THE BLANK BALLOT STRATEGY
                                 Tanya Reinhart

A fact that was largely suppressed, is that the Israeli elections
in 1996 were, in effect, decided by the blank-ballots of the left.
Non- parliamentary left groups have called the left voters to put
in a blank ballot, rather than voting for Peres.  In the final count,
Peres only needed 30.000 more votes to be reelected and there were
(at least) 80.000 blank ballots.  There are many similarities in the
questions the pre-elections situation has posed to the left in Israel
and the USA, so it may be worth it to look at the Israeli experience
with some detail.
 

THE ELIMINATION OF CHOICE.

There could be little doubt that the previous Labor government was
among the worst Israel ever had.  Two wars in Lebanon during one term
in office break all records of the rightwing governments.  Living
conditions of the Palestinian people under occupation were never worse
than under that government, and the dimensions of land confiscations
and entrenchment of the Jewish settlement infrastructure which it
carried out had no precedent in previous Likud governments.

On the social front, Labor managed to throw Israel deep into 'free
market economy'. Just a few years ago, it appeared that this could
not be easily done. One of the most impressive achievements of the
Israeli Labor movement was the establishment of strong workers unions,
organized under the roof of the 'histadrut', with an extensive net
of community and health services, and with its own factories, property
and land.  As much as they tried, the Likud has never managed to touch
the unions.  But Labor, in one energetic cadency, succeeded to erase
it completely: Its health services got nationalized, its properties
were sold, and the ashes of its headquarters were exiled to rented
offices in Jerusalem.   Although the process is just beginning, the
gap between top and bottom income is already the second in the Western
world, second only to USA. (State income bureau, 'Haaretz' 3.1.95)
One fifth of the citizens already live below the declared poverty
line, including 285 thousand children.

By all the criteria of a democratic society, a government which has
blundered must pay and step down.  But the catch is that the political
setup leaves the voters only one choice: either Peres or Netanyahu,
either Clinotn or Dole. The threat posed by the alternative candidate
paralyzes the leftwing voters.  The conflict involved is not
necessarily easy.  There are certain nuances distinguishing the
candidates and there is also the fear that the alternative candidates
may be not just the same but even worse. Nevertheless, it is precisely
this fear that makes the system immune to change, no matter how much
opposition it has.  The Israeli case may illustrate the new pattern
of control that emerged in the last few years:
 
The Labor government got to its hands two nations that were ready
for peace.  The polls of the last few years show constantly that one
third of the Jewish Israelis were for the end of occupation and
dismantlement of all settlement already before the previous elections.
One third support the settlements, and the middle third is floating,
but seeking, vaguely, peace and quiet life. When the Oslo agreements
were presented, in September 1993, almost all Israelis believed that
they will lead very soon to evacuation of the settlements and a
Palestinian state. Still, they were received with an enormous
enthusiasm, and two thirds of the Israelis supported them,
consistently, in all polls.  This means that the Palestinian Intifada,
and the long struggle of the left has had, in fact, an enormous effect
in convincing even the middle third that end of occupation is the
solution.  The government had a sufficient parliamentary majority,
and an overwhelming majority of the people to execute the change.

When Labor turned, instead, to execute its old expansion policy, this
was presented as an unavoidable yielding to the enormous power of
the right-wing, and the nationalistic sentiments of the majority of
Israelis.  An elaborate propaganda machine was employed to convince
the majority that, in fact, they are the minority. The picture we
are fed with, in both Israel and the States, is that of well intended
'good guys' who got elected on a platform we can swallow, but are
forced to do the opposite, by the 'bad guys', who nevertheless
represent the majority. In as much as the good guys would have liked
to, they could not go against the majority.  If they can't - no one
can.  Hence, all we can do is stick with them against the bad guys.

This is the culmination of a process which began long ago, of
eliminating the choice.  The political struggle between two ideologies
was replaced by a pseudo-choice between two versions of the same
ideology.  One may place the work of evil at the hands of the
"enlightened ones", those who shoot and weep, or speak so nicely about
health and welfare, or at the hands of the  "unenlightened", who shoot
without crying.  Alternatively, we can look for ways to step out of
the trap of pseudo choice.
 

WHY BLANK BALLOTS.

In principle, in the voting system in Israel, a leftwing parliamentary
opposition has a way to apply pressure on the government.  17 mandates
in the previous Israeli parliament - 15% of the voters - were given
to parties left of Labor (Meretz, Hadash, and the Arab Democratic
Party).  These parties could have put up their own candidate who would
jeopardize the reelection of Peres.  Given the tight race, even a
candidate of Hadash (the Communist coalition) alone would endanger
him, just as David Levy's threat to run  endangered Netanyahu. In
principle, the Left could negotiate with Peres from a position of
strength rather than one  of unqualified support.  (If in the first
round more than two candidates were running, a second round would
be necessary, as in France. In this case, the Left would, again, be
in a position to make demands.)

