Almost as soon as Peres announced the election date, all hell was let loose in Israel. With a wave of suicide bombings by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in February and March 1996, progress in the Israeli–Palestinian peace process was jeopardized.
President Clinton tried to intervene to help the government. He arranged an anti-terrorism summit of world leaders in Egypt, and the United States supplied Israel with additional bomb-detecting equipment and counter-terrorist assistance. Clinton also visited Israel – meeting both Peres and Netanyahu – and addressed the Knesset on 14 March.1 President Clinton, Peres and Netanyahu all understood the political impact of the attacks.
Soon enough, the polling data revealed that Netanyahu’s ratings had climbed and Peres’s had fallen. Within the margins of error of the polls, Netanyahu and Peres were running neck and neck. There was a sense of near-panic in the Peres camp, with some Labour Party leaders claiming that Netanyahu was the major beneficiary of the horrendous attacks.
Netanyahu’s response was much more restrained than in the past. Finkelstein told him to restrict his comments to promising to prioritize ‘personal security’ over the peace process. It was a simple message, but from his perspective an effective one.
The February and March attacks ensured that the election would be fought on the issues of peace and security. Economic issues were all but ignored: an own goal by Peres. Several Labour Party strategists argued to the contrary, that the best way of defeating Netanyahu was to highlight the economic improvements for Israelis that had resulted from the peace process.
Peres and his campaign manager, Chaim Ramon, chose to ignore this line of thinking, opting instead to go head-on with Netanyahu on peace and security. This suited Netanyahu perfectly well. Peres had chosen to fight the election on Netanyahu’s strongest areas.
The core issue that Finkelstein identified as being Netanyahu’s weakest area was his perceived lack of statesmanlike skills. This, Finkelstein argued, was both a physical and character issue – and he made plans to age Netanyahu superficially using make-up and by whitening his (already greying) hair.
A studio set was built that resembled the White House Oval Office, and Netanyahu’s speech writers were instructed to compose campaign messages lasting no more than 30 seconds. Netanyahu was advised against giving impromptu interviews, and from visiting the sites of suicide bombings. Discipline and repetition became the two key words in the campaign.
Compared to the sleek Netanyahu campaign machine, the Peres and Labour Party campaigns were in disarray. Peres appointed the two men who viewed themselves as his potential successors to key positions within the campaign team. Chaim Ramon and Ehud Barak did not get along well during the campaign, nor did their respective staffs.
Petty jealousies, along with an eye on the future, prevented both men from working efficiently together. The central thrust of the campaign was that Peres could be trusted on security. The sense in the campaign was that, if the security services could prevent another Palestinian suicide bombing, then Peres and the Labour Party would win.
Netanyahu’s campaign counter-message was threefold: Peres was planning to divide Jerusalem; Peres was going to give up the Golan Heights; and Netanyahu would bring not only peace, but security. The message was to be repeated over and over again, simply, clearly and concisely. Simplicity of message had been a characteristic of Finkelstein’s previous campaigns in the United States.
Due to personal and professional commitments, Finkelstein was not based in Israel for the whole campaign. Instead, Netanyahu often communicated with him by car phone. All of this added to the mystique of the strategist. The television advertisements that were directed around his threefold message appeared to be working, with more Israelis inclined to take Netanyahu’s leadership skills more seriously. This happened, despite a strong attack on Netanyahu from Ehud Barak at the end of the campaign.
As Barak put it, ‘An Israeli Prime Minister needs to take instant decisions that could affect lives and could not afford to consult with advisors beforehand.’ He went on to add that Netanyahu had served under him in the army and clearly did not have what it took to be Prime Minister.2 Barak’s comments reflected the increasing nervousness of the Labour Party as polling day approached. The attack on Netanyahu was widely published in Israel and disseminated in the international press.
At the outset of the campaign, Finkelstein had convinced Netanyahu not to respond to attacks from the Labour Party, and this policy remained in place even after Barak’s attack. The question that much of the press tried to focus on was along similar lines to that of Barak, namely question marks over Netanyahu’s judgement. Many of the old chestnuts were brought up, particularly ‘Bibi-gate’, which was used – once again – as evidence to suggest that he panicked when under pressure.
In the end, with the polls indicating a slight lead for Peres (but within the margins of error), it all came down to the television debate between Netanyahu and Peres. The election teams eventually agreed to a single debate in which Netanyahu and Peres would face questions from a moderator. This was Netanyahu’s last chance to come across as statesmanlike and convince Israelis to trust him with the leadership of the country. Peres and Labour saw it as an opportunity to expose Netanyahu as a lightweight whose position was based on his telegenic rather than his political skills.
