Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Did Ben Gurion Have a Dictatorial Urge?
Here's the second, and probably last, installment about the efforts to have Israelis use "Hebrew names" instead of "Diaspora names." It's also about the limits of the power of government, of integration policies, and probably another few things. Citizens corresponding with Ben Gurion often got more than they'd expected.
On April 30, 1961, Prof. Allon Talmi (a good Hebrew name, that) wrote to Ben Gurion (previous name: Gryn) with a suggestion that the government pay 10 Lira to each individual who gets rid of their non-Hebrew name for a Hebrew one.
So far as I know, diplomats in Israel's foreign service are encouraged till this very day to have Hebrew-sounding names, or at least they were until recently. Some don't - Avigdor Lieberman, for example, to name a recent prominent diplomat. The rest of us are left alone with whatever name we happen to have around. Someday someone should try to figure out which names were more likely to have been jettisoned, the Ashkenazi or the Sephardi ones.
On April 30, 1961, Prof. Allon Talmi (a good Hebrew name, that) wrote to Ben Gurion (previous name: Gryn) with a suggestion that the government pay 10 Lira to each individual who gets rid of their non-Hebrew name for a Hebrew one.
The sum, the rough equivalent of a day's wages for many people, wouldn't entice the well-off, but might be a consideration for many. When he, Talmi, used to be the manager of a large section in a chemical company and he offered an unofficial day off for anyone who changed their name, you'd be surprised how many did so. The government could explain that the sum is to cover the hassle of the name-changing. How many people would likely accept? 100,000 at most? Isn't the investment of 1,000,000 Lira in promoting national unity worth it?Ben Gurion replied on May 7:
I liked your idea. Indeed, all these German and Slavic names detract from the Jewishness of the nation. It was also a fine thing you did at that factory. But a government can't do things like that. The government should pass a law that everyone should have Hebrew names.To which Talmi then replied:
Thank you for answering.Parallel to the correspondence, Tikva Issacharoff, a secretary in Ben Gurion's office, had sent a couple of notes to Talmi, along the lines of "he'll get back to you shortly." Issacharoff, of course, isn't any more a Hebrew name than, say, Abramowitz, yet there she was, sitting down the hall from Ben Gurion, signing letters with her unkosher name. This may have been because Ben Gurion wasn't being irked by Sephardi names, only "German and Slavic" ones. (A distinction Talmi doesn't seem to have been making). Or perhaps he grumbled but saw the limits of his power - that by 1961 he'd been in power for more than a decade and had never passed that law he was wishing for.
I don't think the government can force people to change their names. It would be unpopular, and give credence to the claim that you've got dictatorial tendencies. The government needs to force people to do things that are essential for the economy and security, but in spite of my dislike of foreign names, I don't think they affect the national security.
So far as I know, diplomats in Israel's foreign service are encouraged till this very day to have Hebrew-sounding names, or at least they were until recently. Some don't - Avigdor Lieberman, for example, to name a recent prominent diplomat. The rest of us are left alone with whatever name we happen to have around. Someday someone should try to figure out which names were more likely to have been jettisoned, the Ashkenazi or the Sephardi ones.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Building a Coalition is Complicated
Non-Israeli observers of the Israeli political scene can be forgiven for the ocassional twinge of befuddlement over the workings of our system. Any democracy has its unique foibles (think: electoral college), but the Israeli system, committed as it is to near-total adherence to representation for all minor sub-groups and splinter-groups within them, can be a bit challenging for outsiders.
One aspect of this is that election results aren't a particularly good indicator of what the government coalition will look like. Once the division of MKs according to the election results is known, the president chooses one of them--often, but not always, the leader of the party with the largest representation in the Knesset--and only then do the negotiations begin. The goal of the appointee is to cobble together a configuration of parties or parts of parties with a total of at least 61 of the 120 MKs to vote him or her into office. Usually this works, though as a general rule it happens only after exhausting the entire period granted by law, 42 days; sometime it doesn't. At different times, David Ben Gurion, Shimon Peres and Tzipi Livni all got the nod from the president, but failed to round up 61 votes.
The chief dynamic at the moment, as Binyamin Netanyahu tries to form a coalition from among the 12 lists which made it into the new Knesset (they are made of 15 parties, but let's not get into that), is that the second largest, Yesh Atid, and the fourth largest (Habayit Hayehudi)--with 31 MKs between them--have banded together as a negotiating bloc facing Netanyahu's Likud-Beiteinu, which also has 31. Effectively, even if not nominally, this means that no coalition is possible without both of them being in it, and the first bloc is apparently driving a hard bargain with the second.
