamal (2002) described electoral participation as an expression of communality, whereas Kaufman and Israeli (1996) view the Arab national minority as one of many cases where a deprived minority has major differences of opinion with the majority, which can explain its voting patterns. These de scriptions shed some light on aspects of the electoral behavior and voting patterns of the Palestinian citizens, just as the models themselves highlight different dimensions of the relationship between the State of Israel and its Arab citizens. However, it appears to us that especially in light of the protest demon strations of the Arab minority in October 2000, and the kind of force the state employed to suppress them, the various descriptions do not sufficiently em phasize one of the unique elements that is characteristic of the evolving rela tionship between the State of Israel and its Arab citizens: the hostility—and even enmity, in certain respects—between the state and its institutions and the Jewish majority on one side, and the Arab minority on the other. It is true that describing the relations between the state and the Arab population as being marked mainly by hostility is exaggerated and simplistic, since the reality is much more complex; but ignoring the dimension of hostility would paint an incomplete picture of this relationship. For example, the Or Commission, “The State Commission of Inquiry on the October 2000 Clashes between Security Forces and Israeli Citizens,” has already recommended that the police, follow ing its conduct during the demonstrations of Arab citizens in October 2000, should promote the awareness among the force that the Arabs are not enemies (Official Commission Report, 2003). In addition, with regard to the distribu tion of public land, the Arab is in many cases considered an enemy who must be prevented from “taking over” the land or the homeland (i.e., the homeland of the Jewish people) or state lands (i.e., the state of the Jewish people). The mere increase in the number of Arabs, even through birth rate, is considered by the state and the Jewish public to be a danger. Public opinion polls (Arian,

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2001; see also Sultany, 2003) show that a substantial percentage of the Jewish population supports transferring the Arab population out of the country, and an even higher percentage supports encouraging them to leave their homeland. The growing awareness of the component of hostility results from the in creasing public consciousness between both Arab and Jewish citizens of a fundamental conflict between the ethnic constitutional structure and exclu sive ethnic identity of the state, and the demands of a national minority that is a homeland minority. The indigenous minority views the ethnic state that was founded on its homeland as a forcible dictate. Such a state precludes the possibility of collective and individual equality as well as the development of a normal relationship between the minority and its homeland (Jabareen, 2001). It is becoming increasingly apparent that the conflict between the state and the Arab minority is due not only to discrimination in distribution of resources, ethnic control, or social and cultural differences—as many social scientists have argued through the years (see for example the review by Rosenhak, 1998)—but due rather to more fundamental differences pertaining to the very definition of the state and homeland in the past, present, and future (see Rouhana 1997). The ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian national movement enhances this awareness; the October demonstrations underlined it. In light of the preceding analysis, the following questions should be added: How can the influence of the element of hostility be incorporated in an exami nation of the behavior of Arab citizens in Knesset elections and their voting patterns? Do Arab voters take into account considerations of influencing the political system and the decision-making process as do Jewish voters? Do Arab voters have considerations other than political influence that stem from their status as a controlled minority? In this chapter, we review the results of the parliamentary elections in the Arab community and try to explain the drop in voter turnout, which is one of the major characteristics of these elections. We also examine other characteris tics such as a shift in voting patterns and decrease in voting percentages for Zionist parties. We depend on polls conducted by “Mada—The Arab Center for Applied Social Research” in order to understand the significance of some of the changes in voting rates and patterns. We argue that participation in the elections serves special functions of the Arab population and its leaders, and that these functions should be understood in light of the complex citizenship relations with the state—relations that are being redefined in recent years and have a growing element of hostility. These functions have developed in line with the growing awareness that the Arab vote has no influence on decision making processes in the state. Voting without Influence To a large degree, the dilemma of the Arab voter in the parliamentary elec tions stems from the crisis of an Arab national minority in a Jewish ethnic state

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(see for example Ghanem and Rouhana, 2001; Rouhana and Ghanem, 1998). This dilemma has penetrated Arab public awareness and also found expression in previous election campaigns. What characterizes the 16th Knesset elections is the salience of a new aspect in the relationship between the state and the Arab population after the October demonstrations—the hostility as a major component in a complex relationship. In previous election campaigns, it was already clear to the Arab public and its leaders that they were outside the circle of influence in the Israeli parliamentary game: Representatives of the Arab public in the Knesset are not and have not been desirable partners in any possible coalition configuration. It may be said that the positioning of Arab representatives outside the coalitional game is an inevitable joint decision by both sides: On the one hand, Zionist ethnic politics in Israel do not regard any of the Arab parties as a legitimate partner. On the other hand, the representa tives of most Arab parties and their voters do not agree to be partners to the coalition without a constitutional and political change with regard to the state’s Arab citizens and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite their position outside the circle of influence—and even outside the circle of legitimate opposition (since the legitimacy of political opposition in Israeli politics is also limited to the boundaries of the Zionist and ethnic consensus)—Arab voters showed high participation rates in the parliamentary elections starting from the first elections, and these were higher in certain cases than the rates of participation among Jewish citizens. In the first two decades, the high participation rates could be explained as compliance with the mechanisms of control that the state employed through the military gov ernment, under the rule of Mapai (Lustick, 1980). In the following two de cades, the high voting percentages could be explained by the centrality of the Israeli Communist Party on the Arab political street (Rekhess, 1986). Today, the high voting percentages cannot be explained by the same factors, and they have other reasons: In the 1980s and 1990s, national Arab parties appeared— the Progressive List for Peace in 1984 and the National Democratic Alliance in 1996. The rise of national parties contributed to internal Arab competition over the Arab vote, and, consequently, high voting percentages were main tained until the last elections, when voting rates dropped to an unprecedented low. Citizenship, Political Identity and Self-Empowerment: The Development of New Functions for Electoral Participation From an historical standpoint, participation of Israel’s Palestinian citizens in Israel’s first election campaign was an expression of the new political order that was formed after the defeat of the Palestinian National Movement by the Zionist movement in the 1948 war. From the State of Israel’s standpoint, grant ing the Palestinian minority in the Jewish state the right to vote was mainly the result of the international climate that was created following the partition plan

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and the UN discussions on recognition of the State of Israel, within which the demand was raised for the minority remaining in the Jewish state to enjoy democratic and civil rights. Whereas from the standpoint of the Arab minor ity— a small minority that had just experienced a trauma, the remnants of a defeated people, the most disadvantaged group in Palestinian society—par ticipation in the elections reflected the acknowledgement of defeat and the inability to challenge the new order. Beyond this, participation in the elec tions during the military government period, and especially voting for the “correct party,” were considered a “certificate of good behavior” for the de feated (Bauml, 2002; Lustick, 1980). In addition, the only organized leader ship of this minority part of Maki (the Communist Party of Israel), a predecessor of Rakah —supported the UN partition plan from the outset. It viewed the Jewish state as a legitimate expression of the Jewish people’s right to selfdetermination, and encouraged participation in the elections. The Zionist parties (particularly Mapai, the ruling party, and Maki) thereby found them selves in competition over the votes of a minority that did not ask questions about the meaning of the elections, their political efficacy, or their political goals in a new reality that many believed to be temporary. In the balance of power under the military government, most Arab votes went to Zionist parties, with a minority of votes going to Maki. The attempt made at the end of the 1950s to establish a national Arab movement that would compete for the Arabs’ votes under the military government—the El Ard movement—was blocked by the executive branch, with the support of the Supreme Court (Bauml, 2002; Harris, 2001). The vote for Maki was usually considered a protest against Israel’s policy. The vote for Zionist parties and their affiliated Arab lists, on the other hand, was cast on the basis of parochial identification with the clan, religious group, and area of residence, reflecting a traditional segmented so cial structure that the ethnic system of control sought to promote (Lustick, 1980; Rosenfeld, 1963; Rouhana, 1986). However, protracted involvement in the election campaigns and in Israeli society itself brought about a transformation in the attitude of Arab citizens towards this involvement and towards citizenship in general. At first, the agenda of the Arab minority focused on immediate needs and dealt mainly with de mands against discrimination, land expropriation, military government re strictions, inequality in labor conditions and social services, and the like. In the absence of an organized national leadership that could present a collective agenda, a consensual demand evolved for “equality” without defining its implications for the minority and the state. There is no doubt that the rise in Rakah’s influence in the 1970s—especially after the first Land Day in 1976 and the parliamentary elections in 1977, when Rakah garnered over 50 per cent of the Arab vote—played a central role in entrenching the demand for civil equality and the concept of equal citizenship, but still without defining the political meaning of this demand. Yet this demand was broadly accepted.

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The end of the military government in 1966, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, and the far-reaching social changes in the social and economic structure of Arab society itself (Rosenfeld, 1979) brought about new processes—particularly reinforcement of Palestinian identity starting in the 1970s. The 1980s witnessed the reorganization of nationalist forces within the Progressive List for Peace. The new social structure made it impossible for the co-opted and traditional leadership of the Arab lists linked to Zionist parties to continue. Two central elements in the Arab political thinking became well established: one emphasizing equal citizenship and the other emphasizing national identity. However, the Progressive List for Peace, which emphasized national identity at the expense of civil equality, disappeared from the politi cal map in the 1992 elections (partly because of the de-emphasis on issues of citizenship). A new national party emerged in 1996— (the National Demo cratic Alliance [NDA]), which, promoted a new nationalist agenda and worked towards defining the meaning of citizenship and equality in the Israeli con text. The NDA proposed bridging two central demands: equal citizenship as the cornerstone of a long-term political project—turning Israel into a “state of all its citizens” instead of the state of the Jewish people; and an emphasis on an Arab-Palestinian national identity with a demand to grant the Arab citizens the status of a national minority with cultural autonomy. The linkage between national identity and equality reflects the seriousness of the quest for equal citizenship that developed within the Arab public and that was actually rein forced under NDA’s influence. A third political orientation, represented by the Islamic Movement (which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s in interaction with similar ideological streams within the occupied territories, and in response to regional developments) did not challenge the demand for equal citizenship either (Smooha and Ghanem, 1998), and one faction of the movement became represented in the Knesset by the United Arab List (UAL). It can therefore be said that all the political orientations represented in the Knesset, especially the Jewish-Arab communist stream and the nationalist stream, view the matter of equal citizenship as a cornerstone of their political ideology. All indications show that before the October 2000 demonstrations and the Israeli response to these demonstrations, the mainstream of Arab poli tics regarded the matter of their citizenship with full seriousness. Sending representatives to the Knesset, even if their influence is limited, is an expres sion of the citizenship relationship (although Arab citizens are aware of the inequality of their civil status) between the Palestinian collective in Israel and the state and its institutions. National representation—or more precisely, rep resentation on a national basis—in Parliament, and participation in the elec tions, became the most distinct political expressions of this relationship. National parliamentary representation became, within the unquestioned citi

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zenship relationship, a goal in and of itself, although the political influence wielded by this representation has been limited. This representation offers a platform for voicing the collective demands of the Arab minority before the Knesset and the Jewish public through civil channels, and grants access to international platforms and audiences to the Arab citizens’ representatives. In addition, there are those who believe that the Arab Knesset members can pro mote the affairs of Arab citizens vis-a-vis state institutions. Although the direct political influence of the Arab citizens’ parliamentary participation is believed to be minimal, there is an indirect influence achieved by having Arab representatives in the Knesset who will not join or support a right-wing coalition. These Arab Knesset members can, theoretically, and in the right Knesset composition, block the formation of a right-wing govern ment or support a minority government of a Labor-led coalition. The “block ing bloc” of Arab Knesset members who thwarted any possible majority against Yitzhak Rabin’s government (1992-1995) was one such example. But this influence for a minority has a double bind, because it places it in a no-choice position and can lead the coalition to take its support for granted (see Ghanem and Rouhana 1992). While Rabin’s Labor-led government was arguably more considerate of the Arab citizens’ needs then any government in Israel, Ehud Barak’s Labor-led government showed no interest in the Arab citizens. It was during this government’s term that orders were given to shoot Arab citizens in the October demonstrations. Thus, assumptions about the magnitude of this indirect influence presuppose significant differences in the policies of Labor and Likud towards the Arab citizens and the Palestinian issue. The more this difference is blurred, the more the indirect influence of Arabs in the Knesset is diminished. A Jewish national consensus, for example, or a clearly expected majority for the right wing, even if the differences between Labor and Likud persist, will reduce this indirect influence. To sum up, if in the first years under the military government the high rate of participation in parliamentary election campaigns reflected the surrender of the Palestinian minority to the new political order and was a product of the system of control—or in the best case, a protest against Israel and its policy— in the past two decades, it has become an expression of bridging between national representation and citizenship, even if it is not equal citizenship. Until recently, Israel’s Arab citizens, including all the political orientations represented in the Knesset, took it for granted; they sought to turn it into equal citizenship. However, participation in the parliamentary elections served two additional goals beyond gaining direct or indirect influence—which became increas ingly questionable. One additional goal was to shape and sharpen political and ideological identity versus other ideological orientations within Arab society itself. Parliamentary participation provides the modem organizational framework of a party and the financial and institutional support necessary to

