Billed as Israel’s decisive shift to the right, the election to the nineteenth Knesset merely represents treading-water. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises the same as before on security, the peace process and economy. But the shifting sands of Israeli electoral politics always throw up interesting, maybe significant, trends.
On the traditional right Likud and Avigdor Lieberman’s nationalist Yisreal Beiteinu ran a joint list seeking to capitalise on their close co-operation in government. However, as is often the case in electoral politics, the union proved to less than the sum of its two parts, loosing eleven seats overall to fall to 31 MKs in the 120-seat Knesset.
Part of Likud-Beiteinu’s problem may have been getting outflanked in their rhetoric by ultra-nationalist Jewish Home. Originally the most pragmatic of the religious parties, the National Religious Party, since becoming Jewish Home they have taken more strident positions, being part of the extreme-right National Union list in the 2006 election and for 2013 reversing this by incorporating most of the National Union. However, even with charismatic leader Naftali Bennett their campaign only brought three more seats, twelve in total, than their previous alliance did in 2006. Absent from Jewish Home was (now former) MK Michael Ben-Arfi, who was elected third on the National Union list in 2009 and was previously a member of the banned Kach party – a group originally founded by the racist Meir Kahane. Ben-Arfi stood with a new party, Otzma Le Yisrael, only just falling short of the two per cent threshold for entering parliament.
It was in the centre where arguably more happened. The now crowded centre-ground will see three parties represented. Most sensational is TV presenter Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid or There is a Future Party. It seems that Netanyahu will need Yesh Atid’s support, but on what terms? Coming second with 19 seats Lapid’s party forcefully represents the interests and economic concerns of Israel’s secular middle-class. After widespread support for the social justice protests in 2011 this is an important constituency but is Yesh Atid a one-man band? Lapid notably eschewed joining Labour and existing centrist party Kadima, which had been founded by the still comatose Ariel Sharon as almost his final act in 2005. Or is Yesh Atid a one-hit wonder? Centrist parties such as Dash in 1977 and Shinui in 2003 have stormed into the Knesset in large-ish numbers only to disappear at the next election. Shinui even included Lapid’s father Tommy.
The fate of Kadima could also be illustrative, combining pragmatists from Likud and Labour they were the largest party in the 2006 and 2009 elections but split after failing to form a government in 2009. Former leader Tzipi Livni formed another new party Hatnuah, which gained six seats and the rump Kadima crashed down to two at this election. The centre is vibrant and has specific demands, notably on the economy and secularism, but how this will be represented in future is probably still up for grabs.
Labour were third with 15 seats, up two from 2009 – or up seven from 2011 when Ehud Barak and his supporters left the party to continue his support of Netanyahu’s government. For the party that for many encapsulates the foundation of Israel as a functioning democracy in the Middle East (note to Egypt you need to show you can protect civic and press freedoms and hold subsequent elections become you can call yourself a functioning democracy) it has been a long fall. Never below 40 seats throughout the 1950s and 1960s, they last had a plurality of seats in 1999 and last achieved over 40 in 1992. It remains to be seen whether leader and former political journalist Shelly Yachimovich can further rebuild the party. Indeed fellow social democrats Meretz arguably benefitted more from the 2011 social justice protests doubling their seats from three to six.
For the Ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism it was largely as you were, 18 seats between them, up from 16. It remains to be seen if Netanyahu can cobble together parliamentary support from both the Ultra-Orthodox and the secular centre. Similarly the Arab parties were largely unchanged – left-leaning Balad remained on three and the more Islamist United Arab List-Ta’al gained one seat to win four. And the Communists keep a toe-hold in parliament through Hadash a cross-community grouping whose unchanged representation consists of three Israeli-Arabs and one secular Jewish-Israeli.
Far from its pre-election billing, the tectonic shift to the right was actually in 1977, the first election when Likud took more seats than Labour, in 2013 it is too soon to tell whether there was a shift further right, to the centre or even the start of a rebirth on the left.
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