This is not the first time this has happened. That would have been in 1961.
Back in August 1961, the election results were disappointing for Ben Gurion's Mapai party, which garnered only 42 MKs (a pipe dream for any party today), and along with 4 automatic Arab allies had 46. So four smaller parties, not all of them obvious allies, banded together, calling themselves the Club of Four, and they too had 46 votes. Deadlock. Ben Gurion looked at the situation and threw in his hat, so the president, Yitzhak Ben Zvi, appointed Levi Eshkol, also of Mapai, to give it a try. In those days, unlike today, the MK forming the coalition could choose not to be the prime minister. We've posted some of the documents from those high-wire-act dayson our Hebrew website. Finally, more or less at the last moment, Eshkol returned to Ben Zvi with the announcement that he'd succeeded. With lots of patience and adroit negotiating, he had managed to break up the Club of Four, bring two of them into the coalition but on his own terms, and leaving two of them out in the opposition.
All of which just goes to show that positions staked with great confidence early on in the coalitional negotiations can end up unscathed, or modified, or totally abandoned. The problem is, you don't know in advance which it will be, nor do the negotiators.
One aspect of this is that election results aren't a particularly good indicator of what the government coalition will look like. Once the division of MKs according to the election results is known, the president chooses one of them--often, but not always, the leader of the party with the largest representation in the Knesset--and only then do the negotiations begin. The goal of the appointee is to cobble together a configuration of parties or parts of parties with a total of at least 61 of the 120 MKs to vote him or her into office. Usually this works, though as a general rule it happens only after exhausting the entire period granted by law, 42 days; sometime it doesn't. At different times, David Ben Gurion, Shimon Peres and Tzipi Livni all got the nod from the president, but failed to round up 61 votes.
The chief dynamic at the moment, as Binyamin Netanyahu tries to form a coalition from among the 12 lists which made it into the new Knesset (they are made of 15 parties, but let's not get into that), is that the second largest, Yesh Atid, and the fourth largest (Habayit Hayehudi)--with 31 MKs between them--have banded together as a negotiating bloc facing Netanyahu's Likud-Beiteinu, which also has 31. Effectively, even if not nominally, this means that no coalition is possible without both of them being in it, and the first bloc is apparently driving a hard bargain with the second.
This is not the first time this has happened. That would have been in 1961.
Back in August 1961, the election results were disappointing for Ben Gurion's Mapai party, which garnered only 42 MKs (a pipe dream for any party today), and along with 4 automatic Arab allies had 46. So four smaller parties, not all of them obvious allies, banded together, calling themselves the Club of Four, and they too had 46 votes. Deadlock. Ben Gurion looked at the situation and threw in his hat, so the president, Yitzhak Ben Zvi, appointed Levi Eshkol, also of Mapai, to give it a try. In those days, unlike today, the MK forming the coalition could choose not to be the prime minister. We've posted some of the documents from those high-wire-act dayson our Hebrew website. Finally, more or less at the last moment, Eshkol returned to Ben Zvi with the announcement that he'd succeeded. With lots of patience and adroit negotiating, he had managed to break up the Club of Four, bring two of them into the coalition but on his own terms, and leaving two of them out in the opposition.
All of which just goes to show that positions staked with great confidence early on in the coalitional negotiations can end up unscathed, or modified, or totally abandoned. The problem is, you don't know in advance which it will be, nor do the negotiators.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Does History Repeat Itself? Eshkol Forms a Government, 1961
Last Saturday night, the president of Israel, Shimon Peres, asked the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government. However, the situation resulting from the elections to the 19th Knesset last month is a complex one. The combined ruling party, Likud-Yisrael Beitenu, remains the largest single party, but according to media reports, two of its possible coalition partners, Yesh Atid and Bayit Yehudi, are planning to coordinate their stand during the coalition negotiations. Together, they have the same number of seats as Likud-Yisrael Beitenu--31--and could make things difficult.
This latest episode of political "musical chairs" reminds us at the ISA of one of the most interesting stories in the history of Israel's coalition jigsaw: how Finance Minister Levi Eshkol set up a government for Ben-Gurion in 1961. The elections of August 1961 were called as a result of a political crisis arising from the "Lavon Affair" and the campaign of Prime Minister Ben-Gurion against Histadrut secretary general Pinchas Lavon. The crisis weakened the ruling party, Mapai, which lost 5 seats, and had only 42 members, or 46 with the satellite Arab parties. Four of its rivals – the Liberals, the National Religious party, and left-wing Mapam and Ahdut Ha'avoda formed a bloc, "The Club of Four," which also had 46 seats. They demanded that Mapai give them equal status and the same number of ministerial posts as a condition for joining the coalition. Since 1949, Mapai had always had a majority in the government.