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organize the electorate around a central ideology. This framework is the basis for social and political organization that can become a tool to achieve goals beyond what can theoretically be achieved by parliamentary means, such as constructing national identity or religious identity, instilling ideological be liefs, and mobilizing followers and supporters. Competition for parliamentary representation clarifies various groups’ identities within the society itself. The three main ideological streams within Arab society are clearly differentiated by parliamentary activity, since the latter requires sharpening the distinction among the different parties. The other goal is self-empowerment by building modem social and politi cal organizations that can represent the group’s ideology and empower its members. The organization of Arab society is, in and of itself, an act of empow erment that exceeds the boundaries of parliamentary activity. The organiza tional framework that the party provides can serve as a tool for applying public pressure and for public activity in general by extra-parliamentary means. For example, Rakah’s party apparatus demonstrates the success of the extraparliamentary activity in the Land Day strike of 1976. In summary, Arab participation in the parliamentary elections serves sev eral goals beyond political influence: (a) it expresses the bridging between citizenship and national identity; (b) it clarifies the groups’ ideological iden tity; and (c) it builds internal strength through modem organizational struc tures. A discussion of voting patterns must consider all of these goals. Factors Shaping the Arab Election Climate In the period between the 15th Knesset elections in May 1999 and the 16th Knesset elections, several developments took place that left their marks, some indelible, on the political climate on the eve of the elections. We will describe these developments briefly below, and then examine how this climate affected the goals of participation in the parliamentary elections, as identified in the previous section. This will also help us understand how this climate impacted on the elections results. We will begin with a review of the developments that influenced the first goal we defined: bridging between national identity and citizenship. Protest Demonstrations in October and Reactions o f the State and the Jewish Public The 16th Knesset elections were held in the shadow of the violent reactions of Israeli security forces to Arab demonstrators in October 2000, which caused the death of thirteen Arabs in the Galilee and the Triangle, and injury and arrests of hundreds of people in many Arab towns (Rosenberg, 2002). In some cases, groups of Jewish citizens joined the attack against Arab citizens and Arab property and religious institutions.1

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The Arab popular protest began as an expression of solidarity by the Pales tinian citizens of Israel with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and against the behavior of the Israeli army and police forces towards Palestin ian demonstrations in Jerusalem which had followed the visit of opposition leader MK Ariel Sharon to the Al-Aqsa Mosque plaza on September 2 8 ,2000.2 Confrontations between police forces and demonstrators represented a turn ing point in the relationship between the Arab citizens and the state and its Jewish citizens, and caused the Arabs to seriously re-examine the meaning of their Israeli citizenship (Rouhana, 2001). These clashes also deepened the rift between Arabs and Jews and damaged the fabric of Jewish-Arab relations in general. This was reflected in the accusing finger pointed by official bodies and by the Jewish public towards the Arabs (Ben-Simon, 2001). The official state response to the October demonstrations raised questions about the status of Arab citizens and demonstrated that, at least under certain circumstances, the State of Israel views the Arab minority as an enemy—and treats it accordingly. In addition, the behavior of the police and the support that it received on the Jewish street demonstrated that for Arabs, citizenship is not sufficient to protect them from the security forces. It was inevitable that this development would have a tremendous impact on the national identity of broad sectors of the Palestinian minority in Israel, and on the Arabs’ patterns of political behavior, including on their voting patterns. In this regard, the im portant question is to what degree did these events damage the relationship with the state and its institutions, and whether the damage affected either participation or voting patterns in the 2003 elections. Attacks o f the Political Establishment on Arab Parties and Political Movements Attacks on Arab parties and political movements during the term of the 15th Knesset were unprecedented in their intensity (with the exception of the much earlier period of the military government). From 1999 to 2002, the police investigated Knesset members from Arab parties on twenty occasions on sus picion of supporting the Palestinian Intifada, incitement, offending police officers, and other charges. Some Arab Knesset members were also injured in demonstrations after attacks by Israeli police officers and soldiers, and in seven cases, required hospital treatment.3Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein led some of the major charges. The leadership of two political orientations was particularly targeted: The extra-parliamentary Islamic movement headed by Sheikh Ra’ed Salah; and the NDA represented in the Knesset by MK Azmi Bishara (Dalai, 2003; Sultany, 2003; Sultany and Sabbagh-Khoury, 2003). The attacks on the Islamic movement were manifested, inter alia, in the police questioning of Sheikh Ra’ed Salah and Sheikh Kamal Khatib follow ing the rally called “Al-Aqsa is in Danger,” which the movement organizes

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annually; in the bill submitted (by Likud MK Yisrael Katz, future Minister of Agriculture) to oudaw the Islamic Movement and confiscate its assets; in the warning by the Or Commission for Investigating the Events of October 2000 to Sheikh Ra’ed Salah, that it was likely to reach the conclusion—as indeed it ultimately did—that he incited to violence as a means of achieving the goals of the Arab minority, negated the existence of the State of Israel, and described it as an enemy (Dalai, 2003); in preventing Ra’ed Salah from leaving the borders of Israel three times, by an order issued by the Minister of the Interior and at the recommendation of the General Security Services (GSS); and in the wounding of Ra’ed Salah by police fire during the October demonstrations in Umm al-Fahm on October 1, 2000. The attacks on the representative of the nationalists (NDA) in the Knesset were manifested in the removal of MK Azmi Bishara’s parliamentary immu nity at the request of the Attorney General and prosecuting him for two politi cal speeches (Sultany and Sabbagh-Khoury, 2003); in the requests of the Attorney General and right-wing politicians, at the recommendation of the GSS, to disqualify Bishara’s and NDA’s candidacy in the Knesset elections; in the warning by the Or Commission to MK Bishara that the Commission was likely to reach the conclusion—as it did—that he preached and incited to use violence as a means of achieving the goals of the Arab minority; and finally, in the reported intention of Interior Minister Eli Yishai to strip Bishara of his citizenship after he gave a speech in a ceremony marking the anniversary of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad’s death at Qardaha, Syria. (As it turned out, the Attorney General notified the Interior Minister that this would not be possible due to Bishara’s parliamentary immunity.) Attempts to Disqualify Candidacy o f Arab Knesset Members to Run Again fo r the Knesset On the eve of the elections, the Israeli right filed a flood of applications to disqualify the candidacy of Arab contenders and one Arab party—the NDA. Although the requests were not unusual, the involvement of the GSS and Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein in the matter was surprising (Sultany, 2002). In his efforts to disqualify the NDA, Rubinstein included a report from a GSS official indicating that the GSS had put the NDA and its leader, MK Azmi Bishara under state security surveillance. The purpose of these attempts was to threaten to outlaw Arab Knesset members, especially those who declare their opposition to the Jewish character of the state and who express the view that the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples have the right to resist Israeli occupation. The disqualification attempt and the Arabs’ political and legal activity against it dominated the political scene in the Arab community just before the elections. Although the Supreme Court ruled against the decision of the Central Elections Committee to outlaw two Arab Knesset members and one Arab party, the attempt

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to outlaw the MKs’ participation and the Arab opposition to it mobilized voters to participate in the elections despite widespread doubts about its real benefit. Re occupation o f the West Bank and the Gaza Strip Israel responded to the Al-Aqsa Intifada that broke out on September 28, 2000, by occupying additional Palestinian territories and deploying troops in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the first half of 2002, the Israeli military forces escalated their activity against the Palestinians: They invaded Palestin ian cities, bombed Palestinians within residential areas from the land and from the air, attacked the building of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Palestinian government, put Palestinian President Yasser Arafat under even tual house arrest, and arrested many other leaders. Over 2,000 Palestinians were killed from the beginning of the Intifada until the end of 2002, and close to 9,000 were arrested. In addition, the Palestinian economy was severely damaged.4 Dramatic developments took place in this period, such as the occu pation and demolition of part of the Jenin refugee camp and the Old City of Nablus, as well as cutting off contiguity between Palestinian cities and vil lages and the complete isolation of entire towns. This state of affairs remained in effect until Election Day. Almost every day, Israeli troops were killing Pal estinians, demolishing houses, uprooting trees or imposing a curfew. The second Palestinian uprising made a deep impact on the Palestinian citizens in Israel from its start as evidenced by the October 2000 mass demon strations. A public opinion poll of Arab citizens of Israel conducted by Mada5 showed that 74 percent of respondents believed that the goal of the Israeli army’s actions in the occupied territories was to break the Palestinian people’s will. The vast majority of Palestinian citizens in Israel reported having great interest in the events taking place in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Fully 92 percent of the respondents reported that they followed these events through the media, and 68 percent followed the news regularly. Palestinian citizens also were aware that the policy against the Palestinians was formulated and conducted by a “national unity government,” and that it enjoyed widespread support among Israeli Jew s.6 The immediate influence of these events on Arab voters might be most clear in their pattern of voting for Zionist parties. It is less clear how these events affect the very participation in the elections whether as a protest against these policies or as a rejection of the legitimacy of the establishment that employs them. Developments Related to Sharpening Political Identities and to Social Empowerment In addition to bridging between national identity and citizenship, we have defined two goals of participation in the elections: (1) sharpening of

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political and ideological identities within Arab society; and (2) social empowerment. The political identities of the three ideological orientations represented in the Knesset (communist, nationalists, and religious-Islamists) are sharp and clear. The framework of the political party contributes, on the one hand, to clarifying the political identity of each orientation, and, on the other hand— to social empowerment, by building and running party institutions, party branches, organizational hierarchy, and bureaucracy, and by supporting com munity activities and training a new generation of leaders. In the following paragraphs, we will review developments that affected these two goals. Success o f the Boycott in the Elections fo r Prime Minister (February 2001) From the moment the elections for prime minister were announced in Feb ruary 2001, a heated debate started in the Arab community on the question of whether to participate in or boycott the elections. The idea of boycott was raised both as a protest over the behavior of the security forces towards Pales tinians in Israel and in the occupied territories, and because neither of the contenders was an acceptable candidate to the majority of Arab voters. The idea of boycott was reinforced by the general loss of trust in the establishment that was prevalent among Arab citizens at the time. The political climate seemed to sup port a boycott. In order to mobilize popular support for the boycott, the Popular Committee for Boycotting the Elections was formed at the end of 2000 with the support of the “Committee of Martyrs’ Parents,” which had been founded by families of those slain by police in the October 2000 demonstrations. The slogan, “We will vote when the martyrs vote,” became widely accepted. For the Arab citizen, how participation in elections could bridge between national identity and citizenship was not clear when the choice in the election for prime minister was between Ariel Sharon (Likud) and Ehud Barak (Labor). Moreover, the boycott of the elections for prime minister was not expected to adversely affect the Arab representation in the Knesset, because these were not Knesset elections. Therefore, an opportunity emerged for self-empowerment without harming representation or party organization. Despite the hesitation of some political parties over whether to back the boycott up to the eve of the elections, all parties ultimately supported the boycott on election day. One reason for the hesitation was fear that the success of the boycott would create a precedent that would make it easier for voters to boycott the general Knesset elections later on. This was seen as potentially harming Arabs’ political selfinterest. In the end, the campaign for boycotting the elections for prime minis ter succeeded: For the first time since the inception of the state, only 18 percent of registered voters participated in the elections.7 Later, supporters of boycott for the 16th Knesset invoked the precedent of this success in their attempts to persuade voters to boycott the elections as an act of self-empowerment.

