June 20, 2016: Is there a lesson for Canada in the recent Israeli political upheaval?

By Michael Regenstreif

In my column last issue, I wrote about the recent upheaval in Israeli politics. At the time of writing, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in the process of replacing defense minister Moshe Ya’alon – formerly a distinguished general in the Israel Defense Forces who served as the military’s chief-of-staff – with Avigdor Liberman, who rose only to the rank of corporal in his brief military service.

Liberman’s appointment to the defense ministry – perhaps the second most important job in the Israeli cabinet after prime minister – had nothing to do with merit or qualifications. It was a purely political move. Netanyahu’s governing coalition was as weak as could be with 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, and Liberman brought with him the six seats of his Yisrael Beiteinu party. Netanyahu had no breathing room with a one-seat majority, but will be somewhat more secure with a seven-seat majority.

Liberman, who led Yisrael Beiteinu to just 5.11 per cent of the vote in the 2015 election, was able to demand – and receive – the defense ministry, even though it meant losing perhaps the most qualified cabinet minister from Netanyahu’s own Likud party.

There may be a lesson in this for Canadians as a parliamentary committee begins to consider alternatives to our first-past-the-post electoral system.

In our system, geographic ridings elect members of Parliament. With multiple parties and independent candidates, it is the candidate with the most votes – the one who is first past the post – who becomes the MP, even if he or she does not receive a majority of votes in the riding. It is then the party with the most MPs elected that forms the government. Most governments – even majority governments – in Canadian history have been formed by parties that have received less than 50 per cent of the popular vote. The Liberals under Justin Trudeau formed a majority government with 39.47 per cent of the popular vote in 2015. In the previous election in 2011, the Conservatives under Stephen Harper formed a majority with a very similar 39.62 per cent.

The last time a Canadian party formed a majority government with an actual majority of the popular vote was in 1984, when the Progressive Conservatives under Brian Mulroney took 50.03 per cent. They were re-elected in 1988 with 43.02 per cent.

One of the Liberal Party’s platform planks in last fall’s federal election campaign was the replacement of first-past-the-post.

“We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system,” said Trudeau in speeches on the campaign trail.

Proportional representation – in which a party’s seat-count in Parliament reflects its percentage of the popular vote – is one of the alternatives to first-past-the-post that some in Canada advocate. In the last election, if proportional representation had been in effect, the Liberals would have won the most seats, but would have needed to form a coalition with one or more other parties to form a governing majority. With proportional representation in a multi-party system, it becomes virtually impossible for any party to form a stable majority government on its own. Proportional representation also allows for the electoral success of small, often single issue, parties.

Countries like Israel that have proportional-representation systems are governed by coalitions. In the 2015 Israeli election, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud was first among the many parties with 23.4 per cent of the vote.

So, Netanyahu had to wheel and deal with other parties in order to cobble together a coalition. That’s why the two religious parties, which together received just over 10 per cent of the vote, are able to impose haredi Orthodox control on many aspects of Israeli society – from who may marry to which gender may read from the Torah at the Western Wall, and much more.

And that’s why Liberman – leader of a party that received just 5.11 per cent of the vote – was able to demand and receive control of Israel’s most important ministry.

Who knows what the parliamentary committee tasked with studying alternatives to first-past-the post will come up with? But I dread the possibility of small parties wheeling and dealing for control of important ministries.

May 30, 2016: Netanyahu says hello Liberman, goodbye Ya’alon

By Michael Regenstreif

As I write – on May 20 just before we go to press – Israel’s governing coalition under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in a state of flux. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon is on his way out with former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman his presumptive replacement.

This turn of events in Israeli politics – indications of which began to surface on May 18 – came as a surprise because there had been reports over the past several weeks that Netanyahu and Israel’s opposition leader, Isaac Herzog, chair of the centre-left Zionist Union (a joint electoral list bringing together Herzog’s Labor Party and Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah Party), were close to an agreement that would have brought the Zionist Union into the coalition with Herzog becoming foreign minister (a post that Netanyahu has held onto himself since 2015).

Bringing Herzog into the coalition was seen as a move that would signal Netanyahu’s seriousness about his desire for direct negotiations with the Palestinians that would hopefully lead to a two-state solution. It would also have stabilized Netanyahu’s coalition whose razor-thin majority has stood at just 61 of the Knesset’s120 seats.

However, it appears that at the same time it was openly acknowledged he was negotiating with Herzog, he was also secretly talking with Liberman whose right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party – with its six Knesset seats – has sat on the opposition benches since the 2015 election.

Liberman brought several demands to the table. Among them was instituting capital punishment for convicted terrorists. In the State of Israel’s 68-year history there have only been two executions: army officer Meir Tobianski on June 30, 1948 by firing squad after he was convicted of treason by court-martial during the War of Independence, and Adolf Eichmann on May 31, 1962 by hanging after he was convicted of crimes against humanity and war crimes for his central role in perpetrating the Holocaust.

Tobianski, it must be noted, was executed quickly with no right to appeal. A year later, evidence revealed he was not guilty and he was exonerated.

Liberman’s other main demand was that he replace Ya’alon as defense minister; a demand that Netanyahu accepted. With that acceptance, Ya’alon resigned from cabinet and from his seat in the Knesset.

Netanyahu said he regretted Ya’alon’s resignation and said he had offered to appoint him foreign minister.

In resigning, Ya’alon cited Netanyahu’s conduct during “recent developments” (presumably the negotiations that brought in Liberman), which demonstrated the prime minister’s “lack of trust” in him.

It would be hard – if not impossible – to make the case that Liberman is more qualified than Ya’alon to be defense minister. With rare exceptions, Israel’s defense ministers have enjoyed the confidence of Israel’s military because they have had distinguished military careers serving in the highest ranks of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Ya’alon, for example, rose to be the IDF chief-of-staff. Liberman, in contrast, served briefly in the IDF, attaining the rank of corporal, and has often been highly critical of the restraint shown by Israel’s military in difficult circumstances.

While it’s still much too early to know what all of the consequences of these developments will be, a few questions are obvious.

Will Herzog’s tenure as chair of the Zionist Union come to an end? His move toward joining Netanyahu’s coalition was not supported by many of the Zionist Union Knesset members and the result could only have embarrassed him.

As defense minister, Liberman assumes tremendous power in the West Bank. While Ya’alon was pragmatic and somewhat conciliatory with the Palestinians, Liberman has been seen to be much more hardline. Will the Palestinian Authority be able to work with him, for example, on day-to-day security cooperation?

And will there be an impact on Israel’s current negotiations with the U.S. for long-term defense aid? Ya’alon enjoyed generally good relations with the U.S. while Liberman, as foreign minister, did not.

What about Ya’alon’s political future? Will he be a formidable challenger to Netanyahu’s leadership within Likud? Or to Likud as the leader of a new, more moderate centre-right party?

“I have no intention of [permanently] leaving public life, and in the future, I will return as a candidate for national leadership,” he said in his resignation speech.