The problem is, however, that the parliamentary left got completely
absorbed in the system during the cadency of the labor government,
and the fear of finding itself again in the opposition overcame all
other considerations.  The Left promised its support to Peres in
advance ("one ballot slip for Hadash or Meretz and one for Peres!").
Thus, with the leftwing 15% of the voters securely in his pocket,
Peres could execute rightwing policies undisturbed.

The question, for those who nevertheless continue to oppose the tyranny
of power, was what options of resistance are still open, when the
organized left has collapsed, and the system, though formally still
a democracy, deprives us, in practice, from any means of influencing
the political structure.

The call to translate the frustration to a political act - to
participate in the elections, but put in a blank ballot for prime
minister - came from (small) circles of the non-parliamentary left.
Da"am (democratic action - the 'Challenge' group) has put it on its
platform from the start, and  in the protest wave following  "Grapes
of wrath" some parts of the Hadash coalition joined in: Azmi Bshara,
Naala Ziad, as well as several independent voices.

The idea behind this line of resistance is that the blank ballot is
a political weapon.  Typical of the system of pseudo choice is that
there is always only a narrow margin between the competing parties.
Since there are just two candidates, who represent, essentially, the
same agenda and interests, the pattern of may have just about the
same regularity as found in flipping a coin. The situation in Israel
may be typical in that respect:  About one third of the voters
consistently select the candidate conceived as closer to liberal,
left, or civil rights views.  Another third consistently votes for
the candidate associated with the right.  The elections are decided
by the middle third, that has no predetermined stand on how to select
between two sides of the same coin. Given this narrow margin, if even
a small portion of the left-side third steps out of its automatic
support of the Labor or Democratic candidate, voting a blank-ballot
instead, this seriously jeopardizes the chances of that candidate
to be reelected.  The ability to overthrow a government is a powerful
means, that the left can learn to use.

Morally, such a vote is a declaration that the government, any
government, will be held to account for its crimes. But overthrowing
the government is not a goal in itself (given that it will not be
replaced, currently, by a better one). In fact, that much could be
achieved if the left voters just don't participate in the elections,
or even vote for the opposite candidate, as thousands of the Israelis
opposing Peres from the left chose, indeed, to do. But this type of
protest does not have a political impact, since the number of
protestors will remain unknown.  There is no way to distinguish between
those who voted for Netanyahu from the left and from the right, or
those who stayed at home as a protest from those  who did so out of
laziness.  The blank-ballot votes, by contrast, are a public statement.
They signal the existence of an unrepresented body of voters, which
is nevertheless powerful enough to damage those who do not take it
into account.

The blank ballot, thus, is a longer-term political strategy. It is
a warning to any future government that it can be overthrown by the
left, and not only by the right, and even if it manages to buy off
the elected representatives of the left, the left voters still have
a weapon, which they will not hesitate to use.  The larger the blank
ballot camp, the greater the pressure it applies on the parliamentary
system to take it into consideration in the future.

In the Israeli context, the threatening potential of the blank-ballot
vote was understood perfectly well by the Labor headquarters.  An
enormous machinery of pressure and propaganda was employed to dissuade
voters from this line of resistance. Official announcements threatened
that the blank ballots will not be counted. The parliamentary
representatives of Hadash and Meretz, aided by troops of intellectuals,
urged the leftist voters to vote for Peres, even if this requires
'holding one's nose'. "Haaretz" published almost daily articles
denouncing the adventurers of the blank ballot, and not a single one
supporting it.

As has become common since the Gulf war, the trauma of Hitler and
the holocaust, is the first to be retrieved.  Just as calling for
Iraq getting out of Kuwait without war was Chamberlinish, the call
for a blank ballot was compared to the line of the German Communist
Party which refused to cooperate with the Social Democrats, thus
enabling Hitler to come to power.  The power of the appeal to trauma
is that it silences reason, which should normally apply to check
analogies.  There could be no doubt that the Social Democrats and
Hitler had completely different platforms and agenda's, which is far
less clear of the candidates in the Israeli or the American elections.
The German Social Democrats organized millions of workers into militant
workers unions, while the Israeli Labor government dismantled the
worker unions, and, like Clinton, destroyed whatever protection workers
still had from the tyranny of free 'market economy'.

