Some Help Understanding The Coming Israeli Election
By
Leonard Zwelling
https://danielgordis.substack.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Gordis
Daniel Gordis is an American-born Israeli writer whose book on Israeli history is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the birth and current politics of the Jewish state. (Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn). We had the privilege of meeting him during his visit to our synagogue a few years ago. He’s a funny, brilliant, and articulate student of Jews in Israel and here, in America, since he is both.
Recently, a friend who is rabbi in training urged me to subscribe to Gordis’ Substack page. I did just that and his post today (Oct. 5) is the best lesson in current Israeli politics I’ve heard so far. The top link is to that post. The bottom is to Gordis’ Wikipedia page.
He actually makes a very complicated election, one that is far more layered than ours which will occur a week later, simple to understand. Here’s what I learned:
- In Israel voters do not cast ballots for individuals, but for parties.
- There are about 11 or 12 viable parties. What viable means is that these parties could acquire the needed 3.25% of the vote to qualify for a seat in the single chamber legislature, the Knesset.
- Current polling has the Yashar! Party of Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israel Defense Force Chief of Staff (2015-2019), ahead with about 23-24 seats. Right behind him is Likud, Bibi Netanyahu’s party, with 21-23.
- After that come a variety of parties with far fewer likely seats and even some which may not receive the required 3.25% to have even one seat. These range from liberal parties, Orthodox parties, and parties that support the aggressive settling of the West Bank by Jews. There is even an Arab party or two.
- After the election dust settles comes the fun. Since it is very unlikely that any one party will garner sufficient votes to control a majority 61 seats in the Knesset, someone is tapped by the Israeli president to try to form a government. That means assembling a coalition of at least 61 seats using the support of the seats awarded to parties other than your own.
- In the current government, Netanyahu has done this using the support of the Haredi (Orthodox), Mizrahi (e.g., Shas), and the settler-aligned parties of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. These last two were granted cabinet seats and important portfolios. They are violently anti-Arab and have been supporting the settler violence against the indigenous Arabs in the West Bank.
- So, the question is which party will control the most seats and which party leader can convince the president to allow him to try to cobble together the seats and support of other parties to reach the magic number of 61?
The brief answer is that no one knows. As up in the air as our elections seem to be as to who will control a majority of House or Senate seats, at least once the votes are counted here, we will know. Not so in Israel. The results of the voting are just the beginning.
As Gordis describes in his Substack post, it is not at all obvious who diaspora Jews should be supporting. Some of the issues at stake are whether or not the West Bank violence can be controlled. If the settler-aligned parties are excluded from the next government, regardless of who is prime minister, perhaps this true rebellion on disputed land can be tamped down and the killing of Arabs on the land halted. If the Orthodox parties are not in the next coalition, their young men may be required to serve the country in the IDF like all the rest of the populace. Finally, if Netanyahu stays prime minister, there will not be a formal fact-finding board of inquiry to elucidate what went so wrong on October 7. If Bibi loses, he could be found negligent by such a board and he also faces corruption charges for other past deeds.
But, regardless, Gordis believes that the anti-Israel rhetoric that is infecting the entire globe accompanied, as it always is, by violent anti-Semitism is not likely to go away.
Like all Jews everywhere, I am watching the Israeli election closely knowing I have no say in the matter nor the requisite emotional trauma of October 7 as Israelis do. The recent incident on the FlyDubai plane only raises Israeli anxiety. Each Israeli is maximally invested in the outcome of the voting and what it means for the possibility of peace and security for Israeli citizens. Gordis does point out that both of these incidents exposed the ineptitude of the current security officials in the Israeli government—the Shin Bet, the IDF, and the Department of Transportation.
Security is to Israeli elections what the economy is to our elections. October 7 and the FlyDubai near-disaster rattled the entire population of the country. However, Gordis thinks these are smaller factors than one might imagine because Israelis are “tribal voters.” You vote with your like-minded tribe members.
Thus, the real questions are which tribe gets the most seats and which tribe can make peace with a few other tribes and form a government? Stay tuned or better yet, subscribe to the Gordis Substack.
As is always the case with Israel, it’s complicated.
