In Defense of Israel by Moshe Arens

Author:Moshe Arens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

NINE

National Unity Government

The election results of July 23, 1984, provided a demonstration of the complications resulting from Israel’s system of proportional representation. Neither of the two large parties was able to form a coalition government. Although the Labor Party had a three-seat lead over the Likud, it was not able to form a coalition. The distribution of votes among the smaller parties gave the Likud the possibility of leading a coalition on condition that a small faction, Yahad (with three members of the Knesset), were to join. Yahad had been formed prior to the elections by Ezer Weizman, a former defense minister and a former leader of the Likud. He had waged a grandiose American-style election campaign, confident of coming to the next Knesset as head of a faction large enough to be the balance of power, able to dictate the formation of the government. The results were a disappointment to him. He was in a position to permit the Likud to form the next government, were he to join such a government. But even if he were to decide to join a Labor-led government, that would not be sufficient to permit Labor to form a government. In other words, he could be a spoiler and prevent the Likud from forming a government and force the formation of a national unity government.

The unique Israeli solution to the political impasse created by the election results was the formation of a national unity government with the participation of both Labor and Likud was rotation. Shimon Peres (Labor) would officiate as prime minister for the first two years, to be followed by Yitzhak Shamir (Likud) as prime minister for the next two years.

Having been a leading member of the Likud in the past, even claiming on occasion that he had been the architect of the Likud’s victory in 1977, Weizman might have been expected to help the Likud to form the government, but that was not his way. He took some pleasure in spoiling the Likud’s chances, although he gained little from it. He seemed to be driven not by ideology but by ego. Some even considered him to be an egomaniac. He ended up a minister without portfolio as an ally of Labor’s contingent in the government, which gave Peres the opportunity to precede Shamir in the rotation of prime ministers.

Rabin’s desire to be defense minister in the government might have served as an obstacle to the formation of this Labor-Likud government—it would require me to vacate that post. I had no hesitation about doing so. I thought that Israel needed a government of national unity and that Rabin would make a good defense minister, and volunteered to turn the post over to him. I was to rue that decision three years later, when Rabin unexpectedly introduced a motion in the government to cancel the Lavi fighter program.

On September 9 the Knesset voted confidence in this government: Peres as prime minister, Shamir as deputy prime minister and foreign minister, and Rabin as defense minister.

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