OF MEN AND MANDATES: ANTICIPATING THE POST-MORTEMS ON THE ISRAELI ELECTION

(Washington, D.C.): The most important election in the history
of the state of Israel will take place tomorrow. Its importance
derives from the fundamental choices that will be made by
whichever of the two candidates for Prime Minister prevails —
the incumbent Shimon Peres of the left-of-center Labor Party or
his challenger Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu, leader of
the right-of-center Likud Party.

While no one can say for certain at this writing which man
will win, many pollsters predict that the vote will be decided by
the roughly 15% of the electorate that are Israeli Arabs. The
Arabs are expected to vote overwhelmingly (virtually unanimously)
for Peres and — according to the latest opinion polls — could
offset the approximately 58-42% majority enjoyed by Netanyahu
among the remaining 85% of the voting population that is Jewish.
Such a result would present fascinating challenges for Israeli
democracy.

Under no circumstances would the legality of the outcome be in
doubt. Israel’s Arab citizens are fully entitled to vote and
their votes carry the same weight as those of Israeli Jews. This
is an impressive sign of the commitment to democratic rule of the
founders of what was intended to be, and remains, the world’s
only Jewish state. (In fact, it would be a welcome development if
Arab votes counted as much elsewhere in the Middle East as they
do in Israel.)

Beyond Legality

The special nature of Israel as a nation whose mission is to
serve as the single Jewish state — where Jews enjoy majority
status, where Jewish culture predominates, where Jews can pursue
self-determination and where Jews function as “hosts”
rather than “guests” of the nations — affects the sort
of mandate that could be imputed to an Israeli electoral majority
that would rely so heavily on Arab votes. It bears emphasis:
There is an important distinction between the legal significance
of an election victory and its political or policy significance.
The legal significance of the majority is not in question, but
the nature of the political mandate it represents will
necessarily reflect the composition, and not just the fact, of
the majority.

This is especially true given the particular issues with which
the next government of Israel is going to have to contend. These
involve decisions likely to affect Israel’s national
security, such as whether to relinquish the Golan
Heights to Syria and perhaps to turn over strategic territory on
the West Bank to Yasser Arafat’s proto-Palestinian state. Second,
there are decisions that go to the heart of Israel’s
character as the Jewish state. Of the latter, none is
more significant than the future status of Jerusalem. wp=”br1″>

Israel’s national security continues to require protection
against threats from various Arab states. This necessarily
creates a problem for Israeli Arabs. Not only are these citizens
non-Jews; they also have religious, cultural, linguistic, ethnic
and other ties to the people against whom Israel must defend its
own existence. Israel deserves credit for never having made this
an argument for disenfranchising the Israeli Arabs. The
inevitable political reality, however, is that a national
security policy that is supported by far less than half of the
country’s Jews and that depends for its majority on the Arabs
raises questions of political legitimacy among the Jewish
population.

Similarly, the prospect that the future of Jerusalem as the
unified capital of the Jewish State might hinge, in effect, on
Israel’s Arab population rather than the support of a majority of
Jews would also likely prove discomfiting. Jerusalem has been
central to Jewish nationhood for 3,000 years. The Jews’ national
movement, after all, is Zionism, Zion being Jerusalem. wp=”br1″>

The Metaphysics of Legitimacy wp=”br1″>

Such sensitive considerations influence the metaphysics of
legitimacy and authority of the Israeli government. These
intangible, but politically powerful — even essential — assets
of statesmen and state institutions are keys to determining
whether a free people will obey their government and why some
countries experience stability and others disruptions to public
order. Even (perhaps especially) the most law-respecting
citizens, those who reject incitement to civil violence and abhor
the thought of it, must concern themselves with these
metaphysical forces. They are the very essence of political
science.

Concern about legitimacy and authority have traditionally
prompted democratic governments to endeavor to ensure a
sufficiently broad political base — more than a simple majority
that is the normal legal requirement — for especially important
decisions. For example, in the United States, treaties require a
two-thirds majority of the Senate and amendments to the
Constitution must have the approval not only of supermajorities
in Congress but also the ratification of three-quarters of the
states.

The Bottom Line

It appears that the next Israeli government, whether led by
Likud’s Netanyahu or Labor’s Peres, may be obliged to wrestle
with momentous public policy decisions affecting the security and
character of the State of Israel with a slim majority. In a
democracy, having a majority of one is good enough for
establishing a legal government. That will be true in
Israel and a good thing, too. What is necessary to support the
legality of a government, however, is different from what may be
necessary politically to sustain a particular policy in the
hearts and minds of the public at large. It will be an
easy matter when the elections are over, to determine who the
government of Israel is. It will be a much more difficult
business to decide what kind of political mandate emerges with
respect to the critical decisions that government will have to
take.