What’s ahead for Israel?
I don’t know and nobody else knows either, because the results of yesterday’s election were a dead heat and no one has a clear majority to form a new government. So there will be a lot of wrangling ahead.
Here’s the story as it now stands:
With 95 percent of the votes counted, Kahol Lavan has won 33 out of 120 Knesset seats, with Likud behind with 32 seats. Netanyahu’s bloc, comprised of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties, currently stands at 56 seats. The center-left bloc has 56 seats.
Avigdor Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beiteinu party is projected to have eight seats, is expected to be the election’s kingmaker. On Wednesday morning, he reiterated his support for a “broad liberal unity government,” which would include Yisrael Beiteinu, Likud and Kahol Lavan.
As far as I can tell, that’s not much of a change from before this election.
More:
In a brief statement to the press, Netanyahu says the choice is now between a government led by him or a “dangerous government” relying on “anti-Zionist Arab parties.” Likud and the right-wing Hayamin Hehadash and Habayit Hayehudi parties have agreed to begin negotiations to form a Netanyahu-led coalition, he adds.
I’ve said many times that I don’t like parliamentary systems. This election hasn’t disabused me of that notion.
Heh, so we could say what’s ahead is what’s behind. Or, auf Deutsch, status quo ante.
Not surprisingly for the ultra-left Haaretz, the quote is misleading. What it misleadingly calls the “center left block” only gets to 56 seats if it includes the explicitly anti-Zionist Arab Joint List, which basically supports terrorism and includes Islamists. No Israeli government coalition has ever included an Arab party (as opposed to mainly Jewish parties that have Arabs on their Knesset lists).
Electorates forget and have to relearn lessons. Netanyahu was PM because of the wave of terrorism that last time the left controlled the government.
“I’ve said many times that I don’t like parliamentary systems.”
True. 100% absolute truth. A pox on parliaments.
Lieberman “blew up” the results of the previous elections because he was angling for a national unity government. (One might also conclude that he believes, along with not a few others, that Bibi’s served long enough, thank you—and is, and always was, too cautious for the job at hand.)
Now, it turns out that Lieberman may well be “kingmaker”….
And he’s still angling for a national unity government.
The only question is, “How can that possibly be accomplished…with any kind of long term stability?”
Probably can’t. But…where there’s a will there’s a way? Not sure it’s possible, but a few politicians may just have to bite the bullet.
Unless they want another election in a few months, tossing another half-billion shekels down the drain. (The school kids will be happy, though, along with quite a few others, as for some reason, election day in Israel is treated for the most part as a national holiday.)
(Of course, the neighbors could always chip in and help make that national unity dream a reality…)
It looks like Lieberman will be the linchpin. IIRC Netanyahu called the election because would not agree with Lieberman’s demand to exclude a religious party.
The Left in Israel is using the US Left’s playbook by running ex-military stalking horses who claim they are moderates. They are also using lawfare on Bibi like the Democrats have tried on Trump.
Lots of parallels. I wonder if the Israeli’s allow ballot harvesting? If so, expect the Left to pull out a victory from the late vote counting.
No Israeli government coalition has ever included an Arab party
The Labor Party had an allied minorities list at one time, and various parties have slated Arab candidates. There have been Arab cabinet ministers now and again; not sure when the first one was. The most recent Likud ministry had a Druze minister.
What’s never happened is a coalition on the sufferance of one of the Arab nationalist parties. For most of Israel’s history, Arab MPs came from a political federation called ‘Rakah’ that was organized around the Communist Party.
Lots of parallels. I wonder if the Israeli’s allow ballot harvesting? If so, expect the Left to pull out a victory from the late vote counting.
The vote counting’s done. Lieberman’s going to have to stop being a putz or Netanyahu and Gantz have to put something together which allows them to ignore Lieberman. There is no option 3.
“Not surprisingly for the ultra-left Haaretz, the quote is misleading. What it misleadingly calls the “center left block” only gets to 56 seats if it includes the explicitly anti-Zionist Arab Joint List, which basically supports terrorism and includes Islamists.” djf [my emphasis]
“I wonder if the Israeli’s allow ballot harvesting? If so, expect the Left to pull out a victory from the late vote counting.” Bob
“What’s never happened is a coalition on the sufferance of one of the Arab nationalist parties.” Art Deco
Israel is proof that even when facing an unremitting, murderous threat, a consensus of those on the right will not act to disenfranchise those who seek their country’s destruction.
