The results of the Israeli elections of June 23, 1992, solidly established the Labor party as the mainstay of the next Israeli government and Yitzhak Rabin as the prime minister. The international media commentators tended at once to acclaim it as a radical change in Israeli politics. For once, New York Times columnists and PLO spokesmen were nearly unanimous in perceiving the election returns as proof that the Israeli electorate had rejected extremism for peace. Yet all such musings about the shape of Israeli relations with the Arab states and the Palestinians are inaccurate, especially since they ignore the existence of an Israeli grand strategy.

The strategy which Rabin employed to win Labor's victory consisted of presenting Labor as more Likud-like than Likud itself, yet devoid of Likud's liabilities. The implication was that Labor was going to strive toward the aims Likud and Labor had always shared, but in a different manner, without squandering resources on mere symbolism, like the "political settlements" deep inside the Territories, in contrast to the "security settlements" designed to perpetuate Israel's present borders. The second electoral tenet of Labor -- "We are sick

and tired of corruption within Likud" -- was also intended to present Labor as a pristine version of Likud in security and foreign affairs.

This strategy secured Labor's electoral triumph. No wonder Labor's "Committee for Coalition-Formation Negotiations," its membership handpicked by Rabin, rushed to set "three fundamental conditions" to be met by every party willing to join Rabin's government. The conditions, defined as foundations of Israeli policy "for the coming four years," were: (1) "no to the Palestinian State in any shape or form, (2) a speedy implementation of an autonomy, (3) the confrontation lines [between the Israeli army and Arab forces] to remain Israel's security borders, [with the implication that] the Jordan Valley, the Golan Heights and the Greater Jerusalem area are non-negotiable" (Hadashot, June 29). The phrase "for the coming four years" was inserted to provide the pro-Palestinian state left-wing parties with the excuse that their support for Labor, being temporary, would not mean any deviation from their principles. For all these reasons, the victory of Labor under Rabin should be viewed as a shift of the Israeli electorate not to the left, but to a more pragmatic sort of politics than adopted under Shamir, with less emphasis on mere symbols.

Therefore, it would be wrong to equate Labor with Likud. In the context of Middle East politics, where symbols command more attention than substance, the described difference in the respective attitudes of the two parties towards symbols has its major political importance. As it will be shown toward the end of this article, Rabin's Labor and the Likud -- as it was until the elections -- also differ in their domestic policies.

Let me begin with the overall returns of the recent elections, as compared to their counterparts in the 1988 elections. It should be borne in mind that the number of voters has increased enormously in the intervening years, mainly because of the immigration from the former USSR. In 1988 there were 2.9 million voters on the rolls, of whom 80 percent actually voted. This year there were 3.4 million eligible voters, of whom 2.6 million (77.5 percent) actually voted. Over 50 percent of the half-a-million increase is estimated to have been contributed by new immigrants. By virtue of a new law enacted in 1991, a party must reach the threshold of 1.5 percent of the national vote in order to get any Knesset seats. The votes for parties which fail to reach that threshold are invalidated, with the 120 seats in the Knesset divided proportionally among the remaining parties. The number of disqualified votes amounted to 132,000. Consequently, about 20,700 votes were needed this time to yield a Knesset seat.

Due to the threshold law, the number of parties actually represented in the Knesset has decreased from 15 to 10. It still remains convenient to tabulate the returns in accordance with the customary Israeli pattern of grouping them into several major categories, especially for the purpose of making comparisons with the 1988 returns. The pattern is first to separate the parties representing almost exclusively the Arab electorate (to be referred to as Arab Parties, AP) from the Jewish parties, regardless of how much Arab vote they may actually attract. (This is why the Arab vote will be analyzed separately in this report.) Next, the Jewish parties are divided into five subgroups: the left of Labor (referred to as "Left"), Labor, Likud, the right of Likud (referred to as "Right"), and the religious parties. In these elections only two Arab parties received more than 1.5 percent of the national vote. They were Hadash, centered around the Israeli Communist party, with 2.3 percent of the vote (3 seats) and the Arab Democratic party, with 1.5 percent of the vote (two seats), while the Progressive List for Peace, headed by Muhammad Miari received only 0.9 percent of the vote and was disqualified. The Left in 1988 comprised three parties -- Shinui, Ratz and Ma-pam -- which, while preserving their separateness, have now formed a single electoral list under the name of Meretz. The Right in 1988 comprised three parties, Tsomet, Moledet and HaTehiya, of which the last now received only 1.2 percent of the vote and was disqualified. Several new religious parties (including the one headed by the notorious Rabbi Moshe Levinger) failed to reach the threshold and will be ignored. Of the four religious parties of 1988, the two Haredi ones -- Agudat Israel and Degel Hatorah -- have fused into the United Torah List. The two other religious parties are Shas, the party of religious Jews of Oriental extraction, and the National Religious party (NRP).

When thus categorized, the recent election results in percentages can be compared to their 1988 counterparts (see Table I).

