(Editor’s note: this post has been stirring around for about six weeks; I put it on the backburner after a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv. I was inspired to resurrect and expand on this message by this Volokh Conspiracy entry contributed by Jonathan Zasloff.)

I’ll admit to being nothing more than a mildly interested outside observer of Israeli politics (extended family and friends notwithstanding). So I had to color myself a bit shocked upon reading this Jerusalem Post piece by Michael Freund, decrying a potential Pax Americana—not because of any deleterious effects on global peace and security, or even opposition to American hegemony per se—but because it would impose a two-state solution on Israel:

… George Bush has now positioned himself, and his presidency, on a clear trajectory. He aims to knock Saddam out of the box in the next few weeks, after which his goal will be to fulfill Yasser Arafat’s lifelong dream of establishing an independent Palestine.

Of course, Bush did stress that the new Palestinian state should be “truly democratic,” but given its track record of violence and corruption over the past decade, chances are that the Palestinian entity-in-the-making will be little more than just another old-style dictatorship.

This cannot be allowed to happen. But unless Israel acts now, it most certainly will.

Now, realistically, what are the alternatives to an independent Palestinian state? Clearly the current Israeli semi-occupation isn’t working. A “single state” solution is a non-starter in terms of domestic governability, absent a program of ethnic cleansing that would undercut U.S. support for Israel and likely encourage yet another war with surrounding Arab states—the current demographics just aren’t sustainable for the Jewish community to be comfortable in a single state. (A “greater Israel” with the Palestinians cowed or pushed out seems to have a great deal of vicarious support from the pro-Israel right in the U.S.; Laurence Simon and Charles Johnson seem to be its most vocal proponents in the blogosphere.) The Jordanians don’t want the West Bank back, for good reason, and it’s hard to think of another country to give it to that would be more acceptable than just letting Arafat run it. Perhaps the most workable alternative to Palestinian statehood is Labor’s “complete separation” plan, but in practice it’s about the same as Palestinian independence, albeit without any external recognition.

Is the “Roadmap”—a term that’s beginning to grate as much as Al Gore’s “lockbox,” by the way—the best way forward? I don’t know. You can make a legitimate argument that requiring parallel steps implies a moral equivalency between the two sides that plainly isn’t present; you can complain that Abu Mazen, the nominee for the prime ministership of the Palestinian Authority, is tainted by his association with terror—as, realistically, any credible Palestinian leader would be by this point; the Good Friday accords required Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams at the table to work, despite both mens’ past apologia for terrorism. But it’s telling that nobody has any better idea: it’s either the Roadmap or more of the intifada, apparently, and thus the Roadmap wins by default.

The final coalition has been invested by the Knesset, according to the Jersualem Post and Haaretz:

• Likud/Yisrael B'Aliya: 40 seats (38/2)

• Shinui: 15 seats

• National Union: 7 seats

• National Religious Party (Mafdal): 6 seats

Meanwhile, the formation of the coalition still hasn't stopped Mitzna and the coalition parties from sniping at each other, or apparently from still negotiating alternate coalitions, according to the Jerusalem Post:

Labor Party leader Amram Mitzna warned Sharon that the economic and security situations will not improve until negotiations with the Palestinians are resumed and an agreement is reached to establish "two states for two peoples." He also blamed Sharon for the fact that a national-unity government was not established. "It was within reach, but he did not chose to do so," he said, noting that he had chosen National Union leader Avigdor Lieberman and NRP leader Effi Eitam instead.

Shinui MK Yosef Paritzky shot back: "You're to blame," and Shinui leader Yosef Lapid told Labor that it is "not too late to join the government" and create a secular government that can make sweeping reforms.

Of course, the part that warms the heart of my inner political science geek are these coalition promises:

Sharon promised to work to pass a constitution "by consensus" after a number of basic laws are completed.

He also noted that the parties in the coalition have committed to raising the electoral threshold to 2 percent to reduce factionalism.

It's not quite the Lawrence plan (in comments), but it's better than nothing...

