JERUSALEM — On March 2, for the third time in 12 months, Israelis will vote in a national election.
The first election, in April, 2019, ended with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party getting the most votes. But he wasn’t able to form a majority coalition, so Israelis went to the polls again in September.
That time, the centrist Blue and White Party won the most votes. But its leader former Gen. Benny Gantz wasn’t able to form a coalition either — nor was Netanyahu. So now Israelis will vote yet again.
Last November, Netanyahu was indicted for fraud, bribery and breach of trust. He is the first prime minister in Israel’s history to be indicted while in office.
In January, with Netanyahu and Gantz in Washington DC, President Donald Trump unveiled his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, which gives Israel the green light to annex portions of the West Bank.
Both Netanyahu and Gantz praised the plan, and Netanyahu vowed to begin annexing territory. The Palestinians have rejected the plan.
According to polls, Likud and Blue and White are neck-and-neck at the top, each slated to win 30-some of the Knesset’s 120 seats. This would give neither party a clear path to assembling a majority coalition of like-minded parties.
FIVE BIG QUESTIONS
Who’s running?
Instead of two major parties, there are 29 parties competing at the ballot box. Israelis vote for parties, not individual candidates (the candidates are chosen by the parties, some through primaries).
The more votes a party gets, the more seats it has in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, the Knesset. A government is formed by a coalition of parties that together capture a majority of more than 60 seats.
Polls show that eight parties are likely to win Knesset seats in next week’s election, though there are usually surprises.
The frontrunners:
Likud, Israel’s right-wing flagship and Netanyahu’s party, supports annexation of parts of the West Bank and encourages privatization in the economy.
Blue and White is a centrist coalition led by Gantz, a onetime army general. It was created to oppose Netanyahu and his alleged corruption.
Supporting actors on the right:
Yisrael Beiteinu, which champions the interests of Russian-speaking immigrants and opposes the influence of Orthodox parties in government, is the kingmaker — and has pushed for a unity government between Likud and Blue and White.
Yamina is an alliance between the hard right and religious Zionists that supports increasing Orthodoxy’s influence in Israel and settlement growth while opposing Palestinian statehood.
United Torah Judaism is the Ashkenazi haredi Orthodox party, which supports Orthodox control of Israel’s religious life and opposes mandatory army service for their followers.
Shas is the Sephardi haredi party which stands for religious traditionalism as well as the rights of Israel’s Mizrahi, or Middle Eastern and North African, Jewish population.
Supporting actors on the left:
The Joint List is a union of four disparate Arab-Israeli parties that advocates for that minority’s rights in Israel, as well as Palestinian statehood. It is projected to be the third-largest party in the incoming Knesset.
Labor-Gesher-Meretz is the liberal Zionist party, a combination of one new party (Gesher) with two older ones (Labor and Meretz). Labor, once Israel’s largest and most dominant party, now must merge with smaller factions that were previously its also-rans in order to advance its vision, which includes the establishment of a Palestinian state and a social-democratic economic system.
— Ben Sales
Can Netanyahu win after being indicted for corruption?
Netanyahu allegedly attempted to improve his media coverage through illegal dealmaking on multiple occasions and is accused of receiving $200,000 in illegal bribes of Cuban cigars and champagne.
On Nov. 21, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit formally indicted Netanyahu in three separate corruption cases, charging him with fraud, bribery and breach of trust.
Netanyahu attempted to secure immunity through a parliamentary vote, but withdrew the request after it was clear he would lose the vote. Unlike his predecessor, Olmert, who resigned when it was clear he would face criminal charges, Netanyahu has declined to step down and remains defiant.
“[The left has] mounted a thuggish, incessant campaign of pressure — I’d say almost inhuman — on the attorney general,” Netanyahu said the day the indictment was issued.
The Netanyahu base has remained loyal throughout the scandals. They see him as an effective captain of Israel’s ship in a turbulent region.
His current administration has spanned the Great Recession, the Arab Spring, the Syrian Civil War and two conflicts with Hamas in Gaza — not to mention two American presidents.