Table 1
	Left	Labor	Likud	Right	Religious	AP
1992	9.5	34.6	24.9	8.6	13.0	3.8
1988	8.3	31.7	34.1	5.8	15.0	5.1

The figures warrant three conclusions. First, all those who supported Shamir's government or were to the right of it (Likud, the Right and the Religious combined) now received no more than 46.5 percent of the vote. By comparison, Labor and all the Left and Arab parties, which jointly can be relied upon to block the ascent of Likud to power, and for that reason are even called the "Likud-blocking group," got 47.9 percent. (The remaining 5.6 percent represent the vote for the disqualified parties.) The difference is minuscule indeed: in terms of Knesset seats it means that the "Likud-blocking group" received 61 of them, their opponents 59. It can thus be seen that the change from 1988 does not amount to much. The second conclusion is that Likud has indeed lost heavily (9.2 percent of the national vote, or 27 percent of its 1988 voters), but the gains of Labor and the Left have been far from impressive. It is apparent that although some Likud vote has indeed gone to Labor and some of it to Shas, much more has gone to Tsomet, which has quadrupled its Knesset representation from two seats in 1988 to eight now. According to the best Israeli commentators, much of the Likud loss could be accounted for by abstentions, which, especially in the known Likud strongholds, became for the former Likud supporters a way of expressing their disappointment with their party without daring to switch their vote to any other.

The third conclusion is that the Left did nevertheless register some gains, even if rather modest. This is apparent not so much from the overall increase of Meretz by 1.2 percent (compared to the standing of the Left in 1988) as from the geographic distribution of the Meretz vote. The pertinent data show that while in its old strongholds, the wealthier neighborhoods of the bigger cities or the wealthier kibbutzim, the Left has even lost some votes to Labor. But it has consistently grown all over the country in the localities previously heavily dominated by the Religious and the Likud, where its 1988 vote was minuscule. Meretz has also increased its appeal for the young, as can best be seen from the returns of the voting in the army, which will be analyzed separately.

Overall, however, the shifts have been relatively insignificant. The ideological attachments of the Israeli voter are quite stable on the average. Under the Israeli political system, however, even those shifts which did actually occur, suffice to enable Rabin to govern from a position of strength, without the need to form any "national-unity government" with Likud. This impact of minor vote shifts is attributable to the fact that even the smallest parties are anxious to participate in the government. This holds especially true for the religious parties, which depend heavily on government funding of their educational and religious institutions. The funds for that purpose need to be bargained for, and the way to do so is by exacting a quid pro quo for supporting a government coalition through their Knesset votes. Of course, the concomitant corruption is enormous, with much of the gain landing straight in the private pockets of the rabbis and other militants holding positions of influence in a given religious party. This is why the Shas party joined the Rabin-led coalition once it was seen that only Labor could form a government.

The best summary analysis of the electoral returns has been offered by Gideon Doron, professor of political science at Tel Aviv University, in an interview with Amiram Cohen (Al Hamishmar, June 26). During the election campaign Doron served as a scientific advisor of Labor's public-relations team. Accordingly, he represents Labor's point of view, but he can describe Labor's electoral tactics with some authority. Correctly, Doron notes that in all known Likud strongholds, be it entire towns or bigger-city neighborhoods, Likud lost and Labor gained. While ignoring the gains of the Right, he admits that Labor gains were rather moderate, but they sufficed for winning the elections. His statistical documentation of this thesis is plentiful: but the most convincing single case is that of the Hatikva neighborhood in Tel Aviv, dominated by Likud since 1977. In 1988 Labor received no more than 7 percent of this vote. During the recent campaign, Rabin visited Hatikva repeatedly. "He didn't conquer Hatikva, but Labor doubled its hold there, receiving 14 percent. To see what he achieved, you have to multiply this gain by the number of neighborhoods in which similar gains occurred." Doron explains the strategic idea to which this success could be attributed:

Our strategy was to attract the periphery of disillusioned Likud voters, those on the fringes of the unreachable hard core of unwavering Likud supporters. We presumed that such people would be likely to vent their feelings of disillusionment by voting Labor

or at least by abstaining. Doron defines this "periphery" as comprising in political terms the supporters of David Levy as a contender for power in Likud, and in socio-structural terms as the lower middle class or the relatively better-off segment of the working class, still scared of unemployment, either of their own or, more commonly, of their children. Within the thus delineated social category, Labor made special efforts to reach "the Oriental Jews, in particular of Moroccan extraction, who were born in Israel and had more than

elementary education." However, Doron says that Labor also tried to reach those Ashkenazi Jews who had formerly voted for Likud for reasons of expediency, for example small businessmen who had hoped that Likud could improve their economic standing but subsequently became disappointed. He emphasizes that no attempts whatsoever were made to reach the hard core of Likud voters.