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Return to the Previous Electoral System (the Coalitional System) Before the 2003 Knesset elections, the question was asked as to what effect the return to the previous electoral system of voting only for one list of candi dates (and not two separate votes, one to a list of Knesset candidates and one to a candidate for the office of the prime minister) would have on voting patterns. On the one hand, the return to the old electoral system was expected to cause a drop in the percentage of voting for Arab parties because it was thought that at least some voters would go back to voting for Zionist parties. On the other hand, the growing competition between Arab parties and the consequent sharpened ideological differences and heightened identities were expected to mobilize supporters and increase their share of the total vote. Predictions o f a Likud Bloc Victory An important feature of the 16th Knesset elections campaign was the clear expectation before the elections for a Likud and right-wing victory. The pre dicted loss of the Labor Party, as well as its earlier failure to mobilize the support of Arab voters under the direct system of elections for prime minis ter—were expected to reduce the party’s share among Arab voters to the ben efit, mainly, of Arab parties. The predicted easy victory of the Likud bloc was expected to have another effect. If, by increasing the number of Arab representatives in the Knesset, the Arab voter exercised some kind of indirect political influence by blocking a right-wing coalition, as argued above, these elections reduced this route of influence, too. Therefore, the pre-election predictions were expected to dis courage Arab citizens from participation and thus decrease the percentage of Arab voting even further. The Elections and the Arab Satellite TV Channels Starting from the second half of the 1990s, there was a constant increase in the number of satellite TV channels viewed by Arabs in Israel. This increase had a clear impact on viewing patterns and leisure time. It also had an effect on the connection between Arab viewers and social and political developments in the Arab world as well as on the Arabs’ social identity and attitudes (Rinawi, 2003). During the elections campaign, the Arab world showed greater interest than it had in earlier campaigns in the vote of the Palestinian minority in Israel and its internal politics. This interest led to the allocation of valuable air time for candidates. Satellite TV and radio stations such as MBC, Al-Jazeera, AbuDhabi, Al-Mustaqbal, and others aired many interviews with Arab candidates. Some of them even dedicated special programs to the elections in Israel and

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the Arab vote. These broadcasts heightened competition between the Arab parties. The Lebanese station Al-Mustaqbal is a notable example. In the two weeks that preceded the elections, the station played a jingle entitled “My vote is my honor” in order to urge Arabs to vote. In addition, a popular pro gram on the same station hosted MK Azmi Bishara on January 21,2003. Aday prior to the elections, the station devoted an entire program to the elections in Israel, and hosted candidates and public figures associated with NDA only. Pre-announcement of the program’s broadcasting aroused resentment among other Arab contenders: The Shas movement, which represents Mizrachi ultraOrthodox Jews, turned to the Central Elections Committee—perhaps at the recommendation of some Arab candidates—with a request to prevent the broad cast, on the grounds that it would violate the Elections Propaganda Law. Shas withdrew its petition after the NDA candidates made a commitment not to use the program for open propaganda on behalf of their party.8 However, at the conclusion of the program, host Najwa Kassem issued a semi-open call from the studio in Beirut to vote for NDA. As a result, Arab Knesset members ac cused Syria and Lebanon of supporting MK Azmi Bishara {Ha ’aretz, 24 Janu ary 2003). There is some evidence for the widely accepted premise that Arab satellite stations play an important role in shaping political awareness among the Pal estinian minority in Israel. They fill the void created by the exclusion of this minority’s representatives from the Hebrew media (and the heavily state-con trolled Arabic radio and TV stations). In a highly charged political climate, the Hebrew media presents issues within a framework shaped by and acceptable to the Jewish consensus. Furthermore, the Hebrew media pays little attention to Arab social and political affairs and areas of interest. The satellite stations are an attractive substitute. Broadcasting in a language that all household mem bers can understand, their versions of events and their framing and interpreta tion of news are closer to those of the Arab citizen. Surveys that Mada conducted showed that 88 percent of Arab citizens in Israel follow events about the West Bank and Gaza Strip through Arab satellite channels. At the same time, 39 percent of them also follow the news on Israeli channels. In 82 percent of the cases, respondents reported that they viewed Israeli channels in addition to Arab channels, not in place of them (Sa’abni, Rouhana, and Mahameed, 2003). The noticeable preference for satellite channels over Israeli stations stems from a crisis of confidence between the Palestinian citizens and state institu tions including the Hebrew media. Election Results At the beginning of 2003, Israel’s population reached a total of 6,658,300,9 of which 16 percent were Arabs.10 Palestinian citizens live in over 100 Arab villages, ten Arab cities, and six mixed Jewish-Arab cities,11 as well as more than 60 villages not officially recognized by the Israeli government. 29.3

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percent of Israel’s Arabs live in Arab cities, 8.4 percent in mixed cities, 56 percent in large and small villages, and the rest (7.1 percent) reside in dozens of unrecognized villages.12 On the eve of the 16th Knesset elections, the number of registered Arab voters reached 559,000 out of 4,300,000 registered voters in Israel,13 consti tuting 13 percent of registered voters. In the previous Knesset elections in 1999, the number of registered Arab voters was 437,110 (Ghanem and OzackyLazar, 1999: 36). An examination of the results of the elections shows three central character istics: (1) A sharp drop in voter turnout; (2) a change in the internal balance of power between the central political parties in favor of the nationalists and secularists; and (3) a decrease in the percentage of voting for Zionist parties and narrowing the social base of their voters. We now turn to discussing these results. Sharp Drop in Voter Turnout The voting rate in the 16th Knesset elections was the lowest, both among Arab and Jewish voters, of all parliamentary elections held in Israel since the state was established. The drop in voting turnout from the previous elections was sharp. In the 15th Knesset elections, the voting rate within the Arab minor ity reached about 75 percent. In the 16th Knesset elections this rate dropped to about 62 percent, by far the lowest rate ever. One conceivable explanation for this drop is that it represents a collective act of political will—a boycott. This explanation is particularly tempting in light of the success of the earlier boycott and the deep frustration of the Arab citizens with domestic and regional Israeli policies, as described above. How ever, this explanation requires some examination before conclusions can be drawn, because the political meaning of boycotting the elections points to major change in political awareness. It represents a change in the perception of citizenship itself and in the possibilities of bridging between Palestinian Arab national identity and Israeli citizenship. Such an act has significant implica tions for future relations between Israel and the Arab minority. Therefore, we turn to deeper examination of this explanation. Call fo r a boycott and abstention from voting: The call to boycott the 16th Knesset elections was one of the developments marking this Knesset election campaign. Such calls had been heard in the Arab sector in many Knesset election campaigns, but usually these calls remained marginal.14 It was not until 1996 that boycotting the elections became a matter of significant public interest, but the interest focused on boycotting elections for the office of prime minister. In 1996, a heated debate emerged on boycotting the elections for the prime minister against the backdrop of Operation “Grapes of Wrath” in South Lebanon, which was ordered by Peres’ Labor government. This operation took

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place two months before the elections in which Shimon Peres ran against Benjamin Netanyahu. It was in the context of this operation that the Kafr Qana massacre took place. Yet, at that time, the call to boycott the elections did not develop into an organized effort, and did not generate sufficient interest among voters. The Arab political parties did not openly support it or contribute to the boycotting effort. Nevertheless, the number of voters who boycotted the elec tions or who cast a blank ballot did increase.15 In the 2001 elections for prime minister, public support for the call for a boycott was sweeping despite the minor organizational work that was in vested. The success of the boycott should be seen as a response to Israel’s policies toward its Palestinian citizens and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza after the outbreak of the second uprising. The call to boycott the 16th Knesset elections was now supported by many more individuals and groups and was brought to public consciousness. This was the first time that calls to boycott Knesset elections (as opposed to elections for prime minister) gath ered some steam. In addition, the call to boycott the Knesset elections fell on more attentive ears then in previous election campaigns.16 In order to examine why many voters abstained, Mada conducted a survey in May 2003. The survey conducted by Mada included a representative sample of 821 Arab respondents. We held interviews with the registered voters in the sample who did not vote.17 We found that the percentage of those who ab stained from participation in the elections as a political act was 43.4 percent of the total number of non-voters, or 14 percent of registered voters. Thus, we can conclude that the percentage of Arab registered voters who boycotted— as an act of will intended to convey a political message—was about 14 percent among Arab voters. Within this category of non-voters that we consider boycotters, it is possible to differentiate among three different reasons, or driving forces, for this act, each representing a different group of voters. The first driving force is boycott out of protest against the political situa tion in general and Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians in the occupied territories and in Israel. Such a boycott does not raise questions about the legitimacy of the Israeli parliamentary institution in and of itself. This is a practical step, and those who take it may vote again in the future once govern mental policies have changed. Our survey indicates that the percentage of Arab voters who boycotted the elections as a protest reached 34.7 percent of non-voters, or 11.2 percent of registered Arab voters. The second driving force is to use boycott as a conscious political act meant to refrain from conferring legitimacy upon the parliamentary institu tion in Israel. People who boycotted for this reason believed that the Jewish state and its parliamentary institution are not legitimate and that participation of Arab citizens in the elections turns them into a tool that Israel uses to win legitimacy in their eyes and in the eyes of the world. Those who advocate a boycott on these grounds believe that it is not possible to achieve political

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gains through elections in Israel’s present political structure, and certainly not at the price of granting legitimacy to the Jewish state. Another aspect of re fraining from granting legitimate status to state institutions poses a question, explicitly or implicitly, about citizenship and its value in the existing frame work. Certain elements in the extra-parliamentary “Sons of the Country” (Abnaa al Balad) movement are probably the most prominent representatives of this layer. According to our survey, the percentage of boycotters in this category reaches 8.7 percent of all boycotters, that is, about 3 percent of all registered Arab voters. The third driving force is that some boycotters seek to redefine the Arab citizens’ relationship with the state. In this case, the call to boycott the Israeli Parliament does not constitute a challenge to the citizenship relationship per se, but rather aims to redefine this relationship in order to guarantee equal rights to Arab citizens, on both the individual and collective levels. This boycott reflects political thinking that takes citizenship with the utmost seri ousness and works to strengthen and enrich it with democratic content. Its goal is to negotiate with the Israeli state in order to form a new relationship based on equal citizenship. This boycott does not challenge the existence of the civil relationship between Israel and the Arab minority, but rather its emp tiness. For this strategy to succeed, its proponents should develop a clear vision for the civil relationship between the Arab minority and the state, a vision that the Arab minority sponsors and which they seek to achieve through the boycott strategy. No such vision currently exists. The three approaches to boycotting elections did not coincide with exist ing ideological or political trends, except for the second, which coincides with Abnaa al-Balad, which was the only organized political group to support the boycott. Furthermore, the three different driving forces did not evolve in practice into differentiated arguments. Therefore, the various political and ideological underpinnings of the boycott became intermingled, and its mean ings and goals were never articulated. Yet, the call received some public atten tion. This receptivity emanates from the consensus that seems to be emerging regarding the limited political influence that parliamentary elections yield. In summary, although still limited, the legitimacy of the boycott idea seems to be growing, and gradually finding a stronger foothold in the Arab commu nity. However, choosing not to vote does not necessarily equate a boycott. As we have seen, only some of the registered voters boycotted the elections as an act of political will, and it would be an error to surmise that the “boycott movement” (if it can even be called this) has entered mainstream political thinking among the Arab citizens. In addition, it is important to differentiate among the different political reasons why individuals chose to boycott the elections. New boundaries o f citizenship and the discussion on boycotting the elec­ tions: In addition to the growing skepticism within the Arab minority and its

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elected representatives regarding the possibility of exerting influence through parliamentary participation, there was also a growing awareness that the gap between the political demands of the Arab minority and actual Israeli policy had reached proportions that do not enable Arab parties to influence policymaking in Israel. This awareness has been strengthened by legislative measures taken and government resolutions passed over the last few years (see Sultany, 2003). In addition to the new legislation, attacks on Arab leaders by the right-wing in the Knesset and the attorney general, and the concessions Arab candidates were required to make, only heightened this awareness. It is possible that the Central Elections Committee’s decision to disqualify Arab candidates and the NDA party led many Arab citizens to the conclusion that the boundaries of their citizenship and the limits of parliamentary participa tion were narrowing to a point that there was not much use in participating in the elections. It was clear that the new boundaries of citizenship had restricted the Arab citizens’ ability to achieve their rights on individual and collective levels. For example, new legislation was passed requiring Arab candidates for parliament to accept a constitutional definition of Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state” as a precondition for participating in elections at all and gaining entry to the Parliament. New legislation also limited their freedom to express political opinions regarding the nature and future of the state.18 Thus, within the new boundaries, the legislature limited the choice of candidates that Arabs can choose to represent them using rules and laws that Arab citizens consider to be unfair.19 The decision of the Central Elections Commission to ban the NDA and two Arab Knesset members from running again for the Knesset was seen as a criti cal step in limiting the boundaries of citizenship for Arabs in Israel. Some warned of the repercussions of this decision on the relations between Israel and the Arab minority. They viewed the disqualification of Arab candidates and the NDA as a turning point in the history of these relations, since this meant diminishing the legitimacy of the Arabs’ citizenship in the view of the state and the Jewish majority, and threatening the legitimacy of the state itself in the view of its Arab citizens, especially among the political and educated elites. This climate had contradictory repercussions. On one hand, the Central Elections Committee’s decision and its subsequent reversal by the Supreme Court provided support for the call for a boycott, especially for those who supported boycott as a protest against Israel’s policies and those who ques tioned the legitimacy of Israeli institutions. On the other hand, the Central Elections Committee’s decision and its annulment by the Supreme Court also provided ammunition for voices that called for participation in the elections and to back the parties whose candidates had initially been disqualified by the Central Elections Committee. The rationale for such calls was to challenge the forces that had sought to prevent them from running for elections. This argu

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ment seemed to have received some support, albeit not enthusiastic support. It was against this background that some people specifically opposed a boycott for the present elections but left room overall for such a move when conditions would be ripe. Their argument was that under the present conditions, a boycott did not serve the goal of internal empowerment and internal organization. The Arab community should prepare for such an eventuality whose conditions of success presently do not exist (Halabi, 2003).20 The low voting percentage and lack of enthusiasm on the part of some of the Arab elites and voters show that the boycott issue has not yet been re solved, and in most likelihood it will reemerge in a stronger form in the future if the current trend of deterioration in the relationship between Israel and its Palestinian citizens does not change. It is possible that the goal of self-empowerment can be refrained and achieved by boycotting the parliamentary elec tions and focusing instead on building local and (Arab) national social and political institutions. Changes in the Balance o f Power among Arab Parties Three Arab parties—The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (DFPE) at the center of which stands the Israeli Communist party, the NDA, and the United Arab List (UAL)— succeeded in passing the voting threshold and win ning representation in the 16th Knesset. The DFPE received the largest number of votes—93,819. NDA followed with 71,299 votes, and UAL came third with 65,551 votes. Despite the gap in the number of votes between the DFPE and NDA, the two parties won three Knesset seats whereas UAL won two. The Na tional Unity Party headed by Hashem Mahameed received 20,571 votes, which was not enough to enable it to pass the voting threshold (see Table 10.1). The four parties received some 70 percent of the Arab vote distributed as follows: DFPE, 26 percent; NDA, 20 percent; UAL, 18 percent; and the Na tional Unity, 6 percent of the total number of Arab valid votes. The remaining 30 percent voted for non-Arab parties, as detailed below. Table 10.1 Distribution o f the Arab Vote in the 2003 Elections List DFPE (Communist party) NDA (Nationalists) UAL (Islamist coalition) Unity Other parties Total

