Israel is a country of contradictions: A Jewish state surrounded by Arab nations; a state of blooming deserts in the Middle East – with no oil; a homeland born out of the 20^th century’s greatest conflict, defended by a citizens’ army yet constantly seeking an end to the seemingly intractable struggle that has kept it on its guard for nearly six decades. Knowing this history, it’s no surprise that Prof. Jacob Goldberg opened his talk on the recent Israeli elections with the Chinese proverb, “It is difficult to make predictions, particularly about the future.”

A former advisor to past Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, a faculty member at the Sha’arei Mishpat College of Law in Israel, and a frequent visitor to San Diego, Goldberg addressed a rapt audience in the Lawrence Family JCC’s Garfield Theater on Monday, April 3. His informative talk covered the domestic, regional, and international circumstances leading up to the recent special elections in Israel – the country’s fifth in 10 years – and analyzed their results, while being careful not to fall into the trap of making sweeping predictions.

Goldberg began by pointing out some of the facts on the ground leading up to the elections that no one could have predicted as little as six months before. Among other bizarre conditions, Ariel Sharon, the architect of Israel’s settlement policy since 1967, became the first leader to evacuate an entire block of settlements, unilaterally no less. The same Sharon, who helped found the right-wing Likud party that has had a powerful hand in Israeli politics for 30 years, ended up being the prime mover behind that party’s disintegration and a stunning fourth place finish in these elections. And Shimon Peres, the long-time Labor party leader who lost the 1996 elections to Binyamin Netanyahu largely due to the slogan, “Peres will divide Jerusalem” – a slogan coined by the mayor of Jerusalem at the time, Likudnik Ehud Olmert – joined the new party formed by Sharon, and partnered with Olmert to win the largest block of seats in the Knesset.

The lecturer encapsulated these and other conditions in a clear, astute style that belied the underlying complexity of the situation. This style is familiar to many in San Diego, as Goldberg has been a visiting professor at UCSD and SDSU and is a friend of many members of the local community. His credentials include Masters' Degrees from both Tel Aviv University and Harvard and a PhD from the latter institution, as well as the aforementioned political advising job, during which he authored the position paper that is now serving as the template for negotiations and border mapping.

In a nearly two-hour talk during a somewhat drizzly San Diego evening, Goldberg expertly laid out the facts surrounding the current, surprising political situation in Israel. As he noted, the circumstances leading up to the present included some auspicious timing and bizarre circumstances, such as the dates in the election cycle when Prime Minister Sharon suffered his strokes, as well as the back-room political maneuvering that put Ehud Olmert in the Acting Prime Minister’s position in the first place, despite his low place on the Likud’s list of Knesset members.

Goldberg anticipated many potential questions about the situation in his talk. For instance, the low voter turnout in this election, he said, could be attributed to a combination of factors, including a decline in ideological motivation, a rise in apathy and cynicism among the electorate, and a growing disenchantment with corruption in government circles. Another popular topic was the shocking success of the Pensioners’ Party, which garnered seven seats in the Knesset. This success, Goldberg noted, had two interesting factors: First, the party is led by Rafi Eitan, 79, a millionaire retiree with a storied past. He commanded the operation to capture Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, and later in life “handled” Jonathan Pollard, the US citizen who was convicted of spying for Israel and has been imprisoned since the mid-1980s. Due to his involvement in this case, Goldberg pointed out, Eitan is likely to become the first Israeli minister (since his party is likely to be included in a governing coalition) who will not be allowed to enter the United States. The second twist in the Pensioners’ success, Goldberg said, was the apparent “trendiness” in voting for them. Goldberg confided that he’d heard some of his law students say they were going to vote for the Pensioners’ Party, basically as a form of protest against all the other, well-established parties.

According to Goldberg, the success of the Pensioners’ Party, as well as that of the right-wing Israel Beiteinu (Israel, Our Homeland) party led by Russian-Israeli Avigdor Lieberman, are among the facts on the ground illustrating the chaotic, unstable nature of the Israeli political system. Yet despite living with this instability for years, Israelis can’t agree on steps to reform the system. Suggestions from converting to a presidential democracy akin to that in the U.S., to having a “half coffee — half tea” parliament, with half the members elected proportionally and the other half elected by a representative system, have all been criticized and rejected for a variety of reasons.

To cap off the evening, Goldberg took nearly a dozen questions in quick succession, jotting notes as they came, and then responded with terse, intelligent answers, often recognizing and calling on the questioners by name as he addressed their queries. Heeding his own advice about the precariousness of predictions, Goldberg only offered a cautious guess as to what the coalition would look like in the short term, but shied away from making long-term forecasts.