Michael B. Oren is a TNR contributing editor, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, and a visiting professor at Georgetown University. He is the author of Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present.
As an Israeli citizen living in America for the year, I can't help
getting caught up in the whirlwind of this country's presidential election. But
as my home country chooses its new prime minister today, I find myself drawing
many similarities between the two contests. Gender is certainly a factor in
both--with Tzipi Livni currently leading the polls--as is ethnicity, with the Iranian-born Shaul
Mofaz vying to become Israel's
first non-Western prime minister. Israelis are also familiar with the candidacy
of a 72-year-old maverick with combat experience--indeed, they would reelect
Ariel Sharon tomorrow were he to miraculously emerge from his coma.
And yet, on a more visceral level, the two elections could
not be more different. I've been watching Obama, McCain, and their surrogates
debate undoubtedly important issues, such as the country's general direction, its social and economic policies, and
the time it will remain in Iraq.
In Israel, the stakes are no
less than its survival: the future of the territories Israel captured
four decades ago, the retention of which threatens its basic security and the
demographic balance on which its existence as a Jewish state depends.
For that reason, Israelis can't afford the luxury of
debating crucial but non-existential issues such as immigration and the
economy. Nor could they countenance candidates such as Obama and Palin who have
no experience in the armed forces. The costs of such inexperience are
prohibitive for Israelis, as they learned in the 2006 Lebanon war, in
which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz--both veteran
Knesset members but lacking military backgrounds--dismally failed. Livni is a
former Mossad agent, while Mofaz is an ex-commando, defense minister, and chief
of staff.
Unlike in the American election, Israel's preoccupation with such
existential threats (rather than domestic policy issues) means that candidates'
platforms are often indistinguishable. Israelis have a hard time seeing light
between Livni, who has called for intensive efforts to reach an accord with the
Palestinians and Mofaz, who also favors accelerated talks but with a greater
exercise of caution; both Mofaz and Livni advocate continued contacts with Syria and robust measures--possibly military--to
prevent Iran
from nuclearizing.
Ultimately, in the United States as in the Jewish
state, the contest may well be decided less by the voters' preference for one
party's platform over another than by their conviction that one contender, by
virtue of his or her character, is inherently more qualified to lead.
But will they in fact be able to lead? Barring impeachment
or mortality, the victor in America
can look forward to one four-year term and possibly a second in which to forge
his legacies in domestic and foreign affairs. In Israel, though, where politicians
are vetted after, rather than before, attaining office, the next prime
minister is likely to face a succession of internal investigations that will
impede any efforts to implement policies. The new American president can pick a
cabinet, but Israel's
prime minister-elect must negotiate furiously to construct a coalition from
rival party members and the leaders of other factions--right, left, and
religious. And even then, the centrist Kadima will still have to confront a
formidable challenge from the right-wing Likud.
The ballots are now being counted and, as of this writing,
Livni is significantly out front. Paradoxically, the leader of a country facing
an existential threat has the least amount of leeway to address those issues.
Watching both the US and Israeli elections simultaneously, I cannot help thinking that in order to resolve the Palestinian problem, Israel must first
reform its crippling political system. Needed is a prime minister who is
popularly elected, who serves for a full four years without fear of weekly
police probes, and who can choose cabinet members on the basis of their
qualifications and not their political power. Israel
needs a system much more similar to America's.
--Michael B. Oren