Number of votes 93,819 71,299 65,551 20,571 106,290 357,530

Data from Mada, based on the official results

Percentage

Seats

26% 20% 18% 6% 30% 100%

3 3 2 0 — —

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A comparison between the results of the 2003 and 1999 elections illustrates the shifts that took place in the strength of these parties. The greatest change was the decline in the strength of the UAL as its share dropped from about 30 percent of the Arab vote to 18 percent. The loss of about 40 percent of its strength can be attributed to a number of factors. First, there were severe inter nal conflicts within the party, some of which related to competition over place ment in the top slots of the party’s list. These conflicts became intense and public before the elections and they undermined the party’s image and sup port among its base of voters. The conflicts were fully exposed immediately upon publication of the election results.21 Second, the parliamentary perfor mance of some of the list’s representatives in the 15th Knesset was not on par with the performance of the other Arab blocs in the Knesset. Third, the in creased support of the extra-parliamentary Islamic movement, which ema nates from the movement’s ideological views as well as its popular methods of operation, came at the expense of the UAL. The extra-parliamentary Islamic movement called for a boycott of the elections, another possible reason for the weaker showing of the UAL in the polls. The NDA and DFPE increased their strength in comparison with the 1999 elections. The rate of Arab voters for the DFPE rose from 21 percent in the 1999 elections to 26 percent in the 2003 elections. The proportion of Arab voters for NDA rose from 17 percent to 20 percent.22 It is difficult to determine the degree of influence exerted by political and organizational factors on the changes in the balance of power among the Arab parties. But it is clear that all of the factors—the drop in voting rates among registered Arab voters, the loss of appeal of Zionist parties such as the Labor Party and Meretz among Arab voters, and the effect of the Al-Aqsa Intifada on strengthening the national Arab discourse and on sharpening internal group identities—together played a role. In the 2003 elections, the Arab parties maintained their overall strength versus the non-Arab parties, despite the change in the electoral system. In the 1999 elections, the DFPE, the NDA, and the UAL together garnered 69 percent of the Arab vote. In the 2003 elections, the same parties together with the National Unity Party won 70 percent of the vote. The change took place in the relative strength of the Arab parties. Decrease in the Percentage o f Voting for Jewish Zionist and Religious Parties In the 2003 elections, non-Arab parties won 29.4 percent of the Arab vote. The distribution of Arab to non-Arab parties in the 16th Knesset was as follows: 7.5 percent to Labor Party; 5.8 percent to Am Ehad; 4.1 percent to Meretz; 8.4 percent to Likud and religious parties, and 3.6 percent to other Jewish parties. There are slight shifts in the rates of support for Zionist parties, but no signifi cant difference in the overall voting rate between 1999 and 2003.

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Labor party Other Jewish parties Total

1992

1996

1999

2003

20.3% 33% 53.3%

16.6% 17% 33.6%

7.4%

22%

7.5% 21.9% 29.4%

29.4%

The data in the table for the years 1992-1999 are based on Ghanem and Ozacky-Lazar (1999). The data for 2003 are taken from an analysis the official results of the 16* Knesset elections. The data do not include Arab votes in mixed cities.

A comparison of the results of the last few elections with the results of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Knesset elections shows a decrease in the percentage of Arab votes given to Zionist parties. In the 1992 elections, non-Arab parties (Zionist and fundamentalist Jewish parties) received 53.3 percent of the Arab vote, 20.3 percent of which was given to the Labor Party. In the 1996 elections, a sharp drop took place in the rate of votes for non-Arab parties, and it reached 33.6 percent—the votes were divided mainly between the Labor Party (16.6 percent) and Meretz (10.5 percent). The main factor for this drop was the change in the electoral system in which voters could cast two votes: one for a party and one for the candidate for prime minister. In the 15th and 16th Knesset elections, the downward trend continued: The voting rate for non-Arab parties dropped to 29.4 percent despite the return to the one ballot vote. There were those who believed that returning to the one-ballot system, which that was in effect until the 1992 elections, would increase the percent age of Arabs voting for Zionist parties, especially the larger parties. We ex plained the reasons for these expectations above. These predictions were proven wrong, at least with regard to voters who are not Druze or Bedouin, as we will see below. The fact that the voting rate for Zionist parties did not rise despite the change in the electoral system can be seen as a drop in the strength of the Zionist parties. The gradual decrease in support for Zionist parties stems from several fac tors. The main factor is the gradual adoption of a voting pattern among Arabs that can be termed identity voting, in which the issue of Arab and Palestinian affiliation plays an important role (Kaufman and Israeli, 1996; Rouhana, 1986). This pattern is more noticeable as tensions increase between Israel and the Palestinians and the Arab world. The increasing awareness of the component of hostility in the relationship between the state and the Arab population has also contributed to this result. In addition, identity considerations are fostered by the activity of the Arab parties in the local arena, the continued Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation, and the general mood of confrontation between Israel and the Arab world. As we noted above, the media play an

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important role in encouraging voting for Arab parties out of identity consider ations. A pattern of protest voting, or abstention from voting for Zionist parties, can also be discerned. It can be hypothesized that factors such as the October 2000 demonstrations and the killing of thirteen Arab demonstrators by police and army forces, the part of the Labor Party in this violent policy, and the silence of Meretz in the face of these actions—all these encouraged this pat tern among Arab voters. Protest voting is different from identity voting in that it doesn’t necessarily represent a principled position; it is rather influenced by the circumstances in which the election campaign takes place. The rise in the Arab parties’ strength, the improvement in the efforts (not necessarily the achievements) of some of these parties in protecting Arab indi vidual and collective rights, the clarity of their political positions, and the emphasis on the political and ideological identities of each party—increased competition among them and helped mobilize their supporters. This competi tion drew more Arab voters to the Arab parties. Furthermore, the fact that it was clear prior to the elections that the Labor Party and its traditional allies would fail to win the elections and assemble a coalition motivated Arab voters to distance themselves from these parties. Who Votes fo r the Zionist Parties? A question frequently asked about Arab voting patterns is, why do they vote for right-wing and Jewish religious parties? The answer to this question is beyond the scope of this chapter, but in the context of the decrease in support for Zionist parties, we examined the remaining sources of support in the Arab community. The results of the 16th Knesset elections show that not all segments of Arab society vote equally for Zionist parties. Voting percentages for Zionist parties in Druze and Northern Bedouin communities are high in comparison with other Arab villages in the Galilee and the Triangle, and also in comparison with Bedouin villages in the Negev. The voting rate for non-Arab parties in the Druze towns reached 89 percent, as opposed to 23 percent in other Arab towns (with the exception of the Bedouin Arabs). The voting rate for Zionist parties in Bedouin towns in the north reached 46 percent; in the south, it reached 32 percent. These results are not unique to the 2003 elections, and have been observed in earlier elections. The voting rate for Zionist parties in the Druze towns reached 86 percent in the 15th Knesset elections and 81 percent in the 14th Knesset elections. The double-ballot vote in 1996 and 1999 could explain the lower percentages given to Zionist parties during these years. In the last elec tions, the voting percentage for Zionist parties in Druze villages was similar to the percentage in the 1992 elections, which was about 91 percent. It appears,

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therefore, that disproportion support for Zionist parties in the Arab popula tion comes from the Druze community and from the Bedouin in the north. What is perhaps most surprising is that the voting rate for the Likud rose from 8 percent in 1999 to 20 percent of the total vote in Druze towns in 2003, whereas the Labor Party received 27 percent of the votes in these villages, even more than the party received in the Jewish community. Table 10.3 reveals the significant difference in voting patterns between Druze Arab villages and non-Druze Arab villages. However, a separate study is needed in order to properly analyze and explain this difference. Table 10.3 further shows that the voting patterns in Bedouin villages in the north are different from the voting patterns of the Arabs in general, and they, too, merit a separate study. These results reveal that the voting patterns of the Druze are different from those of other Arab voters. This difference is not due to religious affiliation but rather to the patterns of the political and economic connection between the state and the Druze minority. From its early years, Israel had adopted a clear policy intended to separate the Druze from the rest of the Arabs and to create an independent Druze ethnic identity (Firro, 2001). Israel also did so with regard to Muslims as opposed to Christians (Neuberger, 1998: 139). At least in terms of voting patterns, this policy seems to have achieved its goals. Conclusion Political scientists and sociologists have repeatedly studied the voting patterns of Arab citizens in Israel. A substantial portion of the research on this Table 10.3 Distribution o f Votes between Arab and Jewish Parties, by Community (in percentages) Type of community

Type of party

Percentage

Non-Bedouin, non-Druze community

Jewish Arab All parties Jewish Arab All parties Jewish Arab All parties Jewish Arab All parties

23% 77% 100% 46% 54% 100% 32% 68% 100% 89% 11% 100%

Bedouin community in the north

Bedouin community in the Negev

Druze community

Analysis by Mada based on official results of 16th Knesset elections

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topic has emphasized aspects of political influence, which stands at the center of democratic theory. Many researchers have explained the changes in Arab voting patterns in light of the development of national consciousness and how the dialectical relations between the Arab minority and the state influ ences it. These analyses, despite their importance in highlighting many of the mo tives for the political behavior of the Arab citizens and in explaining many of the reasons for the constant fluctuations in voting rates, have neglected inter nal Arab political and organizational considerations. We view these consider ations as vitally important in understanding the general picture of the Arab minority’s electoral behavior. The ability of Israel’s Arab citizens to influence the political decision making in the state has been gradually declining. In the past, leaders of Arab political movements may have thought that it was possible to influence the decision-making process, indirectly, by supporting governments led by the Labor Party, serving as a “blocking majority” in the Knesset against the Israeli right. However, the chances of this have greatly lessened in the past decade, for reasons partly related to the change in the electoral system and partly related to a rise in the strength of the Israeli right—a rise that has been shown in the Likud’s victories in recent years. The chances of influence also lessened in the wake of the evolving relationship between the State of Israel and its Arab citizens, a relationship in which one of the elements is hostility—and even enmity—between the state and its institutions and the Jewish majority on one side, and the Arab minority on the other. This relationship will make it easier to delegitimize the Arab parties’ possible influence in the future. As the boundaries of citizenship have narrowed in recent years, Arab citi zens are increasingly questioning the meaning of being citizens, beyond their formal relationship with the state. Citizenship involves political and social rights, including active partnership in shaping the public sphere and the com mon good. Stripping citizenship of these rights means turning it into a formal relationship, thereby turning Arab citizens into “citizens without citizenship” (Sultany, 2003). This situation could lead to one of two contradictory pro cesses. The first is to surrender or accommodate to the existing political order, in light of the inability to change it and out of fear of the powerful majority and its state institutions and apparatus. Obviously, the accommodation can find numerous justifications and can take different forms. The alternative is to search for new political routes to achieve political influence that require de veloping new political visions and new organizational bases. This search too can take different forms. Political activity in the Arab community, both parlia mentary and extra-parliamentary, is defined by the competition between these two broad alternatives. The differences between them will become increas ingly distinct if and when awareness increases that the parliamentary option has been exhausted.

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Notes 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6

.

7.

8

.

9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

For example, the attack by a group of Upper Nazareth residents on the eastern neighborhood of Nazareth can be noted, as well as an attack on a mosque in the city of Tiberias on Saturday, October 7, 2000 (Yedioth Aharonot, 8 October 2000; see also Or Commission report, which details some of these attacks). In a survey of a representative sample of the Arab population during the first month of October 2000, 84 percent of the respondents agreed that “the reactions of the Israeli Arabs this week reflect their feelings” (Yedioth Aharonot, Weekend Supple­ ment, 6 October 2000, p. 12). The Arab Association for Human Rights, Conditions o f Citizenship and Restricted Political Participation (October 2002); Silencing Dissent—A Report on the Viola­ tion o f Political Rights o f the Arab Parties in Israel (October 2002) (at the website www.arabhra.org). See the eighth annual report of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citi zens’ Rights, at its website: http://www.palestine-info.info/arabic/palestoday/reports/ report2003/haya.htm. The poll was carried out by the Survey Research Unit at Mada—The Arab Center for Applied Social Research on April 6,2003. It included a representative sample of 294 respondents from the Arab minority in Israel and showed that 76 percent of Arab citizens view the Israeli army’s policy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as war crimes. See Amid Sa’abni, Nadim Rouhana, and Suleiman Mahameed, “The War in Iraq and the Relations between Israel and the Palestinians,” Series o f Public Opinion Polls among Palestinians in Israel, Haifa: Mada—The Arab Center for Applied Social Research, June 2003. A public opinion poll by Ma 'ariv on the topic of the military invasion of the Pales tinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, held on April 12,2002, found that 75 percent of its respondents supported re-occupation (as part of Operation Defen sive Shield) and 62 percent supported the expulsion of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. Fifty-one percent of respondents said that Israel must not accept the call issued by U.S. President George Bush to Israel to withdraw from the areas of the Palestinian Authority that it had re-occupied. This figure appears in many articles and studies that deal with the results of the elections for prime minister that were held that year, but we could not find an official source to confirm it. See Central Elections Com m ittee press release from January 27, 2003: www.knesset.gov.il/elections 16/heb/cec/view_announcement.asp?id=61. See the Central Bureau of Statistics’ website, www.cbs.gov.il, the Data Update section. According to the latest data of the Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of Arab residents living under Israeli rule comes to 1,271,900. Deducting the residents of occupied Arab Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, the proportion of Arabs in Israel amounts to 16 percent of the total population (see source in previous note). The cities are Haifa, Acre, Jaffa, Lydda, and Ramie, as well as Upper Nazareth, which was originally established as a Jewish city. For data on the distribution of Arab residents in Israel, see the website of Mada— The Arab Center for Applied Social Research: www.mada-research.org. The vil lages not included in the list of legally recognized villages and cities do not appear on the map, although most existed even before the Nakba and the establishment of the State of Israel. Data update notification issued by the Central Bureau of Statistics on January 22, 2003 (www.cbs.gov.il). The proportion of registered Arab voters is smaller than

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15.

