A primer on today’s Israeli election

Today is election day in Israel – the fifth one in two years for prime minister and the national parliament, the Knesset.  Although it managed to cobble together a highly unstable government coalition over the last year, Israel has essentially been deadlocked politically for over two years.

The deadlock does not come from a deep ideological divide over peace talks or territorial concessions, nor over riveting societal tensions or economic crisis, nor over defense issues over how to handle the looming and increasingly acute threats of Iran or Hizballah nor even over questions of national identity or religion.

To be sure those important, substantive, issues exist, but they are not what cause the deadlock.  The last four elections have returned a strong right-leaning slate in the 120-seat Knesset on all those issues, always delivering as much as 70 seats to the right.  If policy drove the circumstances now, then there would have been an easily formed right-leaning coalition in each of the last four elections.

The deadlock is instead caused by the issue of personalities. The last four elections revolved around the fissure over the fitness of the former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to continue to lead his party and the government. The Netanyahu/anti-Netanyahu fissure split not between left and right, but within the right, leaving some who refuse to form a coalition with him. This fifth round added a new dimension with the rise on the right of another figure, Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose views on Arabs and his call for “death to terrorists” has not only left Arab Israeli citizens rattled, but also many Israelis.

The polls traditionally skew a little left of the actual vote in Israel, but only slightly in the last few rounds. For months, polls have almost universally and consistently indicated another 60-60 parliamentary stalemate for months, although one or two polls have suggested a 61-59 advantage to the Netanyahu bloc.

Unlike American elections, where the vote tally marks the end of the cycle and dictates the new reality and leadership, in a parliamentary system it marks the beginning of the real political drama of coalition formation which can take weeks, if not months.  While Israel counts its votes quickly, who won the election occasionally takes months to sort out since it all depends on the sausage-making spectacle of coalition formation.

Israel’s coalition formation is a quite a complex affair.

The left side of the Israeli spectrum includes not only the various Zionist parties and an Arab party that accepts the legitimacy of the state of Israel, but also includes three Arab parties that do not believe in a Jewish state, praise terrorists, and openly support Israel’s enemies.  As with the current government, which lasted only a little over a year, these three Arab parties are accepted as passive supporters of a left-leaning government, but they refuse to take an official role in government since that might involve recognition of the state.  The fourth Arab party, Ra’am led by Mansour Abbas, while emerging from Islamic Brotherhood foundations, has openly decided to work within the Israeli system. It is currently part of the outgoing Israeli government and holds positions of authority in it.

The turnout of the Arab vote may prove to be the deciding factor in this election.  About 25% of Arabs vote for Zionist parties, but mostly to the left-leaning Zionist parties.  Moreover, there are four Arab parties contending for seats right now in parliament, but to do so, they must overcome the parliamentary threshold of 3.25 percent, namely four seats.  Three of those Arab parties – the ones who do not believe in the Israeli state — had run jointly in previous parliaments, so crossing the threshold was easy and they as a block traditionally held between 10-15 seats. The fourth Arab party, which is part of the government, also held more than five additional seats in the outgoing Knesset. But in this round, all four Arab parties are running alone, and all are polling right now around the 3.25% threshold, some above and some under.  If turnout among Arabs is high, then more of these parties will cross the threshold and hold four or more seats in parliament. However, if turnout is low and one or more fall under the threshold, their votes will be lost and will be redistributed across the spectrum of the parties that did make it.  That means for every party that fails to cross, the left- or right-camp essentially loses over 3% of its vote.  Moreover, several non-Arab leftist parties such as Meretz, which also governs substantial Arab following, is also polling dangerously close to the threshold.  And even the Labor Party, which had monopolized Israeli governance for its first 30 years, is polling only around 5-6 seats.

In other words, for the anti-Netanyahu bloc to reach 60 seats and block Netanyahu from forming a government, it needs a strong Arab turnout to carry all the left-leaning parties across the threshold.  To run the table like that is a tall order, especially since it is raining in Israel today.

The Netanyahu bloc does not suffer a lack of drama, but primarily after the votes are tallied, not in the vote itself. In fact, the pro-Netanyahu block only has one party that is in danger of elimination under the threshold – ironically the party of the prime minister until three months ago – Naftali Bennet and his Yamina (Rightward) party. Bennett left the scene and the party is now led by Ayelet Shaqed, and she is polling so low (around 1.5-2 percent) that her party is not factored into the current 60-60 split in the polls.  If the unexpected happened and she did cross, it would break the right-wing bloc’s lead into well over 61 seats.  Moreover, there are strong indications that those who are polling to vote for her are actually people that would otherwise vote for either Gantz or Lapid. So ironically, though she is to the right, her party is probably draining more votes from the center-left than from Netanyahu’s bloc, and thus if those votes are wasted, the left bloc would probably pay a higher price.

Within Netanyahu’s bloc, personality differences after the elections are the real issue. Indeed, one of the parties in his camp is most likely to immediately split after the elections into two. The far-right Jewish Strength Party is torn between between Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, whose statements and stands are more restrained and refined and whose behavior is far less provocative than Ben-Gvir’s. If Netanyahu’s bloc reaches 61 seats, the possibility of reaching out to one or two of the parties on the other side – either Benjamin Gantz’ Blue White party or Yair Lapid’s (the current prime minister) Yesh Atid Party — to form a coalition with Smotrich but without Ben-Gvir if Netanyahu is skittish about forming a government with him in it.

For the moment, Lapid has not shut the door on forming a coalition, or really a national unity government, with Netanyahu but neither has he said he would do it since he still hopes to emerge victorious and be possible even the largest party (his party currently polls at 24-5 seats while Netanyahu’s Likud polls at 31-2 seats).  In contrast, Gantz has said he will not form a coalition with Netanyahu, but he has changed his mind before. His persona is to be the manifestation of Israel’s defense establishment, and to keep control of that most-important structure under his stewardship by bargaining to again become the defense minister, can help him overcome his antipathy for Netanyahu.

Still both Lapid and Gantz have been burned and outmaneuvered by Netanyahu before, and thus neither may want to risk damage to themselves by extending an olive branch to Netanyahu only in order to save him from having to rely on Ben-Gvir.

In other words, this has been one of Israel’s longest formal election campaigns, but it also has been one of the sleepiest. That boredom, however, may soon be compensated by considerable drama in the coming weeks after the election as the real struggle of political bargaining for power begins.