Unpacking the Election

So. Sigh. On elections eve I published this piece and it lost me several subscribers and garnered a big bunch of silence. The idea was distasteful- that this election was going to come down to whether or not Jewish leaders partner with Arab parties. Arab leaders who celebrate October 7 and mourn the day of Israeli Independence and call for an end to the “occupation”. These Arab Parties could be the lynchpin in the formation of a government.

When the polls were open, I invited our community chat to discuss the elections. It was like the checkout desk at a library. Not loud enough to be misconstrued as chatter.

And then 10:00 pm IST arrived, and with it the results from all of the exit polls. Shocking many, Bibi Netanyahu’s Likud party received more votes than any other party. The anti Netanyahu bloc appears (we will see in the coming days as all the votes are counted) to have gained more seats than the pro-Bibi bloc. But neither with the 61 seats required to create a government.

The Arabs came out to vote. Oh did they come out. I will tell you that the chatter in the family chats is that they were paid to vote. Whether or not that’s truth or fiction is barely relevant. There are two Arab parties that received votes: the Joint List received about 10 seats, and Ra’am received 7 or 8, for a total of 17 or 18 seats by the combined Arab parties. As a point of reference, they currently share 10 seats. (For math wizzes- that’s nearly double.)

The way seats are allocated is also fairly simple math: add up all of the number of votes, divide that by 120 for the number of seats of the Knesset, that equals the number of votes that give a seat. (Plus or minus disqualified ballots and parties that don’t reach the threshold.) Unprecedented Arab voter turnout diluted (and therefore lessened) the expected number of seats to be won by Jewish parties. At the same time it increased the number of seats won by their parties.

So who are the Arab parties?

The Ra’am party (an abbreviation for United Arab List) represents the religious conservative muslims and their values. Ra’am supports a two state solution including making East Jerusalem it’s capital. It’s leader, Mansour Abbas, celebrated October 7 and has called for an end to the Jewish “occupation”.

In September, the politically appointed right wing Central Elections Council voted 18 to 5 to bar Abbas and the entire Ra’am party from these elections based on their ideologies which reject Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Oh, and Abbas’s personal ties to the terrorists of the Muslim brotherhood.

Ra’am contested this to the very liberal Supreme Court. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected the CEC ban, saying that they had failed to meet the very narrow criteria available for legally disqualifying a candidate or a party. In short, the party that calls for the end of the Jewish state as we know it was allowed to run in these Knesset elections because of the (nearly unlimited) authority of a liberal Supreme Court that has (little to no) checks and balances.

Abbas did not suddenly fall into this position today. In 2021 Naftali Bennet (in planned rotation with Lapid) became Prime Minister only because he was willing to do what no Jewish lawmaker had done before: create a government in cooperation with an anti Zionist Arab party- the one and the same Ra’am under Abbas. So it would be expected that Bennet would do so again to form a government. But even with the surge in seats for the Arab parties, Bennet’s Unity party did not get enough seats to be able to form a government without Eisenkot or Netanyahu. On the flip side, the week before the elections, Bennet refused to sign an oath that was circulated committing to not join a government led by Bibi Netanyahu.

So what could happen?

What has to happen first is for all of the votes to be counted; the official results will be announced on November 4. Meanwhile, after talking to different party leaders, and doing some math, President Herzog, at his complete discretion, will invite one of the leaders to attempt to create a government of 61 seats. (This is assuming that the right wing news station Channel 14 is not correct; they are the only media outlet that showed ((for a minute before reversing themselves)) that Bibi already had the 61 seats when the votes are tallied.) Bibi will argue it should be him because his party got the most votes. Eisenkot will argue it should be him because his bloc collectively has the most seats.

But as of now, neither of them has enough seats to get to 61 with their current coalition. And so they will need a plan. There are only three possibilities:

1. A coalition with the Arab parties.

2. A defection from one bloc to another. (However, while the anti-defection laws don’t prohibit this kind of party hopping, they do create a situation in which the MK defector could tank their own career by doing so.)
3. A country wide re-vote.

This all reads like a re-run of 2019. Netanyahu was tasked with forming a government, and nearly did so despite the Attorney General’s plan to indict him. Bibi stayed in office while trying to form his government. During those six months, tensions mounted on the border of Syria with Iranian forces. There were sparks from both Hezbollah and the Lebanese army at the Northern border. There were rockets and a failed cease fire with Hamas along the Gaza strip. Oh, and of course there was unrest in Judea and Samaria and an uptick in anti-semitic acts in both Europe and the U.S. And there was amazing success in sovereignty in the Golan in partnership between Bibi and then President Trump. In short, another year at the office for Israel.

But despite all of that, Netanyahu could have formed a government if not for Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. Lieberman insisted that there be an immediate vote for ultra orthodox conscription to the army. Of course, the Charedi parties, who were a part of Bibi’s government, squarely rejected this.

And so… Israel went back to the polls in September. And again no one could form a government. And so… Israel went back to the polls in March. And after serving throughout these re-votes as an acting Prime Minister, and finally receiving Gantz’s Covid19-era concession to sit on a rotating PM government, Bibi Netanyahu kept his job.

Just the facts ma’am. You may not like what I’m saying, but I’ll tell you what: Israelis like living the truth a whole lot less than you’re offended by hearing it. Unless Channel 14 has some magic fairy dust that the rest of the pollsters are missing, our country will have 3 choices: accept a government in partnership with the people who want our destruction, have a shocking defection, or go back to the polls.

Never a dull moment from the nahal to the beaches.