16.

17.

18. 19.

20.

21.

22.

241

their proportion within the general population, due to the differences between Arabs and Jews in age distribution. The data update notification on Muslims in Israel (including Arab Jerusalem) issued by the Central Bureau of Statistics on February 11, 2003 indicates that 42 percent of Muslims are under the age of 14, versus 26 percent of Jews. See also the website of the data bank on the Arab minority in Israel: www.rekaz.org. For example, the “Abnaa A1 Balad” movement had called for a boycott of the elections since it was founded in the 1970s. For more information on this movement’s position in the last elections, see the movement’s announcements at the following website: http://www.abnaa-elbalad.org/mokata3a_48 .html. In 1996, 7.2 percent of voters cast a blank ballot. About the call to boycott the elections for prime minister and voting with a blank ballot, see for example Nimer Sultany, “Pragmatism and National Nihilism,” Al Ittihad, June 19,1996. For details on the positions of public figures outside the “Sons of the Country” movement on the need to boycott the elections, see the website: http://www.abnaaelbalad.org/mokata3a_48.tripod.com.yom_dirasi.html. See also the article by Sheikh Ra’ed Salah, Sawtal Haqq wa al Houriya608, January 17,2003, and the article by Sheikh K am al K hatib at the w ebsite w w w .islam ic-aqsa.com / display.asp?FN=makk39&dir=rtl. The percentage of nonvoters in the sample was 32 percent (while in the elections it was 38 percent). Reports about voting behavior after elections are conducted show some discrepancy between actual voting and reported voting behavior. Furthermore, the sampling margin of error contributed to this discrepancy. We used the sample’s data to calculate percentages of boycott. See Sultany (2003) for a review of legislations and government decisions and Rouhana and Sultany (2003) on the new boundaries of citizenship. See the statement issued by the National Democratic Alliance party in response to the decision of the Central Elections Committee to prevent Azmi Bishara from participat ing in the elections, Fasl al Maqal, January 2,2003. Halabi mentions the absence of representative institutions elected by the Arab citi zens, a lack of coordination between existing Arab political forces, and the economic dependency of the Arab minority upon Jewish society and the state. After publication of the results, an exchange of accusations between the leaders of these parties filled the front pages of the weekend supplements in the Arab press on the first Friday after the elections, January 31,2003. Despite the increase in the rates of voting for these parties, the parliamentary strength of the two parties dropped, due to the decrease in voter turnout.

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Rosenberg, Rina. 2002. “On the Collective Criminalization of Political Protestors.” Adalah’s Review 3 (Law and Violence): 8 . Rosenfeld, Henry. 1979. “The Class Situation of the Arab Minority in Israel.” Mahbarot Lemehkar Ulevikoret 3 (Hebrew). Rosenfeld, Henry. 1963. They were Fellahs. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad (Hebrew). Rosenhak, Zeev. 1998. “New Developments in the Sociology of the Palestinian Citizens of Israel: An Analytical Review.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21:558-578. Rosenstone, Steven, and John Mark Hansen. 1993. Mobilization, Participation and Democracy in America. New York: Macmillan. Rouhana, Nadim. 2001. “Shaking the Foundations of Citizenship.” Al Ahram Weekly, 27 September 2001. Rouhana, Nadim. 1986. “Collective Identity and Arab Voting Patterns.” In Asher Arian and Michal Shamir, eds., The Elections in Israel— 1984, 121-149. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Rouhana, Nadim, and As’ad Ghanem.1998. “The Crisis of Minorities in Ethnic States: The Case of Palestinian Citizens in Israel.” International Journal o f Middle East Studies 30: 321-346. Rouhana, Nadim, and Nimer Sultany. 2003. “Redrawing the Boundaries of Citizenship: Israel’s New Hegemony.” Journal o f Palestine Studies 33 (1): 5-22. Sa’abni, Amid, Nadim Rouhana, and Suleiman Mahameed. 2003. “The War in Iraq and the Relations between Israel and the Palestinians.” Series o f Public Opinion Polls among Palestinians in Israel 1. Haifa: Mada—The Arab Center for Applied Social Research (Hebrew). Sa’di, Ahmad H. 1997. “Modernization as an Explanatory Discourse of Zionist-Palestinian Relations.” British Journal o f Middle Eastern Studies 24(1): 25-48. Smooha, Sammy, and As’ad Ghanem. 1998. Ethnic, Religious and Political Islam Among the Arabs in Israel. Haifa: University of Haifa. State Commission of Inquiry on the October 2000 Clashes between Security Forces and Israeli Citizens. 2003. Report (September) (Hebrew). Sultany, Nimer. 2003. Citizens without Citizenship—Mada ys First Annual Political Moni­ toring Report: Israel and the Palestinian Minority 2000 2002. Haifa: Mada—The Arab Center for Applied Social Research. Sultany, Nimer. 2002. “A Dangerous Step for Democracy.” Ha ’aretz, 30 December 2002 (Hebrew). Sultany, Nimer. 1996. “Pragmatism and National Nihilism.” Al Ittihad, 19 June 1996 (Arabic). Sultany, Nimer, and Areej Sabbagh-Khoury. 2003. Resisting Hegemony: The Azmi Bishara Trial. Haifa: Mada—The Arab Center for Applied Social Research (Hebrew). The Arab Association for Human Rights. 2002. Conditions o f Citizenship and Restricted Political Participation (Nazareth, October). The Arab Association for Human Rights. 2002. Silencing Dissent—A Report on the Violation o f Political Rights o f the Arab Parties in Israel (Nazareth, October) (avail able at the website www.arabhra.org). Yiftachel, Oren. 2002. “The Shrinking Space of Citizenship, Ethnocratic Politics in Is rael,” Middle East Report 223 (Available at www.merip.org).

11

From “Russians” to Israelis? Ken Goldstein and Zvi Gitelman The 1990s immigration from the Former Soviet Union to Israel now seems complete. Between the rise of perestroika in the late 1980s and the fall of Communism (1991), and the start of the second Intifada and the end of Israel’s economic boom in 2000—a period of just over a decade—close to one million Russian-speaking people moved to the Jewish state.1 This wave of immigra tion to the State of Israel, whether perceived in absolute numbers or as a proportion of the Israeli population (15 percent), was the single largest ever (Lissak and Leshem, 2001). This massive immigration occurred at a time when the electoral environ ment was very evenly matched, and drew much attention from Israeli parties and politicians. It also drew the attention of scholars, who took the opportu nity to study, among other things, processes of economic, social, cultural, and psychological adjustment.2 The aliya from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) also coincided with a period when the state of Israel was “experimenting” with its electoral system. Until 1992, Israeli elections were conducted under one of the purest forms of proportional representation in the democratic world, with voters casting their ballots for lists of candidates and seats being allocated in almost perfect proportion to the number of votes earned. Although no party was ever able to gamer a majority, and minor parties were often able to use small but decisive numbers of seats as leverage in coalition negotiations, two out of every three seats in the Knesset were typically won, and held, by the two largest parties—Labor and Likud.3 Still, many were concerned that the smaller parties wielded excess power in coalition negotiations. Reformers aimed to strengthen the power of the prime minister and the two major parties, thereby reducing the role of smaller parties. Accordingly, prior to the 1996 elections, a new hybrid system was established

245

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in which the prime minister was directly elected by majority vote, while mem bers of the Knesset were chosen by the traditional list system. The first time this hybrid system was used, in the 1996 national elections, Binyamin Netanyahu narrowly beat incumbent Shimon Peres in the direct race for prime minister. The intentions of reformers notwithstanding, the free dom to choose which person they wanted to lead the government, irrespective of their partisan affiliations, enabled voters to simultaneously support minor ity interest parties, thus causing the smaller parties to gain strength in the 1996 elections. The two major parties combined won only 66 Knesset seats, com pared with 75 and 90 in earlier elections. Nine smaller parties managed to win representation in the 13th Knesset, splitting the remaining 54 seats between them. Surveys taken at the time suggested that Russian-speaking voters gener ally supported Binyamin Netanyahu and had a decisive influence on his de feat of incumbent Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Most notable in the Russian sector of the electorate was the rise of the immigrant party, Israel B’Aliya (IB A), led by Natan Sharansky. IB A won seven seats and gained more than two of three Russian sector votes (Tuller, 1999). In 1999, Labor challenger Ehud Barak bested incumbent Binyamin Netanyahu by 12 percentage points (56 to 44 percent) in the direct ballot for prime minister. Again, able to decide which bloc they wanted to form and lead a new government, voters felt free to favor their narrower interests in the legis lative vote, giving smaller parties the lion’s share of their support. Labor (run ning as One Israel) and the Likud combined, won only slightly over a third of Knesset seats (45), with 13 other parties splitting the remaining 75. According to an exit poll we conducted in the “Russian” sector during that election, Russian-speaking voters favored Barak by almost exactly the same margin as did voters overall (Gitelman and Goldstein, 2001). Like most other Israelis, Russian sector voters did not support the parties that the respective candidates for prime minister represented, giving only 11 percent of their vote to One Israel (Labor) and ten percent of their vote to Likud. Conversely, over half their vote went to IB A (36 percent) and Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beitenu party (17 percent). Thus, although not a decisive factor in deter mining the outcome, Russian sector votes did make for impressive showings by two immigrant or ethnically based parties (Gitelman and Goldstein, 2001). In a special election for prime minister alone that was held in 2001, voters ousted the incumbent administration for the fourth election in a row (three of them direct elections for prime minister). Ariel Sharon bested Ehud Barak by a comfortable 20-point margin. It seems that Russian-speaking voters supported Sharon in this contest by a margin of over two to one (Greenberg, 2001). With such a large margin of victory for Sharon in 2001, the Russian vote was not decisive. After the failure of the reformed system to eliminate smaller parties and strengthen the prime minister, Israel returned to the single ballot list sys tem in the 2003 elections.

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In this chapter, we use exit poll data we gathered during the 2003 elections for the 16th Knesset to describe the characteristics, attitudes, and voting behav ior of Russian-speaking immigrants. We examine the effect this group of vot ers had on the 2003 elections and discuss how Russian sector voters differed from other segments of the Israeli electorate. We also address broader ques tions that go beyond this election, and even beyond Israeli politics, issues such as political resocialization of immigrants and the persistence of ethnic voting. For example, in light of the size of the immigration from the Former Soviet Union, observers have wondered to what extent this bloc will assimilate and how long the process might take. After all, throughout Israeli history, includ ing the pre-state period of the Yishuv, immigrants have been successfully absorbed into the major parties and have generally failed to sustain ethnic parties. Shas, founded in 1983, is the only partial exception. However, the unprecedented size of the Russian-speaking immigration and its devotion to Russian culture might lead Russian sector voters to continue lending signifi cant support to their ethnic parties. Or, with the return of the single ballot system, Russian sector voters could eschew ethnic mobilization and Russianbased parties. Will Russian sector voters continue to pay attention to Russian language media sources? Will they continue to display different voting pat terns from the electorate as a whole? Are Russians, indeed, becoming a distinct ethnic group rather than being “absorbed” into the Israeli Jewish population and becoming, over a generation or two, indistinguishable from those whose origins are in Europe or, in the case of Jews from Central Asia, the Caucasus and Georgia, from those whose ancestry is mainly in the Middle East and North Africa? (A1 Haj, 2002). In most democratic countries that have had immigra tion—the United States, Canada, Australia—ethnic immigrant groups vote en bloc in the first or second generation, but as they experience geographic, cultural and socioeconomic mobility, their voting patterns become more dif ferentiated. Will this be true of the largest immigration in Israeli history? In order to address these questions and understand the future role and be havior of this large bloc of voters, we use exit poll data collected during the 1999 and 2003 elections, as well as voting and public opinion data on the Israeli electorate as a whole. In our analysis, we pay special attention to what it means to “assimilate” politically. Although we illustrate how the Russian sector differs from the Israeli electorate as a whole and may retain some of its unique characteristics for the foreseeable future, it is important to remember that no segment of the Israeli electorate “looks like” the electorate as a whole. The Israeli electorate is a mixture of Arab, religious Jewish, and secular Jewish voters, as well as non-Arab non-Jewish voters, mostly from the FSU. Among secular voters, there are major differences in the voting patterns of Ashkenazi and Sephardi voters, voters from development towns, and those from kibbut zim.