Psychologically, the approach implied a focus on people's affective identities. "Our goal," explains Doron, was "to replace the ‘Likud is us' emotion of our charges by its ‘Rabin is us' counterpart." As he puts it, "one of our aims was to convey an image of Rabin as the true-blue successor of Begin, with the implication that although the landlord would change, the home would remain as it was." This strategy did entail a risk (which ultimately didn't materialize) that left-inclined voters might switch from Labor to Meretz. Yet it was followed nevertheless, because it was considered preferable that "the vote remain within the bloc."

The results of this strategy and of its impact upon the elections can be best seen from the detailed report of the voting in diverse West Jerusalem neighborhoods, which appeared in Kol Ha'ir (June 26). More than any other Israeli city, West Jerusalem is comprised of Jewish neighborhoods, with strikingly contrasting socio-cultural characteristics, and thereby strikingly contrasting electoral preference patterns. The all-over Jerusalem results (including about 1000 Arab votes, mostly from the pre-1967 neighborhood of Beit Tzefafa) are shown in Table II. The votes cast for the disqualified HaTehiya party are in this and the next table included in the "Right" column.

Table II: West Jerusalem
	Left	Labor	Likud	Right	Religious	AP
1992	10.2	20.9	25.5	17.4	28.7	0.1
1988	9.2	19.8	30.5	7.7	28.0	5.1

It can be seen that although Likud lost, the gains of the Left and of Labor were marginal, especially when compared to the impressive growth of the Right. Notably, over 50 percent of the Right vote in West Jerusalem (9.1 percent as compared to 3.4 percent in 1988) was cast for the disqualified HaTehiya party. This contrasts very much with the weakness of HaTehiya in Tel Aviv (where it received barely 1.0 percent of votes), and in other big cities.

The Table II figures could be usefully broken down by separate neighborhoods with different socio-cultural characteristics. I have selected four neighborhoods for the purpose. None of them is destitute. Beit Hakerem is the wealthiest of the four. Har-Nof is the poorest of them, and to a considerable extent religious. Katamonim, is an old and relatively prosperous Oriental Jewish neighborhood, while Kiryat-Hayovel is distinct for its high concentration of new immigrants.

As can be seen from this table, the electoral returns are influenced by the level of income, but even more decisively by religiousness. The vote in religious neighborhoods wealthier than Har-Nof was not much different in terms of the total for all the religious parties. In neighborhoods dominated by the religious parties Likud's decline has been small. This was the case in a number of neighborhoods in different cities. One can even generalize that the more a particular locality was religious, the smaller were Likud's losses and Labor's and the Left's gains.

In general, the comparisons between West Jerusalem neighborhoods prove Doron right in his assessment of Labor's electoral tactics as a success. It is because in the religious neighborhoods the vote shifts from one secular party to another turned out to have been too

Table III: West Jerusalem Neighborhoods
		Left	Labor	Likud	Right	Religious	AP
Beit Hakerem	1992	22.9	39.1	19.9	10.5	5.3	0.1
	1988	19.1	39.0	22.3	8.2	6.1	0.4
Har-Nof	1992	1.4	3.5	6.8	4.6	76.3	0.0
	1988	1.6	3.0	8.6	5.6	79.2	0.1
Katamonim	1992	5.8	19.4	43.0	1.4	17.0	0.2
	1988	5.1	17.2	48.0	8.8	17.5	0.5
Kiryat-Hayovel	1992	12.3	30.0	29.9	12.4	11.7	0.4
	1988	10.0	29.1	36.9	8.7	11.9	0.6

tiny to warrant any pre-electoral propaganda effort. Moreover, the losses of Likud in wealthier neighborhoods such as Beit Hakerem were also rather tiny, because the Likud voters there could in advance be presumed to fit the category of "the hard core Likud voters," as Doron defined it. It could also be presumed in advance that those tiny vote shifts away from Likud would be in favor of the Right, in particular the Tsomet party, whose appeal increased there, also at the cost of other parties. In Beit Hakerem Tsomet rose from 2.5 percent in 1988 to 7.5 percent in 1992; in Kiryat-Hayovel its growth was also considerable; in Katamonim much less so; and in Har-Nof downright negligible (from 0.6 percent to 0.9 percent). It is because Tsomet differs from other Right parties by its aggressive secularism.

I will now try to detect voting patterns within separate segments of the Israeli electorate.

The Towns

The largest gains of Labor as well as the largest losses of Likud occurred in bigger cities. The gains of Labor were higher in cities like Haifa which do not contain poor neighborhoods like the above-mentioned Hatikva neighborhood of Tel Aviv, densely inhabited by the Jews of Oriental, mostly Moroccan, extraction. Table IV compares the 1992 and 1988 returns in Tel Aviv and Haifa. For the sake of comparison, a smaller, much poorer and to some extent religious town of Or Yehuda has been inserted in the table as well. Other medium-sized towns with average median-income levels which are not preponderantly religious fall somewhere between the patterns of Tel Aviv and Haifa. Since Or Yehuda is not a preponderantly religious locality, Likud's losses were considerable there.

