Re-defining the political divide in Israel as “Doves vs Hawks” rather than “Left vs Right” is a matter of far-reaching substantive significance, well beyond mere semantics.
“…[dissenting] intellectuals tend to be scorned and abused and vilified as “the Right”; Right-wing”—that all-purpose, nonsensical, infantile insult which is designed to shut down argument. There is nothing remotely right-wing about standing up for truth against lies, justice against injustice, freedom against those who would snuff out freedom
– Melanie Phillips Israeli TV (8th January 2011)
This insightful remark by the ever-incisive British-Israeli political pundit encapsulates much of the deep malaise that has, to a large degree, afflicted both the Israeli political system and civil society institutions with which it interacts—such as Israel legal system, the academe, and mainstream media.
The political divide in Israel
For decades, the rivalry over political power in Israel has focused principally on a divide between opposing political credos classified (or rather, misclassified) as “Left” and “Right” and the political parties allegedly affiliated with these divergent world views, perceived (or rather misperceived) as being mutually exclusive.
This, however, is a dichotomy that is not only overly simplistic, but also misleading, inappropriate, and in the final analysis, deeply detrimental to the conduct of political life in the country. Indeed, in Israel, it is a divide that is even more deceptive and distortive than elsewhere in the world, because here the real “watershed” between the so-called “Left” and “Right” is generally not determined by the usual socioeconomic criteria, but rather more by one’s leanings on defense and foreign policy.
Indeed, in Israel, the overriding factor in determining whether a person or party is designated “Left” or “Right” is their position on the Palestinian issue and their attitude to the prospects of territorial concessions precipitating peace. Thus, those advocating large-scale territorial withdrawals/political concessions to the Palestinian-Arabs are labeled “Left”, while those opposing them, are dubbed “Right”.
This frequently results in some absurdly bizarre political outcomes—on which I elaborate later. For the present, however, it will suffice to point out that, paradoxically, an avowed free-market advocate, who avidly supports a policy of dovish concessions to the Palestinian-Arabs, would unequivocally be considered a “Leftist”. By contrast, a strong advocate of enhanced social welfare, who uncompromisingly opposes any significant concessions would be considered a “Right-winger”, even—gasp—an “extremist”.
The Bogus Litmus Test
Thus, in Israel, the discourse as to whether one is “Right-wing” or not, has little to do with one’s views on socioeconomics or domestic politics.
Accordingly, one’s positions on matters such as government intervention in the marketplace, social welfare, gay liaisons, abortion, tolerance of political dissent, cultural diversity, and freedom of worship, carry scant weight in establishing whether or not one is to be doomed to the dreaded “Right-wing” label.
Instead, the definitive litmus test of being “Right-wing” is all about one’s perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict, in general; and the Israeli-Palestinian one, in particular. This has become the definitive measure determining the perception of the “Left-Right” divide. If one supports a concessionary policy towards the Arabs, one is elevated to the exalted ranks of “enlightened Left”; if one opposes them, one is relegated to the “retrograde reactionary Right”.
To illustrate the point: Some time ago, the New York Times’s Ethan Bronner referred to a Jerusalem Post column I had written on the “social justice” protests then sweeping the streets of urban Israel (“Come to the carnival, comrade!”). In it, he referred to me as “a right-wing columnist“—apparently because I pointed out that building constraints in areas across the pre-1967 Green Line were contributing to the high cost of housing. Significantly—or is that, ironically?—this was something even the Rabin government—initiators of the Oslo debacle—recognized when, in contradiction to its electoral pledges, it launched extensive construction projects in “settlements” to bring prices down.
The fact that I also noted that social workers, police, doctors, and teachers were “scandalously” underpaid and should be better remunerated, or that avaricious oligopolistic cartels should be targeted and the excess profits cut, had no effect on the way I was categorized.
Tri-axial political realities; three-dimensional “political space”
One of the lamentable features of political life in Israel is that in designating what is “Left”, what is “Right” and what divides them, several unrelated factors have been “lumped” together, despite the fact there are no substantive links between them at all.
