by Prof. Udi Lebel
The Israeli Left’s obsession with toppling PM Benjamin Netanyahu has driven it to embrace a military “dream team” bent on overthrowing a civilian ruling party.
Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, photo via IDF Flickr CC
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,079, February 1, 2018
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The
Israeli Left’s obsession with toppling PM Benjamin Netanyahu has driven
it to embrace a military “dream team” bent on overthrowing a civilian
ruling party. This echoes the all-too-common phenomenon of Third World
military juntas seizing power to “save the nation” from “corrupt
politicians.” Generals brought to power as “national saviors” in times
of deep crisis have often been the harbingers of populism,
authoritarianism, and fascism.
In all recent Israeli election campaigns, the
sociopolitical identity of the candidates for national leadership was a
central question. Who were they? Who were their business associates? For
which tycoons had they worked in the past? Above all: what values and
ideals did they bring to the political arena? These discussions took
place mainly on the left side of the political map, resulting in an
obsessive self-righteousness that has come to be seen as the left’s main
source of alienation from the wider Israeli public.
What criticism has not yet been leveled at Yair
Lapid and his centrist Yesh Atid party? They are called mere puppets who
are promoting the “piggish capitalist” agenda (to use Shimon Peres’s
phrase) of greedy tycoons. Lapid is labeled a pale imitation of
Netanyahu in both form and substance. What hasn’t been said by
security-oriented leftists about Labor’s new identity? It is accused of
having become a boutique party of feminists, journalists, and civil
activists who have introduced postmodern language into the political
discourse, and – most damningly – that its leadership is bereft of
generals, security personnel, and industrial and agricultural captains.
How can those “kids” possibly aspire to running the country?
Therein lies the surprising phenomenon of the
current elections. In the hope of toppling long-serving PM Benjamin
Netanyahu, an army of senior retired officers and security personnel has
been recruited with the express goal of orchestrating a broad political
framework comprising the largest possible number of generals. This is
pitched as the only way to save the country from Likud’s “corrupt” rule.
In stark contrast to the Left’s former
self-righteous indignation about anything that smacks of right-wing
policy, and despite its close familiarity with the concept of “cultural
militarism,” there has been almost no discussion of the disturbing
sociopolitical implications of this phenomenon. There is no mention that
these generals are hardly paragons of liberal or multicultural values,
and are far from quintessential members of the “peace camp.” Nor is it
discussed that their leader and aspiring PM, Benny Gantz, boasted in his
first campaign video clip of the number of Arabs killed on his watch as
IDF Chief of Staff.
Nor has there been any acknowledgement of the
similarity of this development to the all-too-common Third World
predilection among military officers (from the “Young Turks,” to Egypt’s
“Young Officers,” to Chile’s Pinochet, to Argentina’s Juan Peron and
later juntas) to seize power in order to “save the nation” from the rule
of “corrupt politicians”; or of the fact that European populism,
authoritarianism, and fascism have often been brought to power by
generals cast as national saviors at times of deep political crisis.
It seems that the obsession with toppling
Netanyahu and the desire to return to power has driven those who
habitually identify (nonexistent) “disturbing past processes” that
supposedly endanger Israeli democracy, and who warn of “militarism” or
“fascism” whenever a military officer addresses high school students
about their looming conscription, to pin their hopes for electoral
victory on a military party seeking to oust a ruling civilian party.
An earlier Hebrew version of this article was published in Israel Hayom on January 30, 2019.
Prof. Udi Lebel (Ph.D. King's College, London U.) specializes in civil-military relations, especially in the political psychology of bereavement, trauma and national memory, and in the sociology of security communities. He is an associate professor at Ariel University. Email: ulebel@gmail.com
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/militarism-elections/
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