A locality customarily cited as the most typical secular Jewish city in terms of approximating the distribution of the nationwide Jewish vote, was always Bat Yam. This year an exception occurred. Bat Yam became a city in which Likud's losses were more pronounced than anywhere else. It is attributable to the preference of local inhabitants for Labor's response to the anti-Arab riots which occurred before the elections. Table V (Haaretz, June 30) records Bat Yam's Labor and Likud vote in the last six elections. It can be seen that Labor also won in Bat Yam before, but this year's huge drop in Likud's popularity was the decisive factor.

Table IV: Tel Aviv, Haifa and Or Yahuda
		Left	Labor	Likud	Right	Religious	AP
Tel Aviv	1992	13.7	38.5	25.9	9.7	8.0	0.2
	1988	11.6	34.2	34.8	6.2	7.2	0.3
Haifa	1992	11.2	45.2	20.2	10.5	6.9	2.7
	1988	14.2	40.2	28.4	7.4	6.6	3.0
Or Yehuda	1992	3.1	23.2	42.8	6.6	20.9	0.2
	1988	5.3	15.9	49.7	5.1	23.1	0.2

The Palestinian vote

The Palestinian electoral returns can be identified with a high degree of accuracy because almost all Palestinians in Israel live in compact, segregated communities. Palestinians in what are called the "mixed cities" are too few in number (about 5 percent) to carry statistical weight.

Before analyzing the results, it must be noted that Palestinian abstention has consistently been higher than Jewish. In the whole of Israel the proportion of voters from among the eligible population stood this year at 77.5 percent, 80 percent in 1988. For the Jews, the respective figures were 78 percent this year and 81.5 percent in 1988. For the Palestinians, however, they were 73 percent this year and 76 percent in 1988. Furthermore, in the last two elections, in the localities where Palestinian abstention was high, female Palestinian abstention was particularly high. The reason is clear: the Islamic movement opposes female voting in principle. Flyers bearing warnings such as "If you let your wife vote today, she will betray you tomorrow" were widely circulated in some Palestinian localities.

Let me proceed to reporting the actual results. Of the three parties which without the Palestinian vote would not even exist, Hadash received 2.3 percent of the national Israeli vote, as compared to 4.3 percent in 1988; the Arab Democratic party received 1.5 percent, up from 1.0 percent in 1988; while the Progressive List for Peace received 0.9 percent, down from 1.5 percent in 1988, and was disqualified accordingly. About 60 percent of the Palestinians voted for Jewish parties.

Table V: Labor and Likud in Bat Yam, 1973 -- 1992

	1973	1977	1981	1984	1988	1992
Labor	44.0	26.7	39.2	38.9	33.8	41.0
Likud	37.1	41.7	43.2	40.4	41.3	29.1

In relation to the total Palestinian vote, Hadash received 23.1 percent (34.5 percent in 1988); the Arab Democratic party, 15.3 percent (11.0 percent); the Left, 9.8 percent (8.4 percent); Labor, 20.4 percent (16.3 percent); Likud, 8.4 percent (6.3 percent). It merits special attention that two Jewish religious parties, the National Religious party and Shas, received no less than 4.7 percent and 4.9 percent of the Palestinian vote respectively. The relatively high Palestinian vote for the NRP is more or less consistent with the pattern in years past, but the vote for Shas is a novel phenomenon, as it marks an increase from the mere 0.6 percent in 1988. Total Palestinian vote for the Jewish religious parties (including a few for the United Torah List), amounts to 10.2 percent. Together with 8.4 percent of votes cast for Likud, it means that no less than 18.8 percent of Palestinians voted for Shamir's coalition. The Palestinian vote for Meretz, Labor, Likud, NRP and Shas had its practical consequences, adding about 3 -- 4 Knesset seats to Labor, 1 -- 2 to Meretz and Likud each, and one seat to both the NRP and Shas.

Not without good reason, therefore, did Labor, Meretz and Likud place the Arabs in "safe" slots on their candidate lists. Due to this fact, the number of Arab Knesset members has increased from six to eight, reaching the peak in Israel's history. Of the eight, two are in Labor, one each in Likud and Meretz, and two each in Hadash and the Arab Democratic party. In contrast to that, NRP and Shas are too racist to accept non-Jews even as members, let alone as Knesset candidates. It is true that the Shas-affiliated minister of the interior, Aryeh Der'i, did improve the conditions of Palestinians in Israel in several important respects. But the NRP, representing the most extreme of the settlers, is relentlessly hostile toward them. The Arab vote for the NRP, and to some extent for Likud (or in 1988 for Rabin, who then was responsible for the most ruthless suppression of the intifada), only shows that a considerable number of Palestinians in Israel still cling to the modes of thinking of a feudal society. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the Arab vote for Likud or the Jewish religious parties tends to be higher in small localities and among the Bedouins, lower among the urbanites.