Ira Sharkansky (father of Shark Blog's Stefan Sharkansky) has some comments on the coalition's possible outlook on the Palestinian conflict.

The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, and CNN, among others, report that Ariel Sharon has secured a 61-seat minimum winning coalition consisting of the Likud (and the remnants of Yisrael Ba'aliya which joined it last month), the National Religious Party (NRP), and Shinui. Talks are apparently underway to possibly bring in other parties to bolster the size of the coalition, including the National Union. Nobody seems to really know what the coalition's positions on the peace process or settlements are; most of the discussion (as always) is about internal Israeli politics.

Strangely enough, the Independent runs with an AP report with a headline calling this a “hard-line coalition”; one wonders how they'd have described a Shas-NRP-NU-Likud coalition.

Matthew Yglesias has some new comments as well; I basically agree with him that we're looking at an interim coalition until events (i.e. war in Iraq or some obvious incident of bad faith on the part of the Palestinians) force Labor to abandon its “no coalition with Sharon” pledge, especially since some reports note that Sharon is updating Mitzna on the progress of the coalition talks (which seems rather odd since Mitzna isn't leading Labor into the coalition).

Previous discussion here.

The Jerusalem Post reports (registration required) that Likud is looking to form a coalition with Shinui, UTJ (United Torah Judaism), and the NRP (National Religious Party), excluding Shas. UTJ apparently would not be represented in the cabinet, and the coalition would have 64 seats in the Knesset. The article also discusses the possibility of a Likud, Shinui, the NRP, and Yisrael B'Aliya coalition (with 61 seats), described by Shinui MK Avraham Poraz as likely to be “both homogeneous and stable.”

Matthew Yglesias, back from blogging haitus, briefly looks at Shinui's possible role in an Israeli coalition government. The case of Israel's 120-member unicameral parliament, the Knesset, is particularly interesting because of its abnormally high number of political parties — 13 parties received Knesset seats in the January 2003 election because they received over 1.5% of the popular vote. (The Knesset uses pure proportional representation within one, nationwide district.) Leaving aside the question of why such a low threshold was chosen — Israel's is the lowest in the world — the large degree of fragmentation leads to serious barriers to coalition formation.

Michael Laver and Norman Schofield's Multiparty Government discusses this problem, although it mainly concentrates on European countries where the major parties are larger. In the most recent Israeli election, by contrast, no party received more than 30% of the total vote, and the Likud only received 38 seats — 23 seats short of a Knesset majority. This makes coalition formation particularly problematic because no single party can provide an overall majority — even a coalition with second-place Labor, with 19 seats, is too small to win an investiture vote (Israel's laws require a Knesset majority to vote in favor of forming a coalition, which makes a minority government exceedingly unlikely). So, what sorts of coalitions are possible?

Some theories suggest that the most likely coalitions to form are “minimal winning” coalitions — coalitions that involve the least number of parties while still gaining a majority of seats; i.e., where the loss of one party would make the coalition a minority. William Riker goes further to predict that the most likely coalitions to form are “minimum winning” (or bare majority) coalitions: ones that produce the smallest possible majority. Looking at the incoming Knesset, the following 3-member minimal winning coalitions are possible:

• Likud + Labor + Torah Judaism (62)

• Likud + Labor + NRP (63)

• Likud + Labor + Meretz (63)

• Likud + Labor + National Unity (64)

• Likud + Shinui + Shas (64)

• Likud + Shas + Labor (68)

• Likud + Labor + Shinui (72)

There are actually 3,615 possible minimal winning coalitions (out of 4,044 possible majority coalitions, most of which, unsurprisingly, involve the Likud). Furthermore, there are 92 minimum winning coalitions, with the coalition holding 61 seats; most of them involve large numbers of parties. The smallest minimum winning coalitions involve 4 parties:

