Israel

Lessons for Israel from antebellum America: Guest column #3

What follows is the third in a series comparing Israel past and present with other nations that had internal conflicts. It is by Realistic Dove Resident Scholar Tom Mitchell (I don’t actually know where he lives and we’ve never met in person, but I am sure he will be honored by the designation). For those less interested in historical arcana than I am, here is Tom’s politically hardnosed, “money” quote:

“In my opinion only a Labor-led government can negotiate a peace with the Palestinians. Labor is now at less than half its strength under Rabin in 1992. The same is true of Meretz. The lesson for Labor [from antebellum American politicis] is that it must forge a new center-right party or a close alliance with Meretz. Its appeal to Israeli voters must be on the basis of fear of the Arab birthrate and of erasing the Green Line. The Likud, like the antebellum Democrats, is the expansionist party. Appeals based on being nice to the Arabs or doing them a favor will fail. And such a strategy to be successful may require a precipitating event like the Kansas-Nebraska Act was in 1854.”

I don’t know if he is correct, but here is an excerpt that is worth reading, with a few explanatory notes inserted by me:

ANTEBELLUM AMERICA: LESSONS FOR ISRAEL

What we can conclude from the example of antebellum America is that fighter-politicians will continue to be produced in Israel for some time—up to 20 years after the conclusion of a peace with the Palestinians. This is of importance because every peace agreement with the Arabs (from the armistice agreements of 1949 to the Kissinger agreements of 1974-75, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979 and the Oslo process) was negotiated by military politicians and serving generals. Thus, the future of this trend is of some importance.

It is also of importance because since 1974 the Labor Party has relied on military politicians—Arab fighters—to head their ticket in first or in second place. Since Golda Meir retired in 1974, Peres has been the only civilian leader elected prime minister for the Labor Party—and he had to split his term with Yitzhak Shamir.

The American Whig Party (1834-56) had this same fatal weakness. In twenty years the party fielded only two civilian presidential nominees and the second was shared with the American Party. Their only two elected presidents were both former generals (Harrison, Taylor) and both died prematurely in office. Only Henry Clay, the Whig leader, could have been elected president as a civilian—unfortunately he was their nominee in the wrong election and lost a close election in 1844.

The Whigs nominated their only remaining general in 1852 and he lost very badly. The Whigs were regenerated by merging with the antislavery Free Soil Party and northern Democrats to form an exclusively northern antislavery party, the Republicans. The Republicans combined Whig economic policy with Free Soil antislavery policy and quickly became the official opposition in their first election. They took the presidency in 1860 with a centrist candidate from a battleground state. The Republicans ran a racist campaign in 1856 and 1860, as did the Free Soilers in 1848, appealing to white fears of competition with slave labor in the West if slavery spread. [DF: this was Abe Lincoln’s party! The Democrats were the party defending slavery]

The Whig party collapsed because slavery causied a sectional divide between two wings of the party and because of inroads by nativists in the North. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill made the North ripe for a sectional party. [DF: Among other things, the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1856 allowed the settlers to decide whether or not to have slavery within those territories]. The Republicans slightly pandered to the nativist American Party electorate after aiding in its split on sectional lines in 1856. The Republicans then scooped up the votes of the North Americans in 1860.

In my opinion only a Labor-led government can negotiate a peace with the Palestinians. Labor is now at less than half its strength under Rabin in 1992. The same is true of Meretz. The lesson for Labor is that it must forge a new center-right party or close alliance with Meretz. Its appeal to Israeli voters must be on the basis of fear of the Arab birthrate and of erasing the Green Line. The Likud, like the antebellum Democrats, is the expansionist party. Appeals based on being nice to the Arabs or doing them a favor will fail. And such a strategy to be successful may require a precipitating event like the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

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