The vote for Hadash has considerably declined since the 1988 elections. The decline has occurred everywhere, with two notable exceptions. These were the town of Umm El-Fahem and the large village of Qufr Qassem, both citadels of the Islamic movement, which rules over the two municipalites with an iron fist, enacting regulations prohibiting the sale of alcoholic drinks and the like. Moreover, communal pressures upon individuals are rampant in the two localities. Whoever is, for example, not seen attending the Mosque frequently enough or whoever's daughter is rumored to be "immodestly" dressed is at once "instructed" to mend his conduct or else. Hadash did its very best to ignore such phenomena, and even larded its electoral propaganda with Quranic quotations. It still could not avoid the Islamic movement's censure, especially for its "twofold crime" of placing on the third slot of its Knesset candidate list not only a woman but a Jewish woman at that. The consequence was that all the opponents of the Islamic movement's despotism spontaneously united around Hadash. In Umm EI-Fahem the 1992 vote for Hadash rose from 3,331 in 1988 to 5,781 (i.e. by 42 percent), and in Qufr Qassem from 816 to 1,344 (i.e. by 39 percent). Some Palestinians are of the opinion that a party not burdened by an ideology as outworn as Hadash's that confined itself instead to defending the right of people to live as they please, would have scored even more spectacular gains, and not only in the two named localities.

Table VI: The Army Vote
	Left	Labor	Likud	Right	Religious	AP
1992	15.0	30.4	23.8	22.7	5.9	0.2
1988	11.0	29.1	35.1	15.7	6.4	0.2

The Army vote

All soldiers on active duty on election day, whether draftees of 18 to 21 or reservists, vote in special army ballot-boxes, in double envelopes, in the same way as prison inmates, sailors at sea and diplomats stationed in foreign countries. Their votes are counted separately, and the outcomes are published, although only in percentages, not in absolute figures. However, since on an election day the army authorities are known to grant reservists as many leaves as possible, and since numerically the draftees exceed by far all other categories, this vote is generally interpreted in Israel as representing the preferences of the youngest cohort of eligible citizens. For the same reason, it is commonly called "the army vote."

Table VI shows the distribution of this vote, compared to the data for 1988. As can be seen, young Israelis tend to be more extreme than their elders, both toward the Left and the Right, but more so toward the latter. Nevertheless, Labor and the Left combined, which in 1984 amassed only 38.4 percent of the army vote, and in 1988 only 40.1 percent, this time received the spectacular 45.4 percent. True, the army vote for the Right also rose, but it also rose for Meretz alone, reaching 15.0 percent, exceeding by far that party's nationwide total of 9.5 percent. Within the increase for the Right, the bulk went to Tsomet, which for the young had a special appeal. In the army, Tsomet received as much as 17.2 percent of votes, well above that party's national total of 6.3 percent. The transfer-advocating Moledet party also fared better in the army than among the general public: 3.9 percent as compared with 2.3 percent.

The vote for the Right

Along with the overall increase of the Right's electoral appeal, two special phenomena deserve careful attention. While HaTehiya ended up disqualified from the race, Tsomet underwent a meteoric rise. The former phenomenon can be explained easily enough. HaTehiya has increasingly become a single-issue party, hardly concerned with anything apart from the settlements, in particular the religious ones. This is why it has opposed a peace process in any shape or form. In the process, it adopted religious symbols, while all three of its former Knesset representatives remained secular. Moreover, the National

Religious party became no less extremist than HaTehiya, with the advantage of militating for an even stricter enforcement of religious laws than HaTehiya could afford, at least zealously enough. Given these realities, the religious extremists preferred a party as extremist as the other, but "unsullied" by secular leadership. For the secular extremists there was Tsomet.

The amazing triumph of Tsomet needs to be compared with the rather unimpressive showing of the transfer-advocating Moledet. The comparison has been best analyzed by Orit Shohat (Haaretz, June 26). She astutely observes that the goons that Moledet customarily sends in on such occasions as the funerals of victims of Palestinian violence, "looked like skinheads imported on a special flight from Germany," and therefore could not please the Israelis, who stomach spontaneous lynchings but abhor organized violence. She is also right that Moledet's avowed policy of deliberately creating a famine in the territories so as to make their Palestinian residents "voluntarily emigrate," could not find favor with an average Israeli either. Above all else, however, her comparison of social and economic programs of Moledet and Tsomet deserves to be quoted extensively.

Moledet has an all-out right-wing program. It includes a call to return to the [Jewish] sources, an attitude toward the land and its past which sounds like a sexual attachment... a proposal that all [Jewish] youths be compulsory members of an "educational" youth movement, a demand for teaching more Bible in the schools, and even the reduction of the number of Knesset members to 71, only in order to equal the membership size of [the ancient Jewish Council] the Sanhedrin. Moledet's program is also right-wing in economic affairs. It bans the right to strike, the right of workers to have their own voluntary organizations, and any government intervention in economic affairs. The only thing which this program lacks to sound as full-fledged as that of any other right-wing extremist outfit elsewhere in the world, is the ban on abortions and homosexuality. In contrast to this, the economic program of Tsomet has a pronounced left-wing appeal. Its much emphasized central point is the perception of income equalization as a valuable mechanism, contributing to the society's cohesion. Tsomet is also an emphatically secular party. It wants to preserve the settlements, but only for the sake of security, and it says so explicitly. Rafael Eitan is well-aware that an overwhelming majority of his voters are not settlers, and that they represent a segment of [Jewish] society which got sick and tired of Likud's corruption.