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We begin with a profile of some of the basic attitudes and attributes of Russian sector voters and offer a comparison with Jewish Israeli voters. P ro file

Political scientists have long viewed partisan or ideological predisposi tions, as well as views of economic and personal security, as the fundamental factors that drive individual voting behavior and determine election outcomes (Abramson, 2002; Bartels, 2000; Berelson, Lazarsfeld, McPhee, 1954; Campbell, Converse, Miller and Stokes, 1960; Fiorina, 1986; Markus and Converse, 1979). Do these factors determine the political attitudes and votes of Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel? How do these immigrants compare with other Israelis on such fundamental determinants of political outlook and behavior? We are able to describe where Russian sector voters stand and compare their attitudes in 2003 with those of other Israelis by using our national exit poll among Russian speakers along with data from the Israeli National Election Study. For purposes of comparison, we removed those respondents who iden tified themselves as Arabs or as pre-1988 immigrants from the Former Soviet Union from the Israel National Election study. Our comparison is thus between Russian-speaking voters, from the second large wave of immigration only, with other Jewish Israeli voters. Ideologically, Russian voters were much more likely than Jewish Israeli voters to describe themselves as right wing. Almost nine times as many “Rus sians” (35 compared with 4 percent) placed themselves on the far right (6 and 7 on a 7-point scale), than those who identify themselves as being on the far left (1 and 2 on the 7-point scale). Still, a strong majority (61 percent) posi tioned themselves in one of the middle three categories. Among non-Russian Israeli Jews, there was a tilt toward the right, but it was far less pronounced. Just under four in ten (37 percent) Israeli Jews placed themselves on the right of the political spectrum, and exactly two in ten positioned themselves more toward the left. A plurality of Israeli Jews (44 percent) placed themselves in one of the middle three categories (see Table 11.1). The conventional wisdom that Russian voters tend to be on the right of the Israeli political spectrum is certainly supported by the exit poll data. Still, they are more heavily represented in the moderate category than other Israeli Table 11.1 Ideology of Russian Sector Voters and Jewish Israeli Voters

Right Moderate Left

Russian Sector Voters 35% 61% 4%

Jewish Israeli Voters 39% 44% 17%

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Jews. A comparison between our 2003 survey results and those from 1999 shows that the Russian-speaking sector has become more conservative. In 1999, 15 percent of Russian sector voters described themselves as having a more left-wing ideology. This was four times more than those who described themselves thus in 2003. As shown in Table 11.1, Russian sectors voters were also less inclined to identify with the left than other Israeli voters. Just as the distribution of party identification in an American election sets the stage for the contest, the ideological balance of Russian sector voters heading into the 2003 elections clearly predisposed many Russian sector voters to vote for right-wing parties in the 2003 Knesset election. Still, the sector was not monolithic. While clearly weighted toward the right end of the spectrum, there was variance, and a strong majority of Russian sector voters considered themselves moderate. Although ideological and partisan predispositions are strong predictors of individual votes and election outcomes, in most other countries the “nature of the times” influences the loyalty and turnout of even those predisposed to support a particular party. When the economy is strong, income increasing and employment high, then “times are good.” When a country is at peace and people are confident about national security, times are also good. Citizens typically evaluate the nature of the times, and use these evaluations to judge the performance of an incumbent administration. In Israel in 2003, times were not good. The economy was in dire straits, with high unemployment and hundreds of businesses failing every month. Moreover, the country faced al most daily terror attacks. In our exit poll, almost one in two (49 percent) Russian sector voters re ported that their economic situation was worse in January 2003 than it had been in the previous year. Over four in ten (41 percent) reported that their situation was the same, and only one in ten said they were better off in January 2003 than they had been in the previous year. These views are very similar to those of Israelis as a whole and reflect the grave economic situation of Israel in the spring of 2003. Only 5 percent of non-Russian Israeli Jews thought their personal economic situation was better in 2003 than it had been in the previ ous year. Half of non-Russian Israeli Jews reported that there had been no change in their situation and 45 percent said they were worse off in 2003 than in the previous year. In most elections, such an economic situation would not bode well for the incumbent regime. In Israel though, security concerns trumped the dire economic straits, or alternatively, were branded as their primary cause. For example, security was the issue on which the Russian sector wanted the new government to focus, topping the list with 41 percent of Russian sector voters citing it as where they wanted the newly elected government to spend most of its time. Jobs (20 percent), the peace process (14 percent), the role of religion in public life (13 percent) were in a second tier of issue concerns (see Figure 11.2).

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Figure 11.1 Top Issue Concerns of Russian Sector Voters

Although the economic situation was worse in 2003 than in 1999, more Russian sector voters (31 percent) cited jobs as the top issue concern for the new government in 1999. With the major intake of immigrants now apparently complete, improving the absorption process was cited by only 4 percent of Russian sector voters. In our 1999 study, 7 percent of Russian sector voters cited absorption as the issue on which they wanted the new government to focus. Russian sector voters had particularly conservative views on specific ques tions about the peace process. Six in ten were not willing to give up any territory for peace and only one in ten supported the Oslo peace process. Three in ten Russian sector voters had a relative (4 percent) or Mend (26 percent) who had been injured or killed in a suicide bombing.4 With regard to less political attributes, ethnic affiliations and religiosity are also important correlates of political attitudes and were major foci of the early voting studies in the United States (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee, 1954). More recent research, however, considers ethnicity and religion to be less proximate causes of the vote. Rather, these factors wield more influence on party identification, which then influences the vote choice. In Israel, ethnic attachments and religiosity clearly lead to party affiliations. Ultra-Orthodox citizens identify with the ultra-Orthodox parties, while most Sephardi voters identify with the Likud or the ethnically based Shas party. Secular Ashkenazi voters, at least in previous elections, have tended to identify more with Labor and left-wing parties. Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union are overwhelmingly Ashkenazi. Over eight in ten of the voters we surveyed came from Russia, Ukraine,

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Moldovia, or Belarus. Many of those from Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan were Ashkenazi as well. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of these immigrants from the Former Soviet Union are secular. As Figure 11.2 shows, nearly three in four Russian sector voters reported that they were either not religious (60 percent) or atheist5 (22 percent). This demographic profile would suggest a tendency toward the left on the ideological spectrum and support for parties such as Labor and Meretz. Yet, as we have discussed above, Russian voters tend to be on the right and, as we shall see, are more likely to support rightwing parties. It can therefore be said that the Russian sector is largely Ashkenazi and secular, but that Russian voters do not behave like other Ashkenazi and secular voters in Israel. It is important to reiterate that Russian sector voters are not politically, or even ethnically, monolithic. In fact, our exit polls in both 1999 and 2003 showed, as do other studies, that there is a large bloc of “ethnic” or minority voters within the Russian sector. Our data, which is consistent with our esti mates, suggest that nearly three in ten Russian sector voters are not Jewish. In other words, the fact that a significant number of Russian-speaking voters also have different religious attachments than their fellow citizens may lead to the persistence of ethnic identification. Voting Behavior As Table 11.2 illustrates, the Likud, National Front, and Shinui garnered the most support from the Russian sector in the 2003 elections, each getting about one in four Russian sector votes. Natan Sharansky’s Israel B ’Aliya (IBA) party won the votes of 16 percent of Russian sector voters. Left of center Figure 11.2 Religiosity of Russian Sector Voters

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parties, Labor (5 percent) and Meretz (3 percent), fared very poorly. Table 11.2 also contains the party list voting results from the survey we conducted in 1999. In that contest, when voters were able to cast separate ballots for prime minister and the Knesset, IBA won the votes of 36 percent of the Russian sector, and Lieberman’s Israel Beitenu party won 17 percent. The two major parties garnered 21 percent—One Israel (Labor) with 11 percent and the Likud with 10 percent in 1999. Comparing their voting behavior from 1999 to 2003, Russian sector voters cast fewer of their votes to ethnic Russian parties and fewer of their votes to parties on the left, Labor and Meretz. The Likud and Shinui were the major beneficiaries of the change in the political and security situation combined with the change in election laws, scoring huge gains among Russian sector voters from 1999 to 2003. All in all, Russian sector voters comprised 15 percent of the electorate and accounted for 17 to 18 Knesset seats in 2003. Table 3 shows the percentage of each party’s vote that came from Russian sector voters in 2003 and how many Knesset seats that party won because of this support. Israel B’Aliya (100 per cent) and the National Front led by Avidgor Lieberman (69 percent) won the great majority of their vote from Russian sector voters. Shinui owed a signifi cant measure of its success in the 2003 elections to support from the Russian sector, with 26 percent of its vote and four of its fifteen mandates coming from the support it gained from Russian-speaking voters. Table 11.4 illustrates how the results from the Russian sector compared to the electorate as a whole, and to voters who cast their ballots for one of the main secular Zionist parties. The first column lists the official certified vote totals for the 2003 elections for the 16th Knesset. The second column contains results from our 2003 Russian exit poll. The last column, votes for secular parties without Russian sector voters, is calculated by using the exit poll estimates to assess the total number of Russian sector voters who cast their ballots for each of these parties and subtracting this figure from the actual number of votes cast for the respective parties. This exercise removes Russian Table 11.2 Russian Sector Party List Voting in 1999 and 2003 Knesset Elections, by Percent

Likud Labor Shinui National Front/Israel Beitenu Meretz IBA Other

2003 Party List Vote Totals 25 5

22 24 3 16 4

1999 Party List Vote Totals

10 11 6 20 8 36

11

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Table 11.3 Contribution o f Russian Sector to Party Total Vote Proportion of Vote Coming From Russian Sector 13% 4% 26% 69% 9% 100%

Likud Labor Shinui National Front Meretz IBA

Knesset Seats Coming from Russian Sector 5 1 5 4 0-1

2

Table 11.4 “Russian” Voters, Electorate as a W hole, and Secular Zionist Voters Party

Likud Labor Shinui National Front Meretz IBA AmEhad Other

Total Electorate

29% 15% 12% 6% 5% 2% 3% 28%

Russian Sector

Secular Zionist w/out Russian Sector

25% 5% 22% 24% 3% 16% NA 4%

44% 24% 16% 3% 8% 0% 5%

sector voters from the numerator, and mainly or solely Arab or non-Zionist party voters (Hadash, Balad, and United Arab List), and religious party voters (Yahadut Hatorah, Shas, and the National Religious Party) from the denomina tor. Only one in three Russian sector voters cast their ballots for one of the major parties, while 44 percent of all voters and 68 percent of voters who cast their ballots for a secular Zionist party voted for either the Likud or Labor. Although the Likud won by a narrow margin in the exit poll among Russian sector voters, taking 25 percent of the vote, it actually did less well in the sector than it did with voters overall and with the pool of voters who cast their ballots for secular Zionist parties. With almost seven in ten (69 percent) of its votes coming from the Russian sector, the National Front did eight times, or 21 percentage points, better with Russian-speaking voters than it did with voters

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who cast their ballots for secular Zionist parties. Interestingly though, if one combines the votes of the secular right-wing parties (the Likud and National Front), the vote totals between Russian sector voters, with 49 percent of thenvote going to the right bloc, and secular Zionist party voters who gave 47 percent of their vote to the Likud and the National Front, are virtually even. Thus, while the right bloc received similar support from Russian and nonRussian sector voters, Russian sector voters tended to support the more ex treme right-wing party, the National Front. At the same time, Shinui did better with Russian sector voters, winning 22 percent of their vote compared with the 16 percent of the vote that it garnered from voters who cast their ballots for one of the secular Zionist parties, and 12 percent of all votes that it won. As poorly as Labor and Meretz fared with both the electorate as a whole and with secular Zionist party voters, they did even worse with Russian sector voters. Fewer than one in ten Russian sector voters (8 percent) voted for one of the parties on the left. Table 11.5 shows how Russian sector votes were distributed according to age cohort. The left/center bloc as a whole garnered twice as many votes from 18-to-40-year-olds as it did from those voters who were over 65. Shinui more than doubled its vote share from 12 percent of voters aged 65 and over to 27 percent of voters aged 18 to 40. However, starting from much lower levels of support, Labor’s share of the Russian sector vote increased from 3 percent among older voters to 6 percent among younger voters, while Meretz raised its vote share from 2 percent to 4 percent with these groups. The Likud and National Front each maintained a steady hold on one-quarter of the electorate in all three age groups. Shinui’s major gains, as well as the much more modest gains of Labor and Meretz among younger Russian sector voters, came at the expense of Israel B’Aliya, which won the votes of four times fewer (33 percent to 8 percent) younger Russian speakers. The generational composition of the IBA vote, along with its generally weak showing, was clearly the reason that Sharansky decided to disband the party and merge it with the Likud. These findings may indicate that younger immigrants are less ethnically conscious of their “Russian-ness” than older ones, and that issues such as religion in the public sphere and matters of personal status (marriage, divorce), on which the left has taken clearer positions than the right, are more salient to them. It is also possible that there is a greater proportion of younger voters who are willing to take a more accommodating stance on the Palestinian issue than there is among their older fellow immigrants. The propensity for ethnic voting may not only be weaker among the young, but is weakening among all FSU immigrants. Although it is only one case in one year, the demise of the IBA suggests that a party that is solely ethnic based—especially in the aftermath of the electoral system change in Israel—is not viable in the longer term. In previous elections, IBA put together a coali tion of center and right voters concerned about both security issues and the