The Netanyahu team worked especially hard to prepare their candidate. He was told to keep his answers short and precise: Peres, they presumed, would ramble and talk in generalities. Netanyahu wrote comments and short answers on crib cards that he stuck to his practice desk. Time and time again his team honed his message. Once again, he was told not to enter into direct or heated arguments with Peres. The main aim was to make Netanyahu look prime ministerial.
While Netanyahu practised his responses to the likely questions, Peres concentrated on running the country. His attention was divided between taking measures to prevent another Palestinian suicide attack that might have doomed his re-election chances, and preparing for the debate that would also make or break his campaign. For a man who was already in his seventies, this proved to be no easy task.
To add to Peres’s difficulties, there were strong indications in the polls that Israeli Arabs, who had traditionally cast their ballots for the Labour Party, were not going to vote – in protest against an Israeli military operation in Lebanon. Operation Grapes of Wrath was launched by Peres in April 1996 in response to the heavy shelling of northern Israel by Hezbollah. The Israeli operation resulted in the deaths of more than 150 Lebanese, as well as the temporary displacement of nearly half a million. In one attack, more than one hundred Lebanese were killed in the shelling of a UN compound at Qana.
At the time, Peres was accused of initiating Operation Grapes of Wrath to indicate that he was resolute in defending Israeli security interests. Given the attack from Hezbollah, however, Peres’s options for an Israeli response were limited. What surprised many was the scale of the Israeli military operation, with Israel mounting more than a thousand air raids during the operation. The Israeli Arabs blamed Peres for the casualties and vowed to make their feelings clear at the polls.
So as Netanyahu arrived for the television debate, he faced an incumbent Prime Minister who was losing votes to his left through Israel’s actions in Lebanon, and from centre-ground voters – as the result of the suicide attacks in Israel by militant Palestinian groups. While Netanyahu was generally supportive of Peres’s efforts in Lebanon, he did not think that Peres had done enough to ensure the personal security of Israelis from attacks by the militant Palestinian groups.
Netanyahu’s aides reported that he was nervous prior to the debate. For a man who appeared a natural on television, this might seem strange. He understood that his political career would largely be determined by the thirty-minute debate, the only time that the two candidates would appear together. Unlike most election debates, which go out live, this one was pre-recorded and aired later the same day, in the evening. This helped international news networks, such as CNN, to broadcast the debate at the same time as Israeli television with accurate subtitles or translated voiceover.
At the start of the debate, Netanyahu wanted to make sure that he was seated, so that viewers would not see the scar on his lip. Peres was surprised when he raised the question of the seating arrangements, and said, ‘Sit wherever you want.’3 Prior to the recording, Netanyahu cleverly stuck his preparation notes on his podium so that he could see them, but the camera could not. The notes contained specific reminders on how to behave, statistics and other evidence to support his arguments.
Throughout the debate, Netanyahu looked straight at the camera when giving his allotted 90-second replies to questions. Peres chose to treat the debate more like a traditional television political interview by looking at the moderator, Dan Margalit, when replying to his questions.4 Peres also did not look at Netanyahu during the debate, trying to avoid giving any additional attention to the challenger.
As the debate progressed, it was soon apparent that Netanyahu was speaking faster than Peres, uttering an extra 300 words more than Peres in the first ten minutes of the debate. Finkelstein had prepared Netanyahu well in using the questions as a mechanism for getting over his message in a simple and erudite manner. Peres offered long, rambling answers and struggled with the 90-second format, often running out of time.
Netanyahu’s tactics of referring to Peres directly in a negative sense also paid off. Peres talked in the collective – ‘the government’ and ‘the party’ – while Netanyahu used the first person singular when replying. By the end of the debate, Peres looked tired. In truth, he was worn out, having endured a sleepless night before the debate. Netanyahu looked just as his team had hoped he would – energetic and with a good grasp of the issues.
Arguably the best part of the debate was when Dan Margalit asked both candidates a question about their weakest personal areas: Peres on his age and Netanyahu on his extra-marital affair. Peres replied with humour:
If you had to elect a male model and not a Prime Minister, then the age would be an issue. I feel great. My ability to work is excellent. I know a lot of people who are young, but their thoughts are very old.5
Netanyahu’s reply to Margalit’s question attempted to take a personal negative directed at him and turn it around into an attack on Peres:
Concerning this matter that you bring up now, I expressed a lot of sorrow. It hurt me. It hurt my wife. It hurt my family. It was a mistake. But the mistake that Mr. Peres made, that he is making now, that he made in the last four years, hurts the whole people of Israel. People here live in fear.6
Margalit then probed Netanyahu over the question of his application to change his name to Ben Nitai while he was living in the United States during the 1970s, and whether this meant that he had considered staying there. The subtext to the question was whether or not Netanyahu was a true Israeli – or merely ‘a stranger in a strange land’. Netanyahu still held American and Israeli citizenship.