After all, there is no intrinsic reason why someone’s attitude on one issue (say, national security) should define, or be defined by, their position on any other issue (say economics or religion).
However, sadly, this is not the case in practice. Indeed, as a general rule, if someone is identified as a hardliner on security issues, they are more likely to be assumed to be religious rather than secular and a socio-economic conservative rather than a “social justice liberal”.
As mentioned previously this is a cognitive norm that is as distortive as it is deceptive—and its effects are both detrimental and dysfunctional.
In Israel, this detrimental dysfunctionality has ramifications far graver than for most other Western countries. After all, while in most of the Western world, the issues that constitute the routine political discourse have –at least until very recently, (with the war in Ukraine and the exacerbation of the immigration crisis)—had little tangible impact on the existential realities of daily life, in Israel, they frequently comprise matters of life and death.
Accordingly, rather than being conceived of as uni-dimensional, “political space” should be viewed as having three dimensions, defined by three independent axes:
(a) A Hawk-Dove axis for security and foreign policy;
(b) A Conservative-Liberal axis for socio-economic issues;
(c) A Secular-Religious axis for faith-based issues.
Viewing “political space” in this manner allows for a far more comprehensive, nuanced—and accurate—classification of an individual’s political identity, than a simplistic, and frequently misleading, “Left-Right” dichotomy.
No political home for secular hawks
Indeed, this tri-axial representation allows one to conceive of a wide variety of differing complex political identities. Thus, one can envisage individuals with hardline hawkish views on security, who might be either secular or religious on the one hand; and free-marketeers or welfare-state advocates on the other. Conversely, the same clearly holds for those with concessionary dovish credos.
In this regard, Israel’s political history is replete with examples of religious politicians—even rabbis, including Orthodox rabbis—who illustrate how inapt the invalid, inaccurate, and inadequate the commonly held stereotypes of the “Left-Right” can be. For example, Michael Melchior, himself an orthodox rabbi, who served as a minister in the short-lived (1999-2001) Labor-led coalition under Ehud Barak, headed the distinctly dovish religious faction, Meimad. Indeed, Melchior’s far-reaching pacifistic views, as expressed in a 2012 interview, headlined “Islam is ready for peace with Israel”, have an almost unhinged ring to them in light of the October 7, 2023 atrocities and the incandescent hatred manifested towards Jews by the followers of Islam, with whom that Melchior engaged.
Similarly, Gilad Kariv, an ordained Reform rabbi, is a member of the far-Left “The Democrats” party formed by a merger of the former Labor party and the radical Left Meretz faction, again showing that there is not rigid nexus between religion and hardline security positions.
Accordingly, there is no inherent reason to assign either religious fervor or tightfisted fiscal frugality to anyone who opposes a policy of appeasement of Israel’s despotic foes.
However, although one might expect this to be almost self-evident, in Israeli political realities this is not at all the case.
Indeed, there has been no political faction that could genuinely serve as a stable political home for a non-observant hardliner, with a platform, endorsing what could be described as a doctrine of the non-observant liberal hawk.
After all, given Likud’s lurch leftward—notably since 2009 with Netanyahu’s acceptance (albeit under duress) of the possibility of Palestinian statehood–and its embrace of policies it previously vilified, it has been three decades—arguably since the demise of the Tsomet party, in the mid-90s—that there has been no political faction that could authentically serve as a political home of a non-observant hardliner, with a platform, endorsing what could be described as a doctrine of such secular liberal hawks.
Those who might be tempted to point to Avigdor Liberman or Naftali Bennett as a patron for such a party would do well to remember that their allegedly hardline views did little to prevent them from forging a political alliance, not only with radical non-Zionists, such as Nitzan Horowitz and Meirav Micheli but blatant the anti-Zionist Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, the Islamist United Arab List (Raam)
Substantive significance of semantics
This is a lacuna that has grave repercussions for the conduct of both domestic politics inside the country and for its foreign policy abroad.