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Table 11.5 Russian Sector Party List Voting Results by Age Cohort

Labor

18-40

41-65

6%

4%

3%

65 plus

Likud

25%

25%

24%

Meretz

4%

3%

2%

National Front

22%

26%

22%

Shinui

27%

20%

12%

8%

16%

33%

IBA

role of religion in public life. In the 2003 contest, there is evidence that center and right-wing voters defected from the party and went to the National Front and the Likud, while those concerned with religious issues and the power of Shas defected to Shinui. On the other hand, security issues so overshadowed all others in 2003, that we would only be able to comment more definitively about ethnic voting if Israel ever experienced a “normal” election in “normal” times. To determine whether Russian sector voters are becoming more like Israeli voters overall, it is also useful to compare the voting behavior of younger Russian sector voters to those sectors of the Israeli public that cast their ballots for secular Zionist parties. At first glance, younger Russian sector voters still appear quite different from other Israelis. Significantly few er younger voters cast ballots for Likud (25 percent versus 44 percent in the secular Zionist party public as a whole) and Labor (6 percent versus 24 percent in the secular Zion ist public as a whole). Significantly more of the young Russian sector voters (than Israeli voters for secular Zionist parties) cast their ballots for Shinui (27 percent versus 16 percent). The most significant difference, though, mani fested itself in younger Russian sector voter support for the National Front. While only 3 percent of other Israelis who voted for secular Zionist parties supported the National Front, 22 percent of younger Russian sector voters cast their ballots for the right-wing party. Russian sector voters supported Shinui significantly more than other Israe lis who voted for secular Zionist parties and at an even higher rate than the electorate as a whole. Furthermore, younger Russian sector voters gave more than one in four of their votes (27 percent) to Shinui. Who are these Russian sector Shinui voters? Shinui voters were evenly balanced, 20 percent placing themselves on the right, and 20 percent placing themselves on the left. Again, like the sector as a whole, six in ten Shinui voters placed themselves in one of the middle categories.

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The issue concerns of Shinui voters were different: virtually indistinguish able numbers of Russian sector Shinui voters cited security (30 percent) and the role of religion in public life (29 percent). Russian sector Shinui voters in 2003 also differed in previous voting behavior; Shinui voters were 44 percent age points more likely than voters for any other party in 2003 to report a vote for Ehud Barak in 1999 than a vote for Binyamin Netanyahu. Russian sector Shinui voters were more willing than the sector as a whole to part with land for peace. Fifty-nine percent of Shinui voters were willing to give up all, part, or some land for peace with the Palestinians and 48 percent (versus 27 opposed) supported the concept of two states for two people. Shinui voters also have different media consumption patterns. Among the sector as a whole, 60 percent of Russian voters watched Yisrael Plus (the Russian language Israeli television station) and 41 percent listened to Radio Reka. (See Figure 11.3.) Among Shinui voters, however, a full 50 percent watched Yisrael Plus, but only a little over one in four (27 percent) listened to Radio Reka. Also, while only a third of non-Shinui Russian sector voters watched Hebrew language Israeli television, over half (53 percent) of Shinui voters viewed Hebrew lan guage television news. These patterns are partly explained by the younger age of the average Shinui voter and suggest also that Shinui voters are more acculturated than other Russian sectors voters. Conclusion It would be premature to conclude from the 2003 election results that Rus sian-speaking immigrants are assimilating politically and that the disappearFigure 11.3 Media Sources of Russian Sector Voters

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ance of IB A signals the end of ethnic voting among the “Russian” population in Israel. Aside from the obvious error of discerning a trend on the basis of evidence from one time point, this election was so widely construed as hing ing on Israel’s security issues that many voters put other considerations aside. They may well return to those considerations, either because the elected gov ernment has completely failed to provide security, because perceptions of what constitutes security may be changing in Israel, or perhaps even because some sort of resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may appear at least feasible by the time the next election takes place. However, regardless of how salient the conflict/security issue will be, it is likely that most Russian-speaking voters will continue to be more hawkish and supportive of right-wing parties than the Israeli Jewish electorate, though we have shown that among younger cohorts there are substantial numbers of people just as concerned about issues such as religion in the public sphere as they are about security. This also means that just as there is no “typical” Israeli voter, there is no “typical” Russian immigrant voter. In fact, we would expect this sector to become more differentiated in their political attitudes and be havior as time goes on. It would be instructive to examine the politics of the immigrants’ children and those of the immigrants who came at a very young age and were socialized primarily in Israel. Remembering that the IBA con stituency is relatively elderly, one might want to examine the proposition that age of arrival in Israel and length of time spent there may be important deter minants of political thinking and behavior. This, of course, raises larger issues of immigrant political resocialization in many countries. In the short term, it is important to know where the former IBA supporters are migrating and how long they will stay with their new parties. They may constitute a floating vote, whose party identity is weak and strongly influ enced by the personalities and issues of particular campaigns. A related ques tion is whether the supporters of Shinui will remain loyal to that party or, when the salient issues change, they will migrate elsewhere. Finally, one should not dismiss the possibility that an ethnic party based on Russian-speaking immi grants may return to the political arena. Should critical issues with high sa lience to this sector appear once again, and should a charismatic leadership mobilize this constituency, instrumental ethnicity could be a potent force, though the near exhaustion of the FSU aliya—in 2002 more FSU Jews immi grated to Germany than to Israel—and the ongoing integration of FSU immi grants into Israeli society and its dominant culture make that unlikely. It may well be that once again the Israeli political system will have absorbed a large immigrant group without giving it a permanent and distinctive place in the party system.

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Appendix E xit P o ll M ethod ology

Sample precincts for the exit poll were chosen in two stages. First, using information from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics on the distribution of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, cities and locales were allocated exit poll precinct sites in proportion to the size of their immigrant popula tions. Undergraduate and graduate students (all native Russian speakers) from Tel Aviv University, Haifa University, Hebrew University, the Technion, and other institutions who lived in the chosen locales were recruited to conduct the exit polls in precincts with high immigrant populations. Many of these exit pollsters had worked for us in 1999. The proportion of immigrants in these precincts ranged from 30 to 90 percent. Interviewers were trained in basic data collection techniques and were in structed to screen all voters for eligibility. Eligible voters were then asked to complete the self-administered exit poll questionnaire and deposit the ques tionnaire in a secret ballot box. Although some older voters asked our inter viewers to help them fill out the questionnaire, every effort was made to make the survey confidential and anonymous. All in all, 1,435 surveys were con ducted in 50 precincts across the country. We estimate a miss and refusal rate of close to 50 percent that compares well with other exit polls—not to mention telephone surveys—conducted in Israel and in other countries. Since well over 80 percent of Israelis (including new immigrants) typically turn out to vote, an exit poll in precincts with high concentrations of immi grants is an excellent, efficient way to gather survey data on immigrant atti tudes and political behavior. Another important advantage of an exit poll is that only voters are questioned and they are asked their opinions immediately after the act of voting. The main drawback in this exit poll was that we missed immigrants living in mixed, or mostly Israeli, neighborhoods. We would ex pect that these immigrants would show less distinctive voting patterns. As was the case in 1999, the exit poll survey results matched up extraor dinarily well with actual election results. For example, Israel B’Aliya, which drew almost all its support from Russian-speaking immigrants, received virtu ally the exact number of actual votes as our exit poll estimated.

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N otes 1. 2.

3. 4.

5.

See Tolts (2003). See, for example, Sicron and Leshem (1998) for chapters on demographic, eco nomic, geographic, cultural, psychological, and educational aspects of the 1990-95 immigration. See, inter alia, Lissak and Elazar (2001), Galper (1995), Basok and Brym (1991), Noam (1994), Siegel (1998). For a useful bibliography of studies, with summaries, see Leshem (1994). See Arian (1998). Israeli media have speculated that immigrants from the Former Soviet Union may be disproportionately represented among the victims of terror attacks because many of them do not own cars and thus become victims of bus bombings, or because there are many poor people among them and they shop in the cheaper outdoor markets that have been targeted by suicide bombers. In the Soviet Union, “atheist” usually meant militantly anti-religious, an attitude much encouraged by the regime. R eferences

Abramson, Paul et al. 2002. Change & Continuity in the 2000 Elections. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press. Arian, Asher. 1998. The Second Republic: Politics in Israel. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House. Bartels, Larry. 2000. “Partisanship and Voting Behavior, 1952-1996.” American Journal o f Political Science 44 (January): 35-50. Basok, Tanya, and Robert Brym, eds. 1991. Soviet Jewish Emigration and Resettlement in the 1990s. North York, Ontario: York Lanes Press. Berelson, Bernard R., Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and William N. McPhee. 1954. Voting: A Study o f Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Angus Campbell, Philip Converse, Warren Miller, and Donald Stokes. 1960. The Ameri­ can Voter. Reprint ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Greenberg, Stanley. 2001. Report on the 2001 Election. Greenberg Research http:// www.greenbergresearch.com/publications/iieports r_israeli_labor_and_peace_060401.pdf Fiorina, Morris. 1981. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Galper, Allan. 1995. From Bolshoi to Be ’er Sheva, Scientists to Streetsweepers. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Gitelman, Zvi, and Ken Goldstein. 2002. “The Russian Revolution in Israeli Politics.” In Asher Arian and Michal Shamir, eds., The Elections in Israel 1999. Albany: SUNY Press. Leshem, Elazar, ed. 1994. Aliyah uklita shelyehudai Brit Hamoetsot Vsheavar: bibilograiya nivkheret vetaktsirim, 1990-1993. Jerusalem: Henrietta Szold Institute. Lissak, Moshe, and Elazar Leshem, eds. 2001. M ’rusiyah VYisrael. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad. Markus, Gregory, and Philip Converse. 1979. “A Dynamic Simultaneous Equation Model of the Electoral Choice.” American Political Science Review 73:1055-70. Noam, Gila, ed.. 1994. Immigrant Absorption in Israel. Jerusalem: Brookdale Institute. Sicron, Moshe, and Elazar Leshem. 1998. Dioknah shel aliyah. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Siegel, Dina. 1998. The Great Migration: Russian Jews in Israel. New York: Berghahn.

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Tolts, Mark. 2003. “Mass Aliy ah and Jewish Emigration from Russia: Dynamics and Factors” Paper prepared for the European Population Conference, Warsaw (August). Revised version forthcoming in East European Jewish Affairs, p.l. Tuller, David. 1999. “Israel’s Russian Miracle.” http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/ 05/07/israel/print.html

Contributors John H. Aldrich, Pfizer-Pratt University Professor of Political Science, Duke University Asher Arian, Senior Fellow, The Israel Democracy Institute; The University of Haifa; Distinguished Professor of Political Science, The City University of New York Gradu ate Center Andre Blais, Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies, Departement de science politique Universite de Montreal Asher Cohen, Department of Political Studies, Bar-Dan University Zvi Gitelman, Department of Political Science and Preston Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Ken Goldstein, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison Reuven Y. Hazan, Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Menachem Hofnung, Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusa lem Indridi H. Indridason, Department of Political Science, University of Iceland Ofer Kenig, Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Renan Levine, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto Gal Levy, Department of Political Science and Sociology, The Open University, Tel-Aviv Ami Pedahzur, Department of Political Science, The University of Haifa Gideon Rabat, Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Nadim Rouhana, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University and director of Mada - Arab Center for Applied Social Research Nabil Saleh, Mada - Arab Center for Applied Social Research Michael Shalev, Departments of Sociology and Political Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Michal Shamir, Department of Political Science, Tel Aviv University Tamir Sheafer, Departments of Political Science and Communication, The Hebrew Uni versity of Jerusalem Nimer Suitany, Mada - Arab Center for Applied Social Research Gabriel Weimann, United States Institute of Peace; Department of Communication, The University of Haifa Keren Weinshall Margel, Department of Political Science, Tel Aviv University

261

Index Bishara, Azmi, 85,91,92-93,95,96-97, 101, 108, 113, 117, 224, 225, 229 Blumental, Naomi, 3 Bnei Akiva, 208 Boycott of elections, 227-228, 230-233

Abnaa al-Balad, 232 Abu-Dhabi, 228 Age, and voting, 254 Agudat Israel, 190, 207 Al-Aqsa intifada, 4, 9, 22, 215, 224, 226 Al-Jazeera, 228 Al-Mustaqbal, 228-229 Am Ehad (One Nation), 3, 235-238 Amidar, 71 Arab Movement for Change. See Ta’al. Arab Movement for Renewal. See Ta’al. Arab parties, 95, 105, 115, 215-243 Arafat, Yasser, 5, 226 Arian, Asher, 169-173 Ashkenazim, 6, 19, 168-186, 189, 199202, 208, 247, 250-251 Assad, Hafez, 225 Avidan, Yehuda, 94, 95, 96 Avraham, Benny, 97 Avraham, Haim, 97