The Israeli Association for Freedom in Science and Art, which is campaigning against the Jewish religious coercion exerted by the religious parties, published a survey before the elections of positions on this issue adopted by the parties represented in the last Knesset. In this survey, Tsomet's record comes out as identical with Meretz's, and much better than Labor's, let alone Likud's. During the electoral campaign it could be seen, both from the polls and personal observation, that a mass of young Jews, variously estimated by the pollsters as equal in size to what was needed to yield two to five Knesset seats, were uncertain whether to vote for Tsomet or Meretz, but would not even contemplate voting for any other party, for the simple reason that none of them was as committed to secularism. Some of them were interviewed in depth by Hadashot (June 26). They said that their attitude stemmed "from our fear of religious [Jews], which is greater than of the Arabs." They considered Israel strong enough to be able to defend itself against any conceivable Arab alliance, but they feared that the religious Jews may "destroy Israel from within," leaving them with no choice but to emigrate. Such fears are not to be dismissed lightly. Religious pressures, as exerted relentlessly since 1977, indeed weaken Israel militarily, in addition to weakening the attachment of young Israelis to their country.

The religious parties

Although the political programs of the religious parties differ little from one another, in terms of their respective social backgrounds, there is much difference between the Haredi [ultra-pious] parties and the National Religous party. The militants and supporters of the latter have deep roots in the outer Jewish society and share the core of its values. NRP is also a party in the Western sense: it has members and holds elections to choose its leaders. Its electoral vote is affected by factors of the same kind as those which affect the secular parties. In this election NRP scored moderate gains, owing, as already mentioned, to the most hawkish program in that party's history. This enabled the NRP to attract religious voters who formerly had voted for HaTehiya or for other extreme but secular right-wing parties.

The Haredi universe is of an entirely different nature. Strictly speaking, their parties are not parties in the common meaning of the word. They have neither membership nor internal party elections. All the issues are decided by a rabbinical Council of Sages, different for each Haredi party. The nominal leaders and the rank-and-file commit themselves in advance to following these decisions with all humility. The Haredim as a rule live in their own separate neighborhoods (referred to in Hebrew as "ghettos"), dress and behave differently than other Jews, and educate their children in a way totally different than the rest of society. For the purposes of electoral analysis, some special features of the Haredi society are relevant. To begin with, the Haredim are divided into "camps," each totally subservient to decisions of its own rabbi, venerated by his flock as the "Holy Man." His decisions regulate not just matters of religious observance, but also everything else in Haredi life, down to the last detail. Accordingly, a Haredi's vote depends exclusively on how he happens to be instructed by "his" rabbi. Not all Haredim, however, are affiliated with a particular "camp." Some tend to shift their political allegiance depending on a particular rabbi's reputation for the power of his blessings, either in the sense of making their recipients materially prosper or in the sense of protecting those recipients from the evil eye, the demons and the ghosts which the Haredim dread. Over and beyond that, however, a rabbi may enjoy a high reputation as a miracle worker or an effective bearer of doom to those he curses. In the Haredi world, both the miracles and the curses are in high demand and supposed to occur as a matter of routine, even if they remain invisible to an infidel. After the 1988 elections the Haredi press claimed that sight was restored to many who had been blind, that many others had been cured of terminal cancer, etc., solely as a reward for their "correct" vote. Not to be outsmarted, the secular press then demanded to see such miracles with their own eyes. Sad to say, however, no such demonstrations were to be performed in public. To condude, the electoral contest among the Haredim can be described as an interplay of two factors: an affiliated voter's allegiance to his "camp," and an unaffiliated voter's dependence on the shifting reputation of particular rabbis for their magic powers.

Their reputations are fleeting, however, as dependent on vicissitudes of fashion as the reputations of movie stars. When a rabbi becomes famous for the effectiveness of his blessings and curses, his power to get votes can transcend the Haredi public, influencing some traditional Likud supporters. When his fame is on the wane, he is no longer able to influence anybody's vote apart from his steady followers. During the 1988 elections the reputation for effectiveness of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's magic stood at its height. That rabbi lives in Brooklyn, New York, and refuses to visit Israel, but he has several thousand devoted followers there and much more numerous ranks of looser sympathizers. In 1988, he chose to support the Agudat Israel party, which by virtue of this choice soared from two Knesset seats in 1984 to five in 1988. Although he is an Ashkenazi and speaks only Yiddish, he then held a particular appeal for "the Oriental Jews," succeeding in getting more of their votes than of the Ashkenazis'. The manner in which this feat was achieved was ingeniousness itself. On the street, folders were being distributed. On one side of each folder a solemn pledge to vote for Agudat Israel was printed, to be signed by the recipient of the folder. On the other side there was the Lubavitcher Rebbe's no-less-solemn pledge promising "male children, health and prosperity" to each and every signer of the pledge. Sacks filled with such folders were loaded every day on flights to Brooklyn, in order to make it possible for the holy man to touch each of them with his own hand. This was considered a prerequisite for success, because Haredi magic is said to operate only through bodily contact.

In 1992, however, after already fancying himself a Messiah, the Lubavitcher Rebbe suffered a heart attack and a serious stroke, which plunged him into a deep depression. Under such circumstances, his reputation plummeted. The United Torah List -- which this year included the Agudat Israel party fused with Degel Hatorah, both predominantly Ashkenazi -- tried its hand by a feeble imitation of the 1988 feat of pledges. It distributed folders containing a pledge by "10 very pious [but unnamed] rabbis," to pray every night for the signers of the pledge to vote for UTL to be blessed with all the rewards promised in 1988. Sadly, the trick hardly worked this year. The promises were not believed, and the vote for UTL dropped accordingly, from the combined seven Knesset seats of the two parties in 1988 to four.

On the other hand, the Oriental Haredi party, Shas, benefited this year from the services of today's most highly reputed Cabbalistic miracle worker, Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri of Jerusalem. Shortly before the elections, Rabbi Kaduri's reputation for exorcizing various evil spirits received a further boost when he performed a well-publicized miracle. After some Cabbalists of Haifa announced that angels had warned them (against the judgment of the geologists) of an impending earthquake in Eilat "between June 15 and 18," Kaduri announced that he could "transfer" the earthquake to the neighboring Jordanian town of Aqaba, with the effect of thus hurting the Gentiles alone. He duly visited Eilat on June 14, where he performed various magical ceremonies before the press cameras. There was no earthquake, either in Eilat or in Aqaba, but Kaduri was nevertheless hailed in Shas milieus as a performer of a stupendous miracle. Right before election day, June 23, Shas took Kaduri by helicopter to hover over its electoral meetings, at which every speaker would extol his miracles. Then Kaduri issued a pronouncement on the very day before the election to the effect that "a vote for Shas alone is every Jew's sacred obligation." About 95 percent of the Jews were wicked enough to sin by ignoring their "sacred obligation." But among the 5 percent who did vote Shas, many are estimated to have been influenced by Kaduri's fame and by the Eilat "miracle."

The electoral impact of a reputation for miracle-working is particulrly noticeable in smaller towns where the religious parties are strong. In the most devoutly religious town of Netivot, inhabited almost wholly by Jews of Moroccan extraction, the Ashkenazi-dominated Haredi parties received 3.3 percent of the vote in 1984, 21.0 percent in 1988, and 6.1 percent in 1992, whereas Shas (which didn't exist in 1984) rose from 6.3 percent in 1988 to 24.8 percent in 1992. But the Labor vote also rose there from 4.5 percent in 1984 to 11.0 percent in 1992. The Likud vote declined somewhat, but only a little. It can therefore be assumed that some Netivot residents who in 1988 voted in effect for the Lubavitcher Rebbe, in 1992 succumbed to the charisma of Rabin. In the less religious Kiryat Mal'achi the Lubavitcher's influence was nevertheless higher than elsewhere. Before 1988 Kiryat Mal'achi's vote went to Likud and Labor. However its vote for the Ashkenazi-dominated Haredi parties, which in 1984 had stood at near zero, rose to 24.9 percent in 1988. In 1992 the Haredi vote was back at near zero, whereas both Likud and Labor regained approximately their 1984 strength. Some change was, however, effected by the appearance of Meretz on the scene. The Meretz vote in Netivot can serve as an example: its total vote for the Left in 1984 was 0.0 percent; in 1988, 0.1 percent; and in 1992, 2.5 percent. One should nevertheless not delude oneself that eleventh-century social realities in such places can undergo rapid change. The process is bound to take time.

General analysis of the results

If the election results are analyzed as comprehensively as possible, the scale of Likud's ignominious defeat becomes even clearer than the mere overall distributions would indicate, but the victory of Labor and its allies appears then rather slimmer then at first sight. Likud did not lose because of its foreign policies, but because of its corruption, internal quarrels and some of its domestic policies. It needs to be borne in mind that the Jewish electorate and perforce Jewish society in Israel remains deeply divided into two parts. The first, comprising Labor and its allies, is colloquially known as "Israel No. 1"; the second, comprising Likud, the Right and the religious parties, is colloquially known as "Israel No. 2." The two "Israels" are totally distinct from one another because only the former adheres to a more or less modern way of thinking, while the latter is still deeply immersed in ancient Jewish tradition. Traditional Jewish notions of the hatred of Gentiles, (and therefore of Arabs as Gentiles), of the Land of Israel as an exclusive Jewish property, and of the paramount importance of Jewish-related symbols continue to create a chasm between the Likud and Labor blocs, whereas the barriers between the "Oriental" and Ashkenazi Jews are becoming increasingly mythical, as huge numbers of Orientals can be found in Israel No. 1, and the comparable quantities of Ashkenazis remain in Israel No. 2. The ups and downs of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's career show this fact clearly enough. And in these very elections, the favorite Likud leader in the eyes of the Oriental Jewish Likud faithfuls was Benny Begin, who does not even seek any specifically "Oriental" appeal.