For it has allowed opposition to political appeasement and territorial withdrawal to be painted—or rather tainted with—colors considered, rightly or wrongly, unpalatable to many within the political mainstream –inseparably entwined with elements they find objectionable in other spheres.
This has had a chilling effect on public debate on one of the most—arguably the most—crucial topics on the national agenda. Indeed, as Melanie Phillips pointed out (see introductory excerpt), in many influential circles, it is sufficient to brand your adversary “Right-wing” to “shut down argument” and dismiss whatever he/she has to say without any need to contend with the substantive merits of their contentions.
Accordingly, it is crucial to decouple the debate on issues of security and foreign policy, in general, and of territorial withdrawal, political concessions, and permanent frontiers, in particular, from other issues usually, but inappropriately, associated with them. This calls for the formulation of a political doctrine that combines a hardline stance on matters of defense and diplomacy with a domestic agenda that is liberal in terms of its socio-economic credo and secular (or at least non-observant) in faith-based realms.
For as we shall see, semantics do, indeed, have far-reaching substantive ramifications.
Reaching across the perceived political divide
The formulation and propagation of such a doctrine will provide those, who may have grave misgivings as to the prudence of the “Left’s” policies of appeasement, a vehicle to identify openly with opposition to these policies—without being branded a religious zealot or a retrograde rightwing extremist, or any other “unseemly” epithet.
To quote Phillips once again “There is nothing remotely right-wing about standing up for truth against lies, justice against injustice, freedom against those who would snuff out freedom.”
Thus, to break away from the old stereotypes and existing stigmas that have plagued Israeli politics for decades, the formulation of a doctrine of the “liberal hawk” is an urgent imperative. It is a doctrine that would provide the hitherto reticent with both the substance and the symbolism that would allow them to publically embrace an uncompromising approach to security matters, without having to relinquish their self-image of “enlightened” liberals or preclude them from continued affiliation with their long-held socio-economic beliefs.
It is, arguably, the only way to reach across the prevailing political divide, and rally political support, beyond the current array of the “Right-wing” parties, to oppose injudicious concessionary initiatives that gravely imperil the survival of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
Hawks vs Doves: The real distinction
It is crucial that one thing be made unequivocally clear:
The divide between Doves and Hawks in Israel is not that the one desires peace while the other advocates war. Both Israeli Hawks and Doves desire peace (or at least, wish to avert war). The fundamental divide between them is this: The Doves believe that adversaries can be coaxed into making peace by means of a concessionary policy of compromise and goodwill gestures. By contrast, the Hawks believe that adversaries must be deterred from making war by adopting an uncompromisingly resolute policy of rejecting any appeasement or concessions, which might embolden them to attack.
Accordingly, the divide is not over the desired outcome i.e., what to achieve, but over the preferred process i.e., how to achieve it.
There is historical precedent to support both schools of thought in different contexts. However for Israel, given its geo-political location in the Middle East, the crucial—indeed existential— question is this: Which is the appropriate approach for it to adopt as its national policy?
Perversely, although it is perhaps the most divisive issue among Israelis, it is the one, on which there should be no dispute at all, whether one subscribes to a vision of an ultra-Orthodox religious state governed by ancient “Halachic” laws; or a post-Zionist secular “state of all its citizens”, governed by the laws of liberal democracy.
For one thing should be beyond dispute. Situated as it is, in an area dominated by forces of political tyranny and Islamist theocracy, who reject its very right to exist, Israel will remain neither Jewish nor democratic, from within—unless it is secure against the dangers from without. And an indispensable precondition for such security against outside threat is defensible borders—and defensible at a bearable economic cost.
Rebranding the Right; restructuring the divide
Clearly then, there is nothing “illiberal” in rejection of a policy of perilous withdrawal and concessions. To the contrary—such rejection is the sine qua non for sustaining any hope for a durable liberal reality in the country.
Accordingly, the supreme challenge confronting anti-appeasement intellectuals today is to rebrand the “Right”; and restructure the dominant divide in Israeli politics from “Left vs Right” to “Doves vs Hawks”– whatever their socio-economic proclivities, their cultural preferences, or spiritual credos.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement