Like any election there are big winners and losers and in Israel there is always a great deal of fuzziness in-between. From Netanyahu’s perspective he has a clear mandate to go forward with his pro-business initiatives, trade policies and his security and foreign relations detail. Kudos to him for pulling off another victory at the election box.
Here are the results of the 2019 election as they stood at the 97% mark.
Israeli election 2019 results - As of April 12th 2019 Likud picked up one more seat to move to 36 while Shas dropped one to go to 7 . The vote count reached 100%.
The Winners
Likud - Once again Likud has emerged as Israel’s largest party taking 36 seats in the 120 seat Knesset. This represents a pick up of six seats over the 2015 results. While the economy is undoubtedly a big factor, Likud likely benefited by picking up votes from those who in 2015 opted for the right wing Jewish Home or the centrist Kulanu.
Netanyahu has now won his fifth election (fourth in a row) . He assumed office in 2009 and if he completes his new four year term can claim seventeen years as Prime Minister (well ahead of the nation’s father David Ben-Gurion).
If one considers that Likud were reduced to 9% of the vote in 2006 and a meager 12 seats in the Knesset, Netanyahu’s accomplishments in turning around the party of Menachem Begin, are all the more impressive.
However as is the case after every Israeli election he will have to cobble together a coalition with various parties in order to govern. Common wisdom is that such a coalition will include Shas, UTJ, Yisrael Beitanu, United Right and Kulanu. In other words, a mixed bag of religious parties, centrists and those parties to the right of Likud.
Benjamin Netanyahu - Onward to a fifth term as Prime Minister. Source: Jewish Telegraphic Agency - The Global Jewish News Source
Blue and White Political Alliance (BW) - Despite finishing as runner-up to Likud, BW (Kahol Lavan in Hebrew) performed extremely well in this election and will enter the 20th Knesset with 35 seats. The collapse of Labor and Meretz no doubt augmented their performance.
Various media sources in the West have portrayed BW as a left-of-center alliance. They are not. The alliance consists of three major parties - the Israel Resilience Party (Benny Gantz), Yesh Atid (Yair Lapid) and Telem (Moshe Ya’alon) and has largely a centrist position with strong Zionist credentials.
BW’s biggest challenge will be the maintenance of the alliance in the four years that follow. Benny Gantz, who heads BW is not personally popular with the Israeli public and will no doubt be challenged by Lapid, who is more charismatic and very outspoken.
BW also needs to formulate what they stand for beyond the anti-Netanyahu focus. They need to convince the average Israeli what they can bring to the table that Netanyahu hasn’t already. Failure to take the initiative here, could doom BW to taking on the moniker of another anti-Netanyahu alliance from the past, the now dissolved Zionist Union.
Benny Gantz - Strong military credentials. May be Prime Minister in the future. Source: Show us who you are, Benny Gantz
The Religious Parties - Between the two of them United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and Shas picked up a total of 15 seats, with each party gaining one more than they did in 2015. Religious Party momentum will likely increase into the future as per demographic trends.
UTJ largely represents Haredi Ashkenazi Jewish concerns while Shas draws support from observant Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews.
Both are likely to feature prominently in the governing coalition which from a secular perspective does not necessarily bode well, especially if the very polarizing ‘Who is a Jew?’ question becomes front and center of the debate platform once again.
Oddly enough United Torah Judaism attracted some Arab votes because of the good work of Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman shown above. Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/2019...
The Losers
Labor and Meretz- Every Israeli Prime Minister from 1948 to 1977 was a member of the Israeli Labor Party (Mapai). As late as 1999, the Party’s leader Ehud Barak defeated Benjamin Netanyahu in the run off for Prime Minister. The failure of both the Oslo Agreement and the 2000 Camp David Summit however, exposed the center-left Labor as a spent force.
Fast forward to 2019 and the party of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin has become a shell of its former self. Six seats in the Knesset in 2019 is its worst ever performance. This was two more than the number of seats won by the left wing Meretz Party. However this does not offer much comfort as Meretz came within a hair’s breath of missing the minimum cut off for the Knesset (they were likely saved by Druze voters). Next stop for Labor and Meretz though is irrelevance. The Israeli left needs to rethink its strategy.
Ehud Barak - His Labor Party may be on the verge of extinction unless they can find a way of convincing the Israeli electorate that they are worth voting for. Looking at the last two election cycles this does not appear to be the case. Source Picture: Jerusalem Post
The Arab Parties - Low Arab turnout (believed to be a response to the Jewish nation-state law) did not help the two Arab alliances Hadash-Ta’al (six seats) and Ra’am Balad (four seats). This represents a drop of three from the Joint List (JL) tally of 13 that these parties achieved when they pooled their resources in 2015 to run under the JL banner. Other factors may be at play here, including a disenchantment with the party’s leadership whose socialist economic policies seem to be out phase with the country’s embrace of free market principles.
Right of Center smaller parties - Yisrael Beitanu (Avigdor Lieberman), the United Right (Rafi Peretz) and Kulanu (Moshe Kahlon) won a total of 14 seats but this represents eight less seats than the number they achieved in 2015. The net benefactor of this seat shift appears to be Likud. Gone from the 20th Knesset are such figures as Naftali Bennett (once believed to be a rising star…he may still be) and Moshe Feiglin who will likely have to rework their future election strategy as the right consolidates around Netanyahu.
So where does this all leave the country?
Netanyahu looks stronger politically than he did in 2015. He can put together a more robust coalition, going into the 20th Knesset with 65 seats as opposed to the 61 from four years earlier. Likud is also stronger than they were in 2015.