True, the borderlines between the two "Israels" are not exact. The Tsomet party has a remarkably modern outlook on domestic affairs, while its foreign program still regurgitates the ancient myth of "Arab nature":

All Arabs within the borders of the Land of Israel are enemies; they all have the same aspirations and they all express it in a similar way -- by violence. Their declared aim and policy. . . [is to] cause Israel to disappear from the map. . . . The Arabs within the borders of the Land of Israel are divided into four groups. . . . The Israeli Arabs. . . are enemies like all the rest. To them we say: You are enemies like the rest, but you received citizenship. Since you do not perform any national service [i.e. serve in the army], you will not have the right to vote or be elected to the Knesset.

Although the adherents of the Haredi parties usually don't serve in the army either, Tsomet does not speak of them as everlasting enemies or propose to deny them voting rights. Yet Tsomet has been the fastest-growing party in wealthy Jewish neighborhoods and is regarded as a legitimate political party not just by Likud and Labor (which now fawn over it) but by Meretz as well.

Of relevance to the nature of Jewish society and Israeli politics is the fact that Tsomet's older militants, including their leader Eitan, tend to come from Labor ranks, and fancy themselves as genuine followers of Ben-Gurion, in that they alone remain faithful to lifestyles rather universal in Jewish society in Palestine 30 -- 40 years ago. Yet the program of that party has never been quoted in the Western media, and, to hazard a prediction, none will dare quote it in the future either. Papers like The New York Times or The Washington Post, steadfast in their support for Jewish chauvinism, will instead devote much of their space to minor manifestations of anti-Semitism.

Under such circumstances, Labor's only workable electoral tactic was indeed the one described by Professor Doron and quoted at the beginning of this report. To have any chance of electoral success, Labor had to focus on Rabin's personality worship, exploiting his prestige as an accomplished military commander. This was Labor's only chance of attracting the voters disappointed with Likud. But since Labor's victory turned out to be so slim, Rabin's advisers are now sure to counsel him against any real, and not merely cosmetic, policy changes towards the Arabs (including the Palestinians), as liable to antagonize the believers in such principles as Tsomet proclaims, and thus risk Labor's defeat in the next elections.

There still are real differences between Labor and Likud, on which Rabin's policies can be assumed to capitalize. One difference, discussed above, is in attitudes toward symbols. But of ever-greater importance are the differences between Labor and Likud in their respective attitudes toward the United States. For Labor it may be as easy as it has been difficult for Likud to reach an accommodation with the Bush administration on the basis of its proclaimed principles: to pursue the peace process on TV and get plenty of American money as a reward. Moreover, Israeli relations with the American "military-industrial complex" can be predicted to improve. Rabin's intimate relations with the organized American Jewish community can thus also improve, simply because the latter wants good relations between the United States and Israel to continue. Israel's real power, specifically its ability to achieve its grand strategy objectives which happen to be supported by the American "military-industrial complex," will accordingly be much enhanced under Labor, in comparison to what it has been under Likud.

Labor can be expected to use much of the American money to get the Israeli economy running. But it is likely to approach this task in a thoroughly Reaganite manner. No wonder the Israeli stock exchange has already greeted Rabin's victory by an unprecedented rise in stock notations. For Likud, the economy has been a jejeune matter, of little importance compared to settling the territories. Accordingly, political power of the religious settlers is now likely to wane: at the very least they will not be allowed to dictate Rabin's policies toward the United States. Yet it can be doubted whether the settlers' influence on policies in the territories will decrease very much. In other words, the construction of new "political settlements" may be halted or reduced, but I doubt that any real autonomy for Palestinians will materialize under Rabin.

Last, but for the Labor politicians not least, Israeli businesses owned by Histadrut or otherwise connected with Labor are going to get serious money. Plenty of jobs in government and government-owned companies will change hands. Laborites, especially Rabin's followers, will now wield great power and lavish perquisites. Their ability to present Israeli policies in the best possible light will surpass anything their Likud colleagues have ever been capable of. All in all, Israel under Rabin is going to be much stronger than it has been under Shamir. And this implies a much wider range of options in its policymaking.

THE ISRAELI ELECTIONS OF 1992: AN ANALYSIS

Table 1

Table II: West Jerusalem

Table III: West Jerusalem Neighborhoods