By: Michael Friedson
Interest in negotiations to form a new coalition has understandably focused overwhelmingly on the prospects of Amram Mitzna entering a unity government and the efforts to cajole him into doing so. The secondary story has been whether Tommy Lapid can find sufficient plausible deniability to allow him to enter a unity government. Notwithstanding an intensification of talks between Mitzna and Lapid, paltry interest has been shown in the probable make-up of a new opposition, its role, its potential viability — and what impact it can have on what all Israelis believe to be decisions that will shape the nation’s future. Here, then, is some encouragement for Labor to remain in opposition – and it has nothing to do with policies or politics.
A virile opposition is a basic element of a parliamentary democracy. More than being a mere repository of political “also-rans,” opposition provides the counter-point to the national dialectic; a reality check and tempering force to government policy; and a reminder to the incumbent majority that performance is the predicate of longevity. Obviously, a robust and credible opposition is more valuable to the nation than a diluted super-minority that is not taken seriously. For this reason, Amram Mitzna can better serve the nation by building an effective opposition while rebuilding his party.
Natan Sharansky’s acquiescence to the allure of a cabinet portfolio as incentive to morph the remnants of his Yisrael B’Aliyah party into the Likud’s Knesset faction illustrates a typical lack of understanding of opposition’s contribution to government. Rather than becoming its lynchpin from where he could speak to the serious issues with which he disagrees with the Prime Minister — unfettered by the protocols of party discipline – he has instead grabbed the golden ring of presumed power where, in fact, his value will be diluted and his voice limited. He clearly fails to appreciate the benefit that his presence and esteem as a force in opposition would bring to the political system.
Those who stress the need for “unity” at such a critical juncture should acknowledge the difference between what was called a “unity government” but was more precisely a “joint government.” There are those who contend that this parliamentary bastard was a not-insignificant element of the Labor Party’s implosion and the first Sharon Administration’s lack of achievements. “Unity” is more a term of spin, while “joint” more accurately describes the process by which members of the nation’s two largest parties came together under a power-sharing agreement that realized a short-term benefit to party heads at the cost of Labor’s identity and the Likud’s ideological integrity. “Parliamentary opposition” moved from the plenum to the cabinet room where it became “political opposition.” It thus relinquished its prescribed parliamentary responsibility to an impotent group with no credible threat to topple the coalition. What should have been direct and exhaustive public debates on critical issues was downgraded to indirect arguments in the form of Labor leaders defending their continued participation in the government to their constituents. Actual decisions on key matters came from private discourse among the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Defense Minister: deciding for themselves what information the public needs to know while occasionally allowing the cabinet to act as though they were part of the process. The nation could have been better served.
Labor’s rank-and-file apparently tired of the perception that its leaders were playing a subservient role while supporting the very policies they claimed to oppose. Notwithstanding the Likud’s election success, seeds of future dissent were sewn within the party in the form of disillusionment among the rank-and-file at Sharon’s apparent preference for placating his unity confederates rather than adhering to his own party’s guidelines – a matter that remains to be played out, for example, on the issue of Palestinian statehood. While Sharon was able to fend off challenges to his leadership from within his party – and indeed, solidify his strength — Labor’s self-destruction was at last so far advanced that then-Chairman Binyamin Ben-Eliezer felt compelled to create a political pretext in order to pull the plug on the “unity” arrangement. Certainly the expense of a governmental upheaval – elections and all – is an exorbitant price the nation should not be asked to pay so that one party can replace its leader.
One point of conventional wisdom is true: the State of Israel will shortly face existential questions of unprecedented magnitude. Although the warm and fuzzy fantasy about the leaders of all factions guiding the nation from an altruistic sense of “unity” is compelling, personal ambitions and party agendas are not going away so soon. The only way to guarantee that the nation participates in its own fate instead of turning it over to a de facto cabal under the euphemistic guise of “unity” is to respect the structural integrity of the parliamentary system. That means building an erudite and responsible opposition. Contrary to what many are suggesting, there is unity in opposition.
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MICHAEL FRIEDSON is Senior Analyst for The Media Line Ltd., and Editor of www.themedialine.org.