Ottomans and Zionists

WRM is one of my favorite analysts because he is uncommonly thoughtful and erudite and often brings up points that I would not have thought to consider on my own. His latest missive on the Kadima election, however, is an anomaly for him as it seems like he dashed it off without really considering what actually went on over the past few weeks in Israeli politics. He contends that Kadima dumped Livni in favor of Mofaz because Kadima voters want to compete with Netanyahu on Iran and other defense issues, and that by “wrap[ping] itself in the khaki” the party is moving to the hawkish right. This sounds plausible as a surface explanation if you just look at Mofaz being a former defense minister and IDF chief, but it ignores the scope of the entire primary campaign, during which Mofaz explicitly campaigned on social issues rather than defense issues. It also breezes past the fact that Mofaz is on record as advocating negotiations with Hamas and that he blasted Netanyahu today for advocating a strike on Iran that Mofaz deems premature at this point and described as disastrous and ineffective. Most devastatingly, Mofaz blew out Livni on the strength of the 25% of Kadima’s voters who are Arab Israelis and who voted for Mofaz at a 71% clip. I agree with Mead that Mofaz is likely to eventually join the Likud coalition, but this election was certainly not an effort on the part of the Kadima rank and file to become more hawkish, nor was it a referendum on defense and security issues. In fact, it was precisely the opposite. Like I said, WRM’s analysis is all the more surprising considering how high he has set the bar for himself with his work, so I am confident that he simply wasn’t paying terribly close attention to the Kadima primary.