Is Fear of Being a "Frier" The Key Dynamic in Coalition Forming Process?

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
21 February '13..




It has been said that Israelis fear being a "frier" [being a patsy] more than dying.

This may very be the key dynamic explaining pretty much every actor in any way associated with the coalition forming process today.

Bennett doesn't want to end up being a patsy in agreeing to join the coalition only to find himself either not in the final coalition or in a coalition that adopts either policies or makes appointments that make him look like a patsy. Consider the national laughing stock he would be today, for example, if Bennett had already announced he was joining the coalition without finalizing policy principles first and he learned from news reports, after the fact, that Livni was being appointed to negotiate with the Palestinians.

The silence of pretty much all the Likud MKs to the Livni appointment also reflects their "fear of friering". Livni may want to divide Jerusalem, transfer Ariel to the Palestinians and serve witness before the world that various harebrained schemes are indeed viable. But if the Palestinians never agree to talk the appointment will be bereft of meaning. And any Likud MKs who lost their chance to be a minister or hold a select position in the Knesset because they voiced their opposition to the appointment would, after the fact, be patsies.

Yair Lapid would also be a patsy if he joined the coalition and none of the agenda that got him elected was implemented.

Obama and Israel: Making the Same Mistake Again and Again

Jeffrey Dunetz
American Thinker
20 March '10

The Bible says that the Jews are descended from twelve brothers, and they have always acted that way. Throughout recorded history, Jews have spent almost as much time fighting each other as they have fighting their enemies. Yet each time they are attacked from the outside, they coalesce and support their brothers like a close-knit family. And that pattern goes double for the multi-party world of Israeli politics.

Last time I checked, there were twelve different political parties that received enough votes to be part of the Knesset, and many of those parties are part of the governing coalition. The different parties, though they may be serving in the same government, remain very partisan. When you add to that the fact that cabinet ministers have a lot more independent authority than what you would see in an American president's cabinet, you can see how the results become very wild at times. But when their nation is under attack, either militarily or simply via international political pressure, the various parties in an Israeli cabinet coalesce to fight off the threat.

If Barack Obama bothered to take the time to understand the "soul" of the Israelis, he might be much closer to restarting talks between Israel and the Palestinians than he is today. His own arrogance, however, and his refusal to believe that anybody would not see the world as he does, prevents him from achieving progress in the region. Obama's arrogance is so strong that last week, he made the exact same mistake on the settlement issue as he made just four months ago.

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