Israel: Four More Years?

France’s late President Charles de Gaulle once irritably asked how anyone could possibly be expected to govern a country that produces 268 different kinds of cheese. A frustrated Israeli voter, approaching next Tuesday’s national election, might similarly wonder how any effective government could possibly emerge in a country where 77 different parties are contesting for representation in the 120-seat unicameral legislature.

France has of course flourished despite its multiplicity of cheeses. And after each election in its history Israel has seen a coalition government emerge from among the traditional multiplicity of parties, 20 of which sit in the current Knesset. That will happen again this year. The question is which of the two major parties, Likud or Labor, will dominate that coalition.

The answer to that has enormous implications for the future. Likud, which rules now, is ideologically committed to populating the West Bank with Israelis while refusing to give up, as Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has said, even one inch of disputed territory in any peace agreement with the Palestinians. Likud’s stand on settlements has chilled Israel’s relations with Washington, most notably on the issue of U.S. guarantees for up to $10 billion in commercial loans that Israel needs to help settle a flood of Russian and Ethiopian immigrants.

Labor, under Yitzhak Rabin, indicates it is much more willing to be flexible on the territorial issue in the U.S.-sponsored peace talks now going on with a number of Arab states and Palestinian representatives. Instead of building more settlements, Labor is likely to devote greater resources to housing and social programs for newcomers, those who have already arrived and many thousands who may soon follow.

If either of the two major parties is able to win 40 or so Knesset seats it can probably form a government with help from fringe parties. But a smaller vote for both parties could produce yet another 1980s-type “national unity” coalition government, with top offices alternating every two years between Labor and Likud. While far from ideal, such an outcome would at least have the virtue of largely neutralizing the ideology-based drive that is behind so many of Likud’s policies. That would almost certainly be preferable to what the last four years has seen.