Through it all, his supporters say, he has kept Israel stable, thriving economically and as safe as possible.
Even if Netanyahu is reelected under indictment, there is likely no law that bars him from remaining in office.
— Laura E. Adkins
Can Benny Gantz’s coalition challenging Netanyahu continue its rise?
After dispatching a series of opponents over the past decade, Netanyahu appears to have met a worthy adversary.
One year ago, Gantz decided to merge his new party with Yesh Atid, headed by former news anchor Yair Lapid and focused primarily on economic and social issues. They named the alliance Blue and White for the colors of Israel’s flag.
After nearly three complete election campaigns, it’s still hard to discern where exactly Gantz stands on most issues.
Though this latest election is Gantz’s third foray onto the political stage, he is well respected as a general, having served as the army’s chief of staff from 2011 to 2015. In Israel, former chiefs of staff cannot serve in Knesset for at least three years after completing their service, so last year was Gantz’s first opportunity to run.
But with neither appearing able to garner a majority, they may be forced to govern together after more than a year of campaigning against each other. After the September elections, attempts at a unity government failed. Whether they can succeed this time — after months of mutual acrimony — remains to be seen.
— Laura E. Adkins
What happened to the once-formidable Labor Party?
The party that founded the State of Israel and governed it for three straight decades is now, to put it bluntly, weak sauce.
The party of many Israeli political legends — think David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin — will now enter Knesset only as part of an alliance with two also-rans.
It hasn’t won an election in two decades and has been supplanted as the main opposition party by Blue and White. Its best hope is to be a very junior coalition partner in the next government.
What happened? Labor used to be almost synonymous with Israel: It stood for social democracy, kibbutzim, a strong defense posture and negotiations with the Palestinians.
In 1999, it was riding high: Party leader Ehud Barak had defeated Netanyahu in the election and was pushing toward a peace treaty with the Palestinians. But negotiations failed and the second intifada began — an unprecedented wave of terror attacks that led to a clampdown on Palestinians in the West Bank.
Since then, Labor has lost its mojo. Likud and its offshoots have led the Israeli government for the past 18 years. Israelis have lost hope in peace coming anytime soon (even though a large portion still supports Palestinian statehood). And the whole country, including Labor itself, has moved away from Israel’s former socialist identity.
Labor garnered a record-low six seats in the April elections as voters gravitated to Blue and White.
Then, Labor members elected former leader Amir Peretz to again head the party. Peretz had a decent showing last time he was in charge, winning 19 seats in 2006. He served then as defense minister, but stepped down following the 2006 Lebanon War, which was viewed as a failure.
Not too long ago, the choice in Israel was between Likud on the right and Labor on the left. Now Labor doesn’t even have its own independent party, and is hardly part of the conversation.
— Ben Sales
Will Israeli Arabs regain their diminished political power?
In September, the Joint List won 13 seats, tying its record from 2015 and becoming Israel’s third-largest political party. And then it did something rare: Most of the Joint List, which is an alliance of four smaller factions, endorsed Gantz, the former general and head of the centrist Blue and White party, to be the next Israeli prime minister.
It was the first time in 27 years that an Arab party had recommended a Jewish, Zionist candidate for the top job.
“We will be the cornerstone of democracy,” Joint List chair Ayman Odeh wrote in a New York Times op-ed explaining the decision.
“Arab Palestinian citizens cannot change the course of Israel alone, but change is impossible without us. I have argued earlier that if the center-left parties of Israel believe that Arab Palestinian citizens have a place in this country, they must accept that we have a place in its politics.”
Parties across the political spectrum have long refused to join coalitions with Arab-Israeli political parties. Politicians usually frame this refusal around the Arab-Israeli parties’ opposition to Zionism and Israel’s Jewish character, which are fundamental to the platforms of the major Jewish parties.
Despite the Joint List backing Gantz in September, Arab-Israeli parties have never been part of an Israeli government. Gantz and Odeh met in the subsequent weeks, but Gantz was unable to form a coalition government, triggering another round of elections and rendering the Joint List’s support moot.
— Ben Sales