On September 5, President Izhak Ben-Zvi started consultations with the parties which were to recommend a candidate to form the government. Mapai naturally recommended Ben-Gurion. The right-wing Herut party which had 17 seats, the same as the Liberals, asked Ben-Zvi not to allow Ben-Gurion to delay. If he did, they should be given a chance. In theory, the Club of Four could have asked Herut to join them and formed a coalition of 63. Herut's leader, Menachem Begin saw an opportunity to remove Mapai from power. In a letter from October 1961, he urged that any citizen who wanted to change the government should ask the four parties to join with Herut. But in view of the deep differences between them there was no chance for such a scenario.
On September 6, Ben-Zvi asked Ben-Gurion to form a government, but the following day he returned the mandate. "I regret to say that in the present circumstances I cannot take upon myself to form a government," he wrote. Levi Eshkol, a rising force in the party, took over, and laboriously, over six weeks managed first to obtain the support of two more MKs, from the religious Poalei Aguda party, and then to wear down and dismantle the Club of Four, assuring Mapai of a majority in a coalition with the NRP and Ahdut Ha'avoda. Ben-Gurion was dubious about these moves because he wanted the Liberals in the coalition, and wrote to him later "I am full of admiration for your good will, your honest intentions, your devotion and patience, even when you are mistaken..."
Early in November, Eshkol finally reported to the president that he had formed a government headed by Ben-Gurion. "We brought the Club of Four on all fours…into the government," he added with a smile.
You can read more about Eshkol and the crisis of 1961 in the volume on Eshkol edited by Arnon Lammfromm and Hagai Tsoref in the Commemorative Series (in Hebrew) of the Archives, and in the volumes on Ben-Gurion, Ben-Zvi and Moshe Sharett.
This latest episode of political "musical chairs" reminds us at the ISA of one of the most interesting stories in the history of Israel's coalition jigsaw: how Finance Minister Levi Eshkol set up a government for Ben-Gurion in 1961. The elections of August 1961 were called as a result of a political crisis arising from the "Lavon Affair" and the campaign of Prime Minister Ben-Gurion against Histadrut secretary general Pinchas Lavon. The crisis weakened the ruling party, Mapai, which lost 5 seats, and had only 42 members, or 46 with the satellite Arab parties. Four of its rivals – the Liberals, the National Religious party, and left-wing Mapam and Ahdut Ha'avoda formed a bloc, "The Club of Four," which also had 46 seats. They demanded that Mapai give them equal status and the same number of ministerial posts as a condition for joining the coalition. Since 1949, Mapai had always had a majority in the government.
On September 5, President Izhak Ben-Zvi started consultations with the parties which were to recommend a candidate to form the government. Mapai naturally recommended Ben-Gurion. The right-wing Herut party which had 17 seats, the same as the Liberals, asked Ben-Zvi not to allow Ben-Gurion to delay. If he did, they should be given a chance. In theory, the Club of Four could have asked Herut to join them and formed a coalition of 63. Herut's leader, Menachem Begin saw an opportunity to remove Mapai from power. In a letter from October 1961, he urged that any citizen who wanted to change the government should ask the four parties to join with Herut. But in view of the deep differences between them there was no chance for such a scenario.
On September 6, Ben-Zvi asked Ben-Gurion to form a government, but the following day he returned the mandate. "I regret to say that in the present circumstances I cannot take upon myself to form a government," he wrote. Levi Eshkol, a rising force in the party, took over, and laboriously, over six weeks managed first to obtain the support of two more MKs, from the religious Poalei Aguda party, and then to wear down and dismantle the Club of Four, assuring Mapai of a majority in a coalition with the NRP and Ahdut Ha'avoda. Ben-Gurion was dubious about these moves because he wanted the Liberals in the coalition, and wrote to him later "I am full of admiration for your good will, your honest intentions, your devotion and patience, even when you are mistaken..."
 |
| Eshkol explains to the president the formation of the government |
You can read more about Eshkol and the crisis of 1961 in the volume on Eshkol edited by Arnon Lammfromm and Hagai Tsoref in the Commemorative Series (in Hebrew) of the Archives, and in the volumes on Ben-Gurion, Ben-Zvi and Moshe Sharett.
No comments:
Post a Comment