Israeli Right Wing Grapples With Fallout

Amid bitter infighting and dramatic resignations, Israel’s right wing struggled to cope Wednesday with the devastating results of this week’s national elections, which swept the left back into power.

The elections, in which Ehud Barak of the center-left Labor Party trounced right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have sent shock waves through the conservative camp and left it searching for a strategy for recovery.

The fallout continued Wednesday, two days after Netanyahu stepped down as leader of his battered Likud Party. Zeev Binyamin Begin, the hard-line son of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, abruptly quit politics too, saying the results showed that he has “no public” that still shares his uncompromising views on the Arab-Israeli peace process.

For the Israeli right, the damage from Monday’s elections went well beyond Netanyahu. It extended deep into the ranks of Likud, which held on to only 19 seats in the 120-member parliament. Other conservative parties also fared poorly.

The reasons for the apparent shift, according to political analysts and settler leaders, included Netanyahu’s unpopularity at the end of his term and the fact that a majority of Israelis now accepts the idea of ceding West Bank land to the Palestinians for peace. That policy undermines a key tenet of Likud and other right-of-center parties.

Reflecting on the elections, Joseph Alpher, director of the Jerusalem office of the American Jewish Committee, said the results illustrate the “potential for a fairly broad Israeli consensus behind peace deals that involve considerable territorial concessions. The trend away from hawkishness on the territories is a long-term trend, and the right has to think about what to do about it.”

In October, Netanyahu became the first right-wing Israeli leader to give away chunks of the biblical West Bank to the Palestinians when he signed the Wye Plantation accord. He later froze implementation of the agreement, but the political damage was done and his government fell in December, setting the stage for Monday’s elections.

Alpher and others interviewed said it is too soon to tell if the conservatives’ losses will translate into lasting gains for the left. Several factors may have been unique to these elections, including Netanyahu’s poor image and the emergence of the new Center Party, which combined with the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party to bleed votes from Likud. Shas won 17 seats, a 70% gain, while the Center Party took six.

Yisrael Harel, a longtime leader of the Jewish settler movement, said the major issue for settlers, as for other Israelis, was the controversial personality of the prime minister.

“Many on the so-called right crossed ideological lines in order to dump Netanyahu,” said Harel, the former head of the Settlers’ Council, an umbrella organization.

Adding to the damage was a relatively new election system that allows voters to cast separate ballots for prime minister and a parliamentary list. The system encourages the proliferation of parties and cuts into support for the two big ones, Labor and Likud. Labor also lost seats, although not to the same degree as Likud.

In the days since the elections, the recriminations have flown as angry members of the right-wing parties blame their leaders and one another for their problems at the polls.

The National Religious Party, the political home of many Israeli settlers, lashed out at Begin’s new National Union Party for allegedly stealing some of its votes away; the former won five parliamentary seats instead of the nine it had last time. And National Union, which expected to capture at least eight seats, wound up with only four.

Benny Elon, a disappointed National Union member, urged Begin to resign. “I am waiting for an admission from him of his responsibility,” Elon said. Hours later, Begin stepped down.

Pinhas Wallerstein, the chairman of the Settlers’ Council, also announced his resignation, saying the elections proved that he had erred in deciding last fall to join the effort to topple Netanyahu. The council on Wednesday appointed a team to negotiate with Barak over the future of the communities, which are on land Israel occupies in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights.

In Likud, the battle to head the venerable, if diminished, party was underway within hours of Netanyahu’s resignation. His decision to step down immediately as head of the party is likely to help its ability to rebuild, Alpher said.

“Netanyahu has done something that no previous Israeli politician has done,” he said. “This is a new style and a good style.”

Former Finance Minister Meir Sheetrit has already announced his candidacy for the party’s leadership. Others mentioned as possibilities are Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert and two other Cabinet ministers under Netanyahu, Communications Minister Limor Livnat and Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon.