Israelis set to head to polls amid culture of chronic political instability

Israelis head to the polls on Tuesday for a fifth general election in less than four years with no certainty that the political deadlock is about to end any time soon.

Once again, the fault line revolves around one man: former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The two opposing blocs are divided into the Only Bibi camp and the Anyone but Bibi camp, alluding to the Likud leader’s nickname.

The right-wing and religious parties in the Netanyahu bloc, led by Likud, comprise the far-right Religious Zionist Party headed by Bezalel Smotrich and the two ultra-Orthodox parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas.

The anti-Netanyahu bloc, comprising centrist, right and left-wing parties, is made up of prime minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid; the National Unity Party led by defence minister Benny Gantz; Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu; the two left-wing parties, Meretz and Labor; and the United Arab List led by Mansour Abbas.

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The polls predict 59 or 60 seats for the pro-Netanyahu bloc, one or two seats short of a majority in the 120-seat Knesset, and 56 or 57 seats for the anti-Netanyahu camp, with the remaining four seats likely to go to the Hadash-Ta’al Arab party.

The good news for Netanyahu is that both the Arab parties projected to win seats are close to the 3.25 per cent threshold required to gain a minimum of four seats in the Knesset. If either one of the Arab parties fails to pass the threshold then the Netanyahu bloc is almost guaranteed a slim Knesset majority.

Both the United Arab List, which was part of the outgoing government, and Hadash-Ta’al are projected to win four seats but their fate may depend on the turnout among Israeli-Arab voters, expected to be significantly lower than the Jewish voter turnout.

Despite the danger facing the Arab parties, they failed to sign surplus vote agreements meaning tens of thousands of votes in the Arab sector will go to waste.

The Netanyahu bloc hopes that the final push in the last days of the campaign and a well-organised effort on election day combined with a low Arab turnout will be enough to clinch a wafer-thin Knesset majority.

In contrast, the best the anti-Netanyahu bloc can realistically hope for is to block Netanyahu’s return to power while Yair Lapid stays on as caretaker prime minister.

Under such a scenario, will the pro-Netanyahu bloc remain united if Netanyahu fails to deliver for the fifth consecutive time? Will the Likud’s “natural partners” abandon Netanyahu to form a government with Lapid or Gantz? Will there be a revolt within the Likud against the party’s uncontested leader?

The centre-left block has no path to forming a government without the support of Hadash-Ta’al. Whereas Lapid has refrained from ruling out such a scenario, Gantz pledged not to form a government with the non-Zionist Arab party.

The most significant trend during the election campaign has been the surge in support for the anti-Arab Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Strength), number two on the Religious Zionist Party list.

The polls predict 14 seats for the Religious Zionist Party, making it the third-largest party behind Likud (31) and Yesh Atid (23).

Racist extremist

Ben-Gvir, once considered a racist extremist beyond the pale, will be able to demand a key ministerial portfolio if Netanyahu is given the mandate to form a coalition. Senior US Democrats have warned that Ben-Gvir’s inclusion in a future government could damage Washington’s relations with Israel.

President Yitzhak Herzog has already indicated that he will press for a broad-based unity government once the election is over but it is difficult to see any politician in the anti-Bibi camp willing to agree as long as Netanyahu remains Likud leader.

Likud failed to ditch their leader after the last four elections and his grip on the party is now stronger than ever. Likud tried to highlight a number of issues during the campaign: the cost of living, the volatile security situation, concessions in the maritime border agreement with Lebanon, and the reliance of Lapid and Gantz on the support of Arab parties. However, none of these issues had a significant impact on the polls.

The message of the anti-Bibi camp focused on the alleged dangers of an extremist Netanyahu-Ben Gvir government and the threat to Israeli democracy. At the centre of the campaign was the allegation that a Netanyahu government would undermine the independence of the judiciary, allowing for the corruption allegations against Netanyahu to be overturned.

Netanyahu is accused of fraud and breach of trust in three separate graft cases, and bribery in one of them, in a trial that is expected to continue for at least another two years. He denies all the charges against him, claiming he is a victim of a witch hunt by the left, the media, the judiciary and law enforcement agencies in order to keep him from power.

Curtailing the power of the judicial branch has been a central policy platform of the pro-Netanyahu camp during the campaign. Among their proposals are annulling the crime of fraud and breach of trust, which would likely result in the end of Netanyahu’s trial.

Netanyahu has promised the public that if he secures a 61-seat majority, he will head a stable government over the course of four years. But even if he emerges victorious and secures a majority of one or two seats, he certainly won’t be the prime minister of a stable government. He will face an entirely new headache as the leader of a narrow right-wing government with a resurgent Religious Zionist Party as his dominant coalition partner.

The animosity the leaders of the anti-Bibi bloc feel towards Israel’s longest-serving prime minister has only grown over the years. This time they won’t be there to rescue him.

Those hoping that this election will finally put an end to the country’s chronic political instability should think again.