Again, Elections in Israel
A contentious power struggle in a small but successful nation explained
When a democracy is running its fifth election is less than four years there is a good chance that things are not working all that well. Israelis are being asked tomorrow to cast ballots to elect a new Knesset and break the political stalemate that has paralyzed the nation for quite a few years. There are two key dynamics at play here:
Proportional Vote - with 13 parties in a 120-seat parliament it is hard to form a workable coalition even at the best of times. Note that Israel has tried to fix this by putting in a 3.5% threshold for a party to get into parliament in order to avoid a situation where even more small special-interest parties are represented. I always point out to people in the US and Canada that ‘first-past-the-post’ is indeed not an ideal voting system, but a proportional system with its potential to fragment parliaments can make countries ungovernable. That is the case here.
Bibi - as Israel’s most enduring politician, Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu and his Likud party have held a disproportionate hold on politics. The love he gets from his fans runs deep, but his authoritarian style and alleged corruption have made it impossible for not only his opponents, but even some like-minded right-leaning parties to collaborate with him for the good of the nation. The current coalition which served a little over a year was essentially an ‘anything but Bibi’ government: left, right, moderate and Arab parties put all their differences aside with the sole goal of keeping Bibi out of the prime minister’s residence. It worked for a short period of time only. Tomorrow he could return by clinching a coalition of 61 seats to tip him back into power.
A lot of Israelis who emigrated to North America always tell me life in the homeland is far from easy. You need to work quite hard for not a lot of money, pay for a staggering cost of living, while having constant terror and war threats hanging over your head. Moreover, a nation founded by secular social-democrats in 1948 has increasingly moved rightward and demographics have also contributed to an increasing importance of religion in the public sphere. Israel’s left has essentially ceased to exist as a major player.
While these trends may have caused some to leave, many Jews from all over the world continue to move in a different direction by making ‘aliyah’ to Israel. And with very good reason. Under Netanyahu (two terms: 1996-99 and 2009-21) Israel has been incredibly successful in neutralizing the various terror threats from around the Middle East, while unleashing a strong economy including one of the world’s most spectacular tech booms. At the same time he brought home the Abraham Accords, which are not only securing peaceful relations with a number of Arab nations, but also incredible economic opportunity. Furthermore, Bibi has forged deep relationships across the world, realizing that his small country cannot always rely on the US for military and economic support. So over the years strong relations were forged with for instance Russia, China and India. This is one of the reasons that it was hard for Israel to come out rooting for Ukraine this year: upsetting the relationship with Moscow would have had direct security implications for Israel. This by the way is neither good or bad, it is hardcore ‘realpolitik’: Israel has to survive and cannot afford itself to be picky in choosing its friends. Bibi and Vladimir got along quite well.
The key people who are opposing Bibi are current caretaker prime-minister Yair Lapid, a moderate former TV talkshow host and defence minister Benny Gantz a former army chief. They too can point to some successes, most notably they recently sealed a deal with neighbour Lebanon over a contested border which now opens the door to gas exploration and better relations with Lebanon’s dominant political faction, Hezbollah. The cost of living remains a core issue of course and while the current Lapid coalition can at least claim to have taken this on (with mixed results), it has made it clear it inherited this issue from previous Netanyahu governments. The security situation however has deteriorated over the last year with multiple random terror attacks on Israeli citizens and this in the end always pre-empts the economy.
With that the focus is back on the man who can point to some fifteen years in the prime-minister’s seat and with a strong track record of safety and security. The one question is on how the ultimate dealmaker can get a working coalition off the ground this time. For that he will need support from some of the religious parties who have in the past given that to him, often by getting some issues on their political wishlist agreed to in return. This election however a bloc of two rather extreme parties, most notably in their anti-Arab rhetoric, are set to not only meet the 3.5% threshold, but are expected to do so well that they have been guaranteed ministerial roles in a potential new Bibi government. Look out for both Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich as the two men who can tip the balance in Bibi’s favour. They can help him get rid of all his corruption-related troubles while reopening some domestic Israeli-Arab rifts which the Lapid coalition has been working hard to try to heal.
Israelis face a hard choice tomorrow. The country has grown into a multi-cultural, dynamic and military powerhouse that has cleverly leveraged its strengths across the globe, but it is however still far from safe and deeply divided. And by that I mean not only the divisions between Jews and Arabs, but also the political and religious rifts among the Jews themselves. The election maybe another futile attempt to break the political logjam and it may not heal the divisions in parliament. So sorry, on this I can’t offer you anything more than the obligatory ‘we will see how it goes tomorrow’.
For fun however I will leave you with an election commercial for Bibi that was done for a previous election. It is making the rounds again because it is on topic and actually both incredibly cheesy and funny. It was put together to highlight his strengths on security and safety, but now that I look at it again it actually makes one thing very clear: it is hard to get rid of the guy. He will always be knocking on your door if you live in Israel, whether he is in power or not.