All the leadership contenders, and Sharon in particular, have for weeks been casting today's vote as a determining factor in who will lead the party, but that is ultimately nothing more than political posturing. The decision as to who will lead the party into the next election will be made only at the primary vote, whenever that happens to be. And it says here that the result of that vote will likely be the same regardless when the primary actually takes place. Neither the anger in the party over Sharon's Gaza pullout or his ignoring of the party's will on that issue, nor the belief among his supporters that he is the only one capable of winning the next election for the Likud, will change much over the next 7 months.
The tension, anger, and mud-slinging that has taken place inside the Likud in the past two weeks has been no more or less than expected in the heat of political battle, even if the stakes in today's vote have been inflated beyond all proportion.
But last night's spectacle at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds speaks to a much deeper peril for the Israeli body politic. After Landau and Netanyahu and the others made their speeches, Sharon got up to speak. Someone sabotaged the microphones, making it impossible to deliver his speech, and he walked out in a storm of anger.
Such vitriol and idiocy is, of course, not restricted to the Likud. Ehud Barak has made himself famous for twice jumping on the stage and Labor party meetings and grabbing the microphone away from whoever was speaking to scream and rant about some long-forgotten issue. And there have been other displays of tantrums by other politicians and in other parties as well.
Like Sharon or hate him, the childishness of these pranks must leave every Israeli or supporter of Israel very worried. For it is the people who behave in such childish ways that are running our country, both in ideology (or what's left of it) and in practice.
In a discussion I had with a friend recently, he stated that in a democracy, the rules are made by the parliament. I disagreed. A democracy is a society in which the people as a whole rule. They exercise this rule by electing, in some manner, a representative body to make decisions. That body in turn either elects or affirms an executive group charged with formulating policy. In democratic republics, the executive branch is nominated by the President as elected head of state, and affirmed by the parliament, whereas in representative forms of state such as Israel, the President or Prime Minister is himself elected by virtue of being the leader of the largest party in the parliament to which he is subservient. In either case, the members of parliament are ultimately accountable to the people who elected them.
In Israel, however, there is a dissonance between what democracy should be and what the situation actually is. Rather than the Members of Knesset being responsible to the voters, they are responsible solely to the members of their own party's governing body, be it a central committee, a rabbinic leadership, or the nominal head of the party. The public voters may only select a party platform to support, but have no power to recall any member of Knesset for any reason.
As much as the Likud is the most powerful party in Israel, the 3000 members of its central committee ultimately decide policy for the entire country. When Ariel Sharon turned his back on their decision following the May 2004 internal referendum that rejected the Gaza expulsion plan, he further narrowed the determining of national policy to just one person – himself.
The opponents of Sharon, in tonight's vote, hope to rectify that small matter. But even should they succeed, they will simply be reasserting the oligarchy that Israeli "democracy" has become. And that is very dangerous.
It is dangerous because no person in the Likud Central Committee has any idea what ideology is any longer, no idea why they should pursue one policy over another, and no idea who the best person is to lead this country. It is dangerous because the members of the Likud Central Committee are not in their positions for the good of the country, but are largely there for the political payoffs and patronage that come with the positions. And it is dangerous because the members of the Likud Central Committee, as proven last night, are some of the most childish people in this country.
To leave decisions of national, historical, even international importance in the hands of 3000 ignorant, corrupt, and juvenile people who can think of nothing better to do than pull childish pranks speaks of a very uncertain future for us all.
Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission of the author only.
