Two weeks out, election gridlock: The difference between the Israeli Right and Left in two tweets

ITTAY FLESCHER: A tweet calling peace and equality a "disaster" for Israel’ may sound bizarre but it makes perfect sense within the Israeli discourse.

As Israel approaches its fifth election in four years on November 1, what can one write about this poll that doesn’t repeat what was said about the previous four?

Are the cost of living and rent prices still the most important issue for Israeli voters? Yes. Is the dramatic rise in popularity of far-right Religious Zionism a significant threat to what’s left of Israeli democracy? Yes. Could Israel’s political deadlock be easily solved if Netanyahu stepped down from politics during his multiple corruption and bribery trials? Yes.

But we all know this - so what’s left to say?

The one word that we haven’t heard from almost any political party this election - a word which dominated Israeli politics 25 years ago - is “peace”.

Until this happened on Twitter.

In an interview with Army Radio on October 6, one of Israel’s most left-wing Jewish MKs, Mossi Raz, said: “[our bloc] will get 61 seats and then we will make peace here and ensure that the State of Israel fulfils its obligation of equality for all its citizens.”

The Meretz Party MK was making a direct reference to the 1948 Declaration of Independence, which states that “the State of Israel will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex” and that the state will “guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”

In response, Likud MK Nissim Vaturi wrote: “This is why we need to get everyone out to vote Likud on Election day! It’s either Likud or a disaster.”

While a tweet calling peace and equality a “disaster for Israel” may sound bizarre, it makes perfect sense within the Israeli discourse, where the experience of Oslo has led to the vast majority of Jewish Israelis to view peace and equality as a threat to their security not worth the risk.

Indeed, Israel’s right-wing Jewish voter base has grown from 46% before the April 2019 election to 62%, according to an analysis of self-reported political affiliation by the Israel Democracy Institute.

In Israel, right wing generally means opposing any peace agreement with the Palestinians, primarily based on a belief that the land of Israel was promised to Jews by God and that the Palestinian leadership is not a partner for peace. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has done much to affirm this perception over recent years.

A survey conducted by Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University, one of Israel’s leading pollsters, with 1100 Jewish respondents and 200 non-Jewish respondents — roughly in line with Israeli society, found a polarising of views around Arab Israelis over the past two years.

His research found that in 2021, right-wing Jewish Israelis were more likely to believe that “many” Arab Israelis are extremists – 27% now, compared to 20% in 2018. But left-wing Jewish Israelis were significantly more likely to believe that “very few” Arab Israelis are extremists - 19% now, as opposed to 8% four years ago.

So where does this leave the vision of Raz and the Israeli Left as we approach another election amid growing tensions across East Jerusalem and the West Bank?

Tel Aviv political activist Meital Plotnik wrote in response to the Likud MK’s tweet: “Mossi Roz said on the radio things that are literally quoted from Israel’s declaration of Independence! What are you saying exactly? That you are not a Zionist? That you are against the Declaration of Independence? That you are against the principles upon which this state was founded?”

Another Israeli, @Idan404, tweeted: “You don’t want peace, you want to return to the days of Bibi, where we had rockets fired on the south almost every day, burnt fields, bomb shelters open in the centre of the country; an intifada that wasn’t called an intifada, regular payments to Hamas and riots in mixed cities without intervention from police.”

The sad answer to these questions is that if you asked most Jewish Israelis whether they prefer paying the cost of war that comes from maintaining Israel’s military control over millions of Palestinians, versus the cost of peace if Israel withdrew from the West bank and attempted to ensure complete equality for all its citizens, the majority would choose war.

As Benjamin Netanyahu said to left-wing MKs in 2015: "You think there is a magic wand here, but I disagree. I'm asked if we will forever live by the sword — [my answer is] yes."

While Jewish Israelis believe this more than the vision proposed by the Left that real security can only come through peace, the Right will keep winning elections.

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Photo: Meretz MK Mossi Raz in the Knesset, in June 2021 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)