Distancing ourselves from civil war - opinion

There is nothing new about the great heterogeneity of our population, which has always led to extreme political, ideological, and communal differences of opinion. The miracle is that only once in the distant past were we close to civil war.

This was during the Altalena affair of mid-June 1948 (about a month after the Declaration of Independence), when the Irgun independently brought to Israel a ship carrying around 930 immigrants, and large quantities of weapons and medical provisions, shortly after the Irgun had agreed to disarm and join the IDF.

Despite negotiations about who would receive the weapons on the ship, the IDF fired at the ship when it docked near Tel Aviv port. The ship caught fire, and 16 Irgun members and three IDF soldiers were killed. At the time, civil war was averted, largely thanks to the cool-headed sagacity of Menachem Begin, the former commander of the Irgun and the leader of the newly formed Herut movement.

It is said that since that traumatic event, we have at no time been closer to the outbreak of civil war than we are today.

Of course, the circumstances are different. The total population is around 14-fold what it was in 1948, and at the time, the political Left/Center/religious formed a transition government. Today, there is a stable, extreme Right/religious government in power. The main point of contention 76 years ago concerned the monopolization of military power in the hands of the government and preventing the continued existence of political militias of any political ilk.

Two main points of concern

Today, there are two main points of concern:

• The preservation of a liberal, even if imperfect, democracy in Israel, versus the installation of an illiberal democracy or, worse still, an authoritarian state, plus a brutal change of the makeup of the predominantly liberal elite.

• The extension of Jewish settlement into the Gaza Strip and larger sections of the West Bank, plus the return of an Israeli military administration in the Gaza Strip, versus a return of all the remaining 100 hostages (whether alive or dead), plus an improved version of the status quo antebellum.

The divides do not only concern political, ideological, religious, and communal issues but also include different perceptions of the reality, some of which are sincere, while others result from deliberate manipulations by so-called “poison machines” and the spreading of “fake news.”

I RECENTLY corresponded with an acquaintance about the causes for the five general elections held between April 9, 2019 and November 1, 2022. I argued that the main cause was that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought repeated elections because he wanted a particular result – namely, a right-wing/religious coalition, without a restraining factor involved. Only in the fifth election to the 25th Knesset did he manage to get his desired result.

I also argued that when Netanyahu speaks of a national unity government, he does not have in mind the sort of national unity government we had in the years 1984-1988. Then, no love was lost between Labor and the Likud; nevertheless, the unity government was based on a sincere desire by both sides to put the government system back on track. I suspect Netanyahu has no desire to share power with anyone on the basis of real equality.

My acquaintance argued it was the various opposition parties that had raised difficulties that prevented the establishment of an authentic national unity government. I responded that both times that Benny Gantz entered a short-lived national unity arrangement with Netanyahu (in 2020 and again in 2023), he got a raw deal. Consequently, the opposition parties are wary of once again entering such an arrangement with Netanyahu.

Perhaps history will finally determine who is right, but I have no doubt that the positions we expressed were both sincere.

Incidentally, in the 2019 elections, both Likud and Blue and White (a joint list that included Gantz’s, Yair Lapid’s, and Moshe Ya’alon’s parties) each received 35 Knesset seats. Together, they could have formed a stable government with 70 seats, made up of two parties only, without any extreme parties from either side. This might have been a valiant effort to resolve the main malfunctions in our governmental system. But that is spilled milk that had turned sour.

One of the manifestations of our extreme disunity in recent years, with a short break after October 7, 2023, is the foul language used by each side against the other, and in the case of Likud, also inside the party. The situation deteriorated severely after the elections to the 24th Knesset and the formation of the short-lived “government of change” by Naftali Bennett and Lapid in June 2021, when the opposition’s rhetoric in the Knesset worsened considerably.

MANY OF the differences of opinion in Israeli society, including some very deep ones, are built into our highly heterogeneous population and cannot be swept away by a sudden surge of goodwill. The difference, however, between the current and past situations is the foul language used and the deliberate outbursts of humiliating and hateful verbiage. This is what must be urgently addressed.

Every day, I watch at least one-and-a-half hours of talk shows on Channel 14, where foul and insulting language against the Left is a built-in feature. If someone from above instructed the presenters and panelists to assume a calmer and more respectable style of speech, some civility no doubt would be returned to the public debate and contribute to reducing the flames.

The danger of the situation spiraling into violence would be reduced if the prime minister occasionally scolded the worst offenders for using foul language, including Likud ministers (such as David Amsalem and May Golan) and Likud MKs (such as Tally Gotliv, Galit Distel Atbaryan, and Nissim Vaturi). Ditto for opposition party leaders, who should rebuke offensive MKs from their benches for their insulting language.

Political leaders with a sense of responsibility, as demonstrated by Begin in 1948, would be warmly welcomed these days.

The writer worked in the Knesset for many years as a researcher, and has published extensively both journalistic and academic articles on current affairs and Israeli politics. Her most recent book, Israel’s Knesset Members: A Comparative Study of an Undefined Job, was published by Routledge.