Campaign finance, 63-83 Camp David, 5, 9, 20, 22 Center Party, 26-27, 129 Central Elections Committee, 4, 85, 8990, 91, 92-98, 101, 103, 104, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113, 117, 225, 228, 233 Cheshin, Michael, 85, 91, 94 Christians, 238 Class voting, 168-186 Clinton, Bill, 5 Coalition, 5,143-166 Cohen, Eldad, 207 Communist Party. See Israel Communist Party Corruption, 3-4 Council of Torah Sages, 207

Balad (National Democratic Alliance), 54-55, 85, 91, 101, 108, 111, 113, 117, 219, 221, 224, 225, 228, 234235, 253 Barak, Aharon, 94, 96, 97 Barak, Ehud, 1,3,5,15 ,2 0 ,2 2 ,2 5 ,1 2 8 , 129,131-132,135,136,181,183,222, 227, 246, 256 Basic Law Government, 3, 34 Knesset, 87, 92, 104, 116 Bedouin, 237-238 Begin, Menachem, 15, 22, 190 Beinish, Dorit, 94 Ben Gurion, David, 22 Ben-Ami, Shlomo, 183 Ben-Eliezer, Benjamin (“Fuad”), 3 Bezalel, Itai, 93 Bias, 123-138

Dahl, Robert 145 Dash. See Democratic Movement for Change (DMC), Shinui Dealignment, 13-31 Declaration of Independence, 109 Dehamshe, Abdel Malik, 101, 108 Democracy, 85-98, 102-118, 233, 239 Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (DFPE), 54-55, 85, 101, 108, 234235, 253 D em ocratic M ovem ent for Change (DMC), 27, 64. Direct election of the prime minister, 3, 4, 27, 33-57, 73-75, 228, 245-246, 252 Disqualification, 4, 85-100, 101-121, 225-226, 233 263

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Dominant party, 5-6,13-31 Don-Yihye, Eliezer, 190, 204-205 Druze, 237-238 Duverger, Maurice, 29 Ecological analysis, 174-177 Education Ministry, 22 Effective number of parties, 49-51 Egypt, 14, 22 Eitam, Efi, 91 Eitan, Michael, 95 Eitan, Raphael (Raful) ,41, El-Ard, 104, 109, 110, 220 Election results, 1, 5, 15-21 Electoral reform. See Direct election of the prime minister Electoral system, 33-57 Eliyahu, Mordechai, 208 Elites, 85-98,102-118 Eshkol, Levi, 22 Exit polls, 245-260 Expressive voting, 143, 145 Finance Committee, 66 Finance Ministry, 22 Financing elections, 63-83 Floating voters, 42-43 Former Soviet Union (FSU), 5. See Im migrants from FSU Friedman, Menachem, 190, 191 Funding, 63-83 Gal-On, Zahava, 92 Gavison, Ruth, 96 Germany, 41, 96 Gesher, 3, 41, 129 Ghanem, As’ad, 217 Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem, 144 Givat Shmuel, 205-208 Goldstein massacre, 113 Grapes of Wrath operation, 128, 133, 135, 136, 230 Greater Israel, 23, 30 Green Line, 193-197, 205 Hadash. See Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (DFPE) Hagenbach-Bischoff procedure, 34 Haifa, 3 Haim Herzog Institute, 125 Halacha, 203 Hapoel Hamizrachi, 189-194

Haredi parties, 106, 147, 209 Haredim (ultra-Orthodox), 203-208,228, 250 Hatzofeh, 208 Hebron, 113 Hendel, Zvi, 93 Herut list, 91, 101, 108, 113, 115, 196197, 209 Herut, 22, 25 Histadrut, 22-23, 30, 71, 189 Hezbollah, 97 High Court of Justice, 66, 8 5 ,9 2 ,9 4 ,9 6 Identity politics, 167,236 Ideology, 28-29 Ihud Leumi (National Union; National Front), 3, 5, 25-26, 53-54, 91, 93, 147, 150, 152, 154, 191, 196-197, 209, 251-256 Immigrants from Former Soviet Union (FSU), 180-181, 245-260 Independent Liberals, 109 Instrumental voting, 143, 145 Intifada, 1, 4, 22, 85, 90, 111, 113, 129, 135 Islamic Movement, 221, 225 Israel Religious Action Center, 106 Israel B ’Aliya, 5, 29, 53-54, 147, 150, 152, 154, 246, 251-157 Israel Beiteinu, 53-54, 252 Israel Communist Party, 109, 219, 220, 219, 234-235 Israel National Election Study, 4,11,28, 144, 146, 147, 248 Italy, 39,40 Jabotinsky. Zeev, 21 Jamal, Amal, 217 Jenin, 226 Jerusalem, 22 Jewish character of Israel, 93, 105, 108, 169, 233 Jordan, 14 Kach, 85, 96, 104, 108, 110, 111, 113, 115, 116, 117 Kafr Qana, 231 KahaneChai, 111, 113, 115, 116 Kahane, Meir, 92, 104, 113 Kassem, Najwa, 228 Katz, Yisrael, 91, 225 Katzav, Moshe, 3, 22

Index Kfar Saba, 205-208 Khatib, Kamal, 224 Kibbutzim, 197, 247 Kimmerling, Baruch, 169, 171, 178 Kook, Rabbi, 204 Knesset, 3, 91, 104-105, 115 Kupat Holim, 23 Labor party, 1, 3, 19-21, 22, 27, 30, 4752, 64-65, 71, 76, 93, 95, 108, 123, 126, 129-138, 145-146, 147, 150, 152, 167-186, 191, 197, 209, 222, 227, 228, 230, 235-238, 239, 246 251-256. See also One Israel Langental, Nahum, 96 Lapid movement, 106 Lapid, Tommy, 5,209 Lebanon, 228, 230 Lebanon War, 22 Left, 15-21, 22, 25-26, 167, 170, 248249 Left-right continuum, 15-21, 22 Left-wing parties, 95,108 Levy, David, 41, 129 Lieberman, Avigdor, 91, 246, 252 Liebman, Charles, 203-204 Likud, 1, 3, 5, 13, 19-21, 22-24, 25, 27, 30,41,47-52,64-65,75-76,95,108, 123, 126, 128, 129-138, 145-146, 147, 150, 152, 153, 154, 156, 160, 167-186, 187, 191, 197, 201-202, 208, 209, 222, 227, 228, 235-238, 246, 251-256 Loewenstein, Karl, 87 Lorch, Amnon, 93 Mada (Arab Center for Applied Social Research, 218, 229, 231 Mafdal (National Religious Party), 1, 5, 11, 54, 72, 91, 96, 147, 150, 152, 154, 187-213, 253 Mahameed, Hashem, 234 Maki. See Israel Communist Party Mapai, 21-22, 190, 191, 219, 220 Mapam, 108 Marzel, Baruch, 85, 9 1 ,92,95,96,101, 108, 113, 115, 117 MBC, 228 Media, 126-138, 145 Meimad, 129, 191, 197 Meretz, 26, 72,147,150,152,167-186, 196, 197, 209, 235-238, 251-256

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Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, 205 Mill, John Stewart, 86 Mitzna, Amram, 3,5,20,131-132,136137, 146, 147, 152 Mizrachi, 189-193 Mizrachim, 5, 19, 168-186, 194, 199202, 208, 228. See also Sephardim Modi’in, 205-208 Mofaz, Shaul, 3 Moledet, 106, 191 Money and politics, 63-83 Morasha, 191 Mordechai, Yitzhak, 129 Moses, Zvi, 210 Movement for Progressive Judaism, 106 Muslems, 238 Nablus, 226 National Broadcasting Authority, 22 National Democratic Alliance. See Balad National Front. See Ihud Leumi National Health Insurance, 22-23 National Religious Party (NRP). See Mafdal. National Union. See Ihud Leumi National Unity government, 3, 22-23, 226 National Unity Party, 234-235 Nazi Party, 96 Negbi decision, 104 Netanya, 205-208 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 1, 3,1 5 ,2 5 ,1 2 4 , 131-132, 135, 183, 191, 231, 246, 256 New Zealand, 39,40, 41 October demonstrations, 215, 223, 226, 227 Olmert, Ehud, 146 One Israel. See Labor Party; Meimad One Nation. See Am Ehad Or Commission, 217, 225 Oshaya, Efi, 95 Oslo Accords, 9, 14, 21, 22, 135, 167, 168, 179, 191, 197, 198, 204 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 14 Palestinian Authority, 199 Palestine Legislative Council, 226 Palestinian National Movement, 219 Palestinians, 4, 215-243

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Palestinian state, 22, 23, 199 Participation, 8-11, 217-223, 227-228, 230-233 Parties Law, 68-73, 108 Parties Registrar, 108, 111 Party identification, 28-29 Party institutions, 27 Party system, 13-31, 33-57 Pedahzur, Ami, 198-199 Pederson’s volatility index, 36 Peled, Yoav, 168-169,170-173,177,178, 181, 182, 184 Peres, Shimon, 1, 15, 22, 25, 128, 131133, 135, 183, 230-231,246 Peri, Yoram, 125 Petach Tikva, 205-208 Pollach, Yehoshua, 96 Popper, Karl, 86 President of Israel, 22 Primaries, 64-65, 72-73 Prime Minister. See Direct election of the prime minister Private members bills, 73 Procaccia, Ayala, 94 Progressive List for Peace, 104,106,108, 110, 111, 113, 117, 219, 221 Proportional representation, 39,160 Public opinion polls, 44-47, 117, 146, 217-218, 226, 246, 248-251 Ra’am (United Arab List), 54,101,108, 221, 234-235, 253 Rabin, Yitzhak, 15,22,25,113,116,222 Rakah, 220 Ramat Gan, 205-208 Ramon, Haim, 3 Ratz, 106 Rawls, John, 86 Realignment, 13-31 Rehovot, 205-208 Reka, 256 Religious behavior, 205-208 Religious parties, 95, 108, 187-213, 235-238 Revisionist Movement, 22,189 Right, 17, 22, 25-26, 146, 154, 167,170 Right-wing parties, 95,108 Rouhana, Nadim, 217 Rubinstein, Elyakim, 224, 225 Russian immigrant parties, 245-260, Russians, and voting, 245-260

Salah, Ra’ed, 224, 225 Sectorial parties, 52-57, 167-186, 191 Selection Committees, 64-65 Sephardim, 157,158,189,247,251. See also Mizrachim Shafir, Gershon, 168-169,170-173,177, 178, 181, 182, 184 Shamir, Michal, 88, 89, 169-173 Shamir, Yitzhak, 15, 22, 25 Shani, Uri, 71 Shapira, Amnon, 208 Sharansky, Natan, 246, 251 Sharon, Ariel, 1 ,3 ,5 ,1 5 ,2 2 ,2 5 , 34,68, 71,124,128,129,131-132,134,136137, 145-146, 147, 152, 153, 158, 160, 183, 197, 224, 227, 246 Shas, 3, 23, 25, 30, 54, 72, 85, 92, 93, 94, 146, 147, 150, 152, 154, 167, 168-186, 201-202, 228, 247, 253 Shinui, 1,5,26-27,30,37,76,106,146, 147, 150, 152, 153, 157-160, 167186, 196, 197, 201, 209, 210, 251, 254-257 Sinai, 14 Sincere voting, 143, 145, 149 Six Day war, 14, 22, 190 Smooha, Sammy, 88 Socialist list, 104, 109,117 Sons of the Country, 232 Sprinzak, Ehud, 116 State Comptroller, 66-83 Strategic voting, 38,42-43,145-166 Sullivan, John, 89 Supreme Court, 5,90,93,101,103,104, 105, 108, 109, 110, 113, 115, 116, 117, 225, 233 Syria, 225, 229 Ta’al (Arab Movement for Change; Arab Movement for Renewal), 54-55, 85, 101,108, 111 Taba, 5 ,2 0 ,2 2 Tami, 191,202 Tehiya, 106,108, 191 Tekuma, 191 Television, 129, 137-138, 228-229, 256 Temple Mount, 22 Threat, 96-97, 111, 113,117-118 Threshold, 5, 33, 34, 39, 89, 110, 234 Tibi, Ahmad, 55,85,9 1 ,9 2 ,9 5 ,9 6 ,1 0 8 , 111, 113, 117

Index Turnout, 8-11, 230-233 Tzfati, Yariv, 125 T zom et,41,106 Ultra-Orthodox. See Haredim Umm al-Fahm, 225 United Arab List (UAL). See Ra’am United States, 124-125, 127, 134 United Torah Judaism, 54, 96, 204, 208 Urbach, Uri, 205 Volatility, 43-47 Voting behavior, 6-8, 24-27, 143-149, 251-256

Weimar Republic, 96 Yahadut Hatorah, 253 Yardor, 94, 104, 105 Yemin Yisrael, 108, 111 Yeshivot, 23 Yishai, Eli, 225 Zaller, John, 136 Zarua, 200 Zimrat, 200

267