Netanyahu responded in a manner suggesting he was hurt by this question before suffixing his comments with another attack on Peres:
Not for a single moment. I come from a Jewish, Zionist family, with roots here for 100 years. It is not enough, Mr. Peres, to pose with children. You have to insure their security.7
When the single election debate of the campaign was aired, around 70 per cent of Israelis tuned in to watch it. Several international media outlets called the debate a draw, with Peres having the better message and Netanyahu the better presentation. This was not the case in Israel: when the audience for the debate was polled, the majority believed that Netanyahu had won. Israeli newspapers called the debate for Netanyahu, and so too did the voters.
The report of the Labour Party enquiry into its electoral loss stated that Peres and the Labour Party lost 60,000 voters that night.8 Netanyahu either matched or defeated Peres in the three key areas: best candidate for Prime Minister; credibility; and offering hope. Peres offered a Richard Nixon in the 1960 debate with John F. Kennedy-style explanation for his loss. He blamed the lack of correct make-up and the studio lighting.9
After the debate, a confident Netanyahu told his aides that he had won it, and would win the election. His confidence was well placed. Prior to the debate, Netanyahu was trailing in the polls; after the debate he was either tied or ahead. This simple piece of polling data was confirmed by his own polls, as well as in internal polls for the Labour Party and in surveys conducted by the Israeli media. One short, half-hour debate had effectively changed the face of Israeli politics.
Several local journalists accused Netanyahu of being an actor during the debate, of conducting an elaborate role-play. There was a sense of surprise among the foreign commentators that he had been able to do so well against an experienced, wily old political operator like Peres.
In the final days of the campaign, Netanyahu attempted to convince a sceptical outside world of his good intentions towards the peace process.10 At the start of the campaign, he had shifted his hawkish position on the Oslo Accords to a slightly more centrist one, arguing that the agreements were signed and therefore binding to the new government. In other words, accepting the facts on the ground. He argued that he would attempt to renegotiate parts of them and would not offer the same concessions as a Peres-led government.11
He returned again to his comparison between the Oslo Accords and the British appeasement of Nazi Germany. As he put it:
Britain understands that the peace does not come at any price. With a dictatorial regime peace can endure only if it is coupled with security. This is a very simple lesson which most Westerners remember well for themselves, but forget for Israel.12
This message that Netanyahu continued to put out was that, while he believed the Oslo Accords to be a historic mistake, he would try to make the best of a bad deal.
As the campaign ended and Israelis prepared to go to the polls, it marked the end of an extraordinary six months for Netanyahu. At the end of May 1996, the Rabin assassination had not been forgotten by Israelis, but it appeared to belong to an era that was more distant than the six months that had passed since it took place. During this period, Netanyahu had been able to recover his position from rock bottom to standing on the verge of becoming Israel’s youngest Prime Minister.
The 1996 election, like many before it in Israel, was dominated by violence and this fear factor in Israel played into Netanyahu’s hand. With Final Status negotiations due to start for real (there had been a largely insignificant opening session prior to the election), Israelis had an eye on the future. Who they wanted to lead the country into these talks with Arafat was central to the thinking of many Israelis. Netanyahu’s promise to be tough on Arafat was taken to mean that he would not be willing to offer the same range of concessions as Peres. This went down well with a number of voters.
Above all, and what was most interesting about the campaign, was the change in the political culture of campaigning in Israel. Netanyahu revealed himself, once again, to be hugely influenced by the American-style election culture of fundraising and television politics. The television spots, his theatrical performance in the debate, the hiring of one of the top guns of American right-wing political strategy and the sound bites, all left their marks on Israeli politics.
At times his campaign resembled that of an outsider running for office in Israel. The concentration of the ‘I’ over the ‘We’ was an ever-present part of the campaign, which to all intents and purposes took on the characteristics of an American presidential race. Netanyahu had few qualms about planting the flag of American political culture firmly into Israeli soil. It was, after all, what he knew and understood best. Few, if any, other Israeli politicians would have dared to do this in 1996. After 1996, however, this American-style campaigning became the norm in Israel.
As Israelis went to the polls, the two candidates still believed they would win the election. Netanyahu’s comeback was impressive, although largely built on present-day fears and concerns about the future.