• Likud + Labor + Yisrael Ba'aliya + United Arab List

• Likud + Shas + Meretz + NRP

• Likud + Shas + National Unity + Torah Judaism

• Likud + Shinui + Meretz + United Arab List

• Likud + Shinui + Meretz + Yisrael Ba'aliya

• Likud + Shinui + NRP + United Arab List

• Likud + Shinui + NRP + Yisrael Ba'aliya

• Likud + Shinui + Torah Judaism + Am Ehad

• Likud + Shinui + Torah Judaism + Balad

• Likud + Shinui + Torah Judaism + Hadash

However, from a policy standpoint, few of these coalitions make much sense; Arab parties (Balad and UAL) aren't going to be part of a Likud coalition, and neither is the communist Hadash. Meretz is unlikely to join with Shas and the NRP. The only coalition here that seems remotely plausible from a policy standpoint is Likud + Shas + National Unity + Torah Judaism.

A 61-seat coalition is unlikely simply because of the instability of the parties in general; Sharon probably wants a strong coalition that can withstand a few dissident members (despite the plethora of Israeli parties, party discipline is relatively low). This suggests a policy-based coalition involving the larger parties, to reduce the number of parties involved and the risk.

The “ideal” coalition for this task would be the widely-mooted Likud + Labor + Shinui coalition, which with 72 seats is the largest possible three-party coalition (and which might accrete some additional members from the smaller parties). However, widespread reports that Labor is not willing to join a Likud coalition leave only a Likud + Shinui + Shas three-party coalition, with a more tenuous 64 seats and serious policy differences (Shinui's support is attributed to opposition to excessive patronage to the ultra-Orthodox; Shas is the largest ultra-Orthodox party). Therefore, other possibilities may be considered:

• One option would be a minority coalition, with Likud + Shinui in the government but with investiture support from Labor. This could allow Labor to keep its promise to stay out of a coalition without necessitating a new election (or a more right-wing coalition).

• Likud + Shinui + Yisrael Ba'aliya, with support from some defectors from Labor.

• Likud and Shinui could cobble together a coalition with some of the religious parties (with or without Meretz). Alisa suggests that Shinui is fairly open to working with most of the religious parties, barring Shas.

• Finally, Likud could fail to form a government, presumably leaving Labor, Shinui, and Meretz to try to cobble together a coalition involving the Arab parties and the Am Ehad (One Nation).

The bottom line: throw the coalition theories out the window when it comes to Israel — at least until they get a sensible threshold on the books.

Ha'aretz has a page with some charts showing some possible alternatives (thanks to The Talking Dog for the link).

Noah Millman, Michael Pine, JB Armstrong, and SharkBlog have some interesting coverage as well.

My theory: Likud + Shinui + Yisrael Ba'aliya + NRP, with either a lot of Labor defectors (probably to Shinui or a new group) or a new Labor leadership.

This is simply appalling (seen at InstaPundit). I'm not a conservative, but I'll call it what it is: pathetic religious bigotry of the same order as linking the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the Holocaust. CPAC should have run this vendor out of the building; feel free to voice your displeasure using their contact information.

Bill Quick comments, and asks:

Can somebody tell me why a swastika/Islam bumper sticker is more "pure poison" with the Muslim world than the term "Islamofascist?"

Well, for one, replacing the “s” in “Islam” with a swastika is a smear on the whole religion of Islam, and equates Islam with the beliefs of the National Socialist party, while you could conceivably refer to someone as an “Islamofascist” without necessarily implying all Muslims are fascists (just like the term “ultraconservative” doesn't imply all conservatives are extremists). That being said, I don't think using the term “Islamofascist” is appropriate in responsible discourse, and you won't see it used to refer to individuals or groups here (except when quoting someone else's comments).

Oliver Willis (briefly) comments.

Steven Den Beste has basically the same reaction I do to the latest Palestinian outrage, as does James Lileks. I have Israeli friends and relatives, and I'm tired of the Palestinians and their continual BS. Indiscriminate murder is not a valid response to any injustice. As of now, I wash my hands of whatever the Israelis decide to do with them; I don't care anymore.