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Here we go again!
The best tweet of Tuesday’s election in Israel came from the government itself. According to the government minister, “The official in charge of counting the votes has crashed and gone to sleep. More results in two hours.” Aside from the humorous human element to this tweet, it captures the exhaustion around repeated inconclusive elections. They keep going to the polls and nothing stable emerges.
I believe there are two fundamental problems afflicting Israeli political culture. They are systemic rather than ideological concerns. They affect both the right and the left equally and both concerns make a stable coalition nearly impossible.
Problem #1: Netanyahu himself. Netanyahu has been Prime Minister for so long and with such political efficacy (like him or hate him, he’s one of the most shrewd Israeli politicians in history) that Israeli voters care more about whether they want Netanyahu to be Prime Minister than any issue. As a result, natural allies like Gidon Sa’ar and Avigdor Lieberman have sworn never to sit with Netanyahu. The religious parties have become defined by their loyalty to Netanyahu. Similarly, his opponents focus more on getting him out of office than their own policies. The Blue & White party in the last election brought together three leading figures united in their opposition to Netanyahu.
Related is the atomization of Israeli parties. Likud garnered about 30 seats; Yesh Atid, the next largest party, 17. From there we go to many parties between 5-9 seats. Netanyahu has blocked the emergence of any rival, creating only two choices for the politically ambitious Likud politician. Either accept Netanyahu as the face of the party or leave and start a new party. This has resulted in people like Sa’ar and Bennett breaking from Likud and forming their own parties. By the same token, the collapse of the big left parties, especially Labor, has created a still unfilled void.
Problem #2: The increasing move to the right of the religious parties. During the last two decades, Israel’s religious parties have moved from being centrist kingmakers to Netanyahu’s dearest allies. This further complicates coalition building. For the center-left, it makes the math almost unworkable. Since the religious block won’t join them, they have few remaining allies. For the right, the problem is similar. Since there are figures on the right opposed to the religious parties (like Avigdor Lieberman), the right block is internally split and can’t get to a coalition. The religious parties, who used to be key to stability, now are a large enough bloc to complicate everyone’s coalition math.
For Israel to get unstuck, at least one of these problems has to be solved. At this point, there are a few possible options going forward:
#1. Lapid forms a get Netanyahu out coalition. For this to happen, Naftali Bennett, Gidon Sa’ar and Avidgdor Lieberman must join with the center and center left. They will also need the Arab-Israeli parties for this to happen. While theoretically possible, this is highly unlikely.
#2. Netanyahu forms a coalition. To do this, Netanyahu has two possible paths. One is to convince his old number two, Gidon Sa’ar, to join him. Sa’ar has pledged never to do this, but never can be very short in Israeli politics. The other possibility? Netanyahu is in discussion with an Arab-Islamist party. The leader of that party has not ruled out joining a Netanyahu led coalition. Given Netanyahu’s previous success in finding a path where no one said it could be done, I’d rate this 50-50.
#3. New elections in the fall. This Knesset is deeply divided with no clear winner. Yet no one wants more elections, creating pressure on the parties to figure out a path to either #1 or #2. So I’d rate this most likely, but still unlikely.
In other words, there are three unlikely possible outcomes, none of them offering long term stability. One of these two problems has to be solved for long term stability. If the religious parties go back to being centrists, a center or center left pathway opens. Similarly, if larger more stable blocs form, some person or party may develop a following to inject more stability back into the system.
For now, I predict more instability, short term coalitions, and a search for every vote and seat. The silver lining here is that it has pushed people out of their natural allies to search for unseen voters. For example, Yesh Atid campaigned for the votes of American olim. Netanyahu is going after Arab-Israeli votes. Something dynamic is at work; it may lead to a new more inclusive stability after another couple of cycles.
In the meantime, I pray for Israel, for its leaders and elected officials. May God grant them wisdom and understanding to look past personal animus and ego towards good governance for Israel and all its people.
Shabbat Shalom and Happy Pesach!
Rabbi David Booth