But Hitler aside, the main argument of the opponents of the blank-
ballot is based on a concept of realistic political behavior. In
politics, they say, we do not express emotions, but make realistic
political choices.  Even if Peres (or Clinton) is not what we hoped
for, he is still the only choice we have now.  One can demonstrate
or otherwise struggle against his policies, but one should vote for
him, as the smaller evil. The favorite metaphor of this line is that
in politics, like in real life, the choice is always between the plague
and cholera (or some other variation of diseases).

The choice of metaphor is highly revealing: Plague and Cholera are
perceived here as forces of nature which are beyond human control.
If political reality is just the same, this means that it is not up
to us to determine what shape our life and social structures will
take. At best, we can choose the type of misery we hate slightly less.
In practice, the message behind this line of argumentation  is that
there is a clear limit to protest and resistance: We can write,
demonstrate, complain, but we should not take any step that may have
an actual effect on the system, like overthrowing a government. Because
the power system is a natural given, it is our intellectual duty to
understand and accept that.
 

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ISRAELI ELECTIONS.

The final number of blank ballots exceeded all expectations. In the
new system, each voter puts in, in separate envelopes, one slip for
the party and one for the prime minister.  There were 148.000 blank
ballots for prime minister - 5% of the votes (compared to 1% of
'invalid' ballots in the previous elections), and also 67.000 such
votes in the party envelope. Since blank ballots were not counted
separately from the 'invalid', and it has been claimed that the new
voting system may have increased the mumbler of mistakes, we should
deduct, to be on the safe side, the 67.000 party blank ballots, though
most likely many of those were also a protest vote. We are left, then,
with 81.000 voters, who elected a party, properly, and still refused
to elect any of the candidates for prime-minister.  Peres only needed
30.000 of these votes to be reelected.

The proportion of blank ballots among Israeli Arabs was, in fact,
lower than their proportion in the population (Roughly, 21.000, large
figure, 12.000 reduced figure). Arab voters were the main target of
the government's and Hadash's pressure against blank ballots. At the
day of the elections, this included some good old methods like taking
people forcefully out of their homes to vote.  Under these
circumstances, the amount of protest ballots is still impressive.
It is also known that thousands of Arab voters voted Netanyahu to
punish the government, like all 5000 residents of the Bedouin village
Rahat (reported in 'hair'). On the other hand, there were thousands
of blank ballots in the soldiers polls, reflecting the mood of those
voting for the first time. (Drafting is obligatory in Israel.)

The issue and its significance was largely suppressed in Israeli media,
but from astonished reports in the radio and in 'yediot' in the first
day or two, the ballots had the mark of a real protest movement:
One soldier wrote: 'Peres and Netanyahu are both bad to the Catamons'
(poor neighborhood in Jerusalem).  Many invested creativity in the
formation of their ballot, with Rock stars pictures, etc.

An industry of interpretations of the blank-ballots has flourished.
E.g. Labor circles tried to insinuate that these were faked by the
right, and promised court appeals, which never materialized.
The sophisticated analysts of the mainstream and organized left argue
that these nevertheless cannot be viewed as left, or protest voters.
But they did not manage to provide any other account.  The fact remains
that only the left has called for a blank ballot. Some center parties
left the choice to their voters, but did not suggest a blank ballot.
The religious parties called to vote for Netanyahu. (The only exception
is the Rabbi from Blez, who instructed his two thousand followers
to put a blank ballot in.)  Even if some account can be found for
thousands of these votes, there still remain tens of thousands of
voters from the left-pole - much more than Peres needed for reelection
- who  refused to vote for him.  These are anonymous voters who have
no organized voice, no elections - headquarters, no broadcasting time,
each one of them thinking he might be the only one. Still, it is them
who, in practice, decided the Israeli elections, as the analyst Boaz
Shapira concluded on tv 'mabat' -news, a day after the elections,
before the whole issue was silenced.

These numbers may seem even more surprising in view of the small
exposure of the call for blank ballots, and the massive pressure
against it.  Still there was some exposure. The wide selling evening
paper 'yediot' was more liberal on that, as on other issues.  They
published an interview with Azmi Bshara calling for a blank ballot,
as well as a few columns of mine.  The constant attacks in 'haaretz'
probably also helped to make this option known.

Apparently, this minimal exposure was sufficient, since the conditions
were ripe. What the blank-ballot voters have in common is that they
know they are being cheated. Precisely because they take the elections
seriously, they refuse to take part in a pseudo choice. The analysts
of the  parliamentary left may believe that anybody who has not read
Marx and Foucault cannot count as left.  But in my view, the young
(soldier) voter who wrote on his slip that Peres and Netanyahu are
equally bad for the poor is the future of the Israeli left.