His partners in the coalition will demand their ‘fair’ share of ministerial positions and this will create the expected problems. Lieberman in particular is often at loggerheads with the PM (at times for good reasons) and Bibi can expect push back from the religious parties.
The pro-settlement United Right could also be problematic as is evident by the rhetoric of their leader Rafi Peretz. Netanyahu needs to stand his ground and should not give into the growing one state chorus.
The smaller parties in the coalition need Bibi just as much as he needs their seat count in the Knesset. They are unlikely to achieve more success in a BW dominated coalition and Netanyahu must make this clear from the get go. Israel can ill afford to be held hostage for example by Haredi politicians over matters of religious orthodoxy or by the United Right’s drive to pour money into a renewed settlement drive.
The Prime Minister though has several cards in his favour. The Free market direction that has defined his administration has largely been successful. Israel is the quintessential model for start-up nation and has developed into a hot spot of technological excellence. While there are issues about the spread of the wealth from the tech boom to the rest of the country, Bibi’s policy of global outreach is bearing the necessary fruit. There is largely an upbeat tone about Israel on this front with the necessary reservation expected.
Bibi also enjoys a strong working relationship with the American President. The movement of the US embassy to Jerusalem, American withdrawal from the flawed Iranian nuclear deal and Trump’s recognition of Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights are all positives. Relations with the White House have improved remarkably since the dismal days of the Obama administration, when the former US president made no secret of his animosity towards Netanyahu and indeed intervened in the Israeli elections at the expense of the Israeli Prime Minister.
However Netanyahu has to be cautious. The Democratic Party is a powerful force in US politics and sooner or later will return to power. This may not occur under Bibi’s tenure, but Netanyahu needs to resist the temptation to play the partisan line with respect to the US. This could damage US-Israel relations in the future.
There is still - despite the posturing of Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Bernie Sanders and others - considerable support for Israel among US Democrats, as there rightfully should be. It is after all the only real democracy in the Middle East and its survival resonates well with the American electorate.
Iran’s belligerent stance will continue to threaten Israel and this will likely be Netanyahu’s biggest challenge over the next four years. The Iranians have renewed clout in Syria (with Russian backing) and will continue to use their proxy Hezbollah forces in Lebanon to harass Israel.
The lifting of sanctions that followed the implementation of the P5 + 1 agreement (aka the Iranian Nuclear deal) has greatly benefited the Mullahs and strengthened Tehran’s hand in the region. Trump’s pullout from the deal is much welcomed but a great deal of damage has already been done and may still occur with the Europe Union and various other players often gaslighting Iran’s obvious threat to Israel.
The P5 +1 Iranian Deal https://www.sampsoniaway.org
With respect to the Palestinians, Netanyahu doesn’t have to push any renewed initiative at all, nor should he until the Palestinian get their house in order or at least show an inclination to do so. At present they have failed miserably at the task.
Gaza is controlled by an Islamist regime (Hamas) that regularly lobs missiles at Israeli civilian targets and encourages the storming of borders, using human shields, to create international incidents that play into a scripted false victim hood narrative.
Add to this the great deal of resources that Hamas has spent in digging tunnels into Israeli territory for the sole purpose of inflicting misery on the Israeli population and it is even more clear how morally repugnant they are as a political force, let alone the de facto government in Gaza.
Hamas is not a partner for peace not as long as its existence continues to be predicated on the destruction of Israel as opposed to the establishment of a viable and workable Palestinian state in Gaza.
The situation in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), with the corrupt Palestinian Authority (PA) serving as the poster child for government ineptness, is only marginally better.
Mahmoud Abbas has essentially abandoned democracy and is now in the fourteenth year of what should have been a four year term of office. The PA continues to support an education curriculum that advances antisemitism at the school level and refuses to drop the Palestinian Right of Return from its political agenda (a euphemism for the destruction of Israel).
Mahmoud Abbas - Focus of his policy by all indications is to hold on to position of power for as long as possible. In that respect he has been remarkably successful. Source: Mahmoud Abbas is here to stay, says Mahmoud Abbas
Abbas himself often plays the antisemitic card. He has a tendency to minimize the Holocaust and as late as 2018 gave a speech at the Palestinian National Council that was so repugnant that it was jointly condemned by the United Nations, the European Union, Israel, several former Obama officials, Peace Now, the ADL and the New York Times. https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israe....
Yes he is tainted but does deserve credit for bringing together forces that often take different positions with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian issue to universally condemn him.
Abbas is not a peace partner either. Like his Hamas counterparts there is not much evidence to suggest that he believes that Israel has the right to exist within peaceful and secure borders.
If Abbas showed meaningful movement in this direction he could make a strong case for a Palestinian state. The Palestinian people could greatly benefit from Israel’s economic and technological clout. I am not holding my breath.
Such progress is unlikely to be forthcoming. Nor does it appear to be on the agenda for the future, so long as the Palestinian obsession with destroying Israel dominates over the need to build a workable infrastructure of their own. Bathing in a culture of victim hood and not moving on towards the future is ultimately self-destructive. The BDS movement exemplifies this pathology in spades.
This is the great tragedy here. The Israeli population knows this and is well aware that the attitude would not change if Gantz, Lapid, Barak or any other mainstream political figure were in power in Israel.
In the mean time Israel is looking forward. Problems persist on the home front (education and housing) but at the 71 year mark in its history the prognosis is looking good. We will wait and see what the future brings.
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