Apparently, Israelis are historically ignorant of the lesson Aaron Burr demonstrated right after Alexander Hamilton fired his pistol up into the air…
Of course, the American right is in no position to criticize Israel’s suicidal foolishness.
djf is correct- the stories on the election are terribly misleading- the actual numbers look to be center right-56 mandates, center-left 43, Lieberman’s party with 8, and the Arab Joint list with 13. If you actually read Gantz’ manifesto, he won’t be able to use the Arab Joint List as support for a government, so Netanyahu will get the first shot at forming a govenment because he has already enlisted the minor parties on the right in a joint agreement. All Lieberman is going to be able to do is either deny Netanyahu a majority and force a 3rd election, or he is going to have to concede to support Likud and its bloc.
It really is disgusting how badly this story is being covered even by the Israeli newspapers, who should know better. At least the US papers can plausibly claim to be complete morons on the matter.
“It really is disgusting how badly this story is being covered even by the Israeli newspapers, who should know better.” Yancey Ward
They DO know better, it’s just that the truth is ‘counter productive’ to the advancement of their agenda. In fairness, like Lenin they don’t believe in truth, they only believe in their ideology. It’s their ‘god’ and they will not tolerate any god before theirs.
Geoffrey,
Of course, I do realize they do know better, but part of me wants to think it isn’t lying all the way down.
Reading about Israeli elections seems to be like reading about political violence events: best to wait about three days until the media get the story straight.
I understood a little bit more when I got done reading this from Tablet, but don’t pretend to come anywhere close to being an expert.
However, I could probably come up to Vox’s standards for its reporters.
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/291465/understanding-israels-latest-election-results
For a somewhat different perspective — one that notes the closeness of the election results, and explains how Netanyahu has pulled a rabbit out of this hat before — see this:
https://spectator.us/netanyahu-wins-again-eventually/
Some random comments from an american expat and long-term resident:
1. One other possibilty for netanyahu is to cut a deal with the Labor/social welfare bloc. This could yield a slim majority of 61 without liberman.
2. This result demonstrates why it is so important to push/punch back against left wing media influence. With no evidence, the Left has successfully framed netanyahu as unsavory. They have also maintained their position as opinion-makers even as Oslo and capitalist prosperity caused their political base to shrink. They are still entrenched in media, academia, and the high courts. Sound familiar?
3. It also demonstrates that people have short memories. And fashion counts. Being right is not enough. Even obvious truths must be marketed anew. Many conservatives ignore this.
3. Liberman has tapped into a fear of the growing religious presence. The orthodox and traditional jews have larger families and invest more in education. Most of their children continue in their way.
In addition there have been several waves of renewed interest in religion and a willingness to publicly practice judaism – in response to the decades-long supression of traditional Jewish identity by the Left. Recent flashpoints have centered on the public/media presence of women in headscarves and other traditionally modest attire, and opening shops on the sabbath.
In addition to his home base of completely secularized and intermarried Soviet emigres, liberman tapped into the fears of secular Jewish israelis who previously felt themselves comfortably mainstream – but now are not so sure they will remain so. Many of these israelis have children who are either more religious or more assimilated than themselves.
It was telling that liberman and his opposites on the religious side both laid claim to the word “normal” in their slogans. One religious party touched on the nerve i’ve described and also took a swipe at the LGBT agenda with the following slogans:
Will my kid marry a jew?
Will my grandson marry a woman?
The religious fault line is probably as important as the security/defense angle.
The usually needed, and most often ideologically incoherent coalition building, after the election, is part of what party list politics, the parliamentary system, is all about.
The US district based winner-take-all system is not always better, but usually is, and is always more reliable in terms of fixed. limited elections. “Third” Parties in America, the Libertarians, the Greens, HR Perot’s (RIP) Reform party, the 30’s Socialists, they play an important role in allowing the really upset to be actually running and trying to persuade others. If it’s not enough of a crisis to vote for that third party, it’s not such a crisis.
When I was a Libertarian, I liked, without knowing or living under, the idea of Parliamentary elections and Party Lists. Now, as shown by Israel (and Italy, and Slovakia), the instability inherent in such systems becomes a big problem.
But as polarization increases in America, and the UK, it might be that no democracy can hold when the elites are mobilized to use elite positions of influence to hurt the majority of voters.
Reading more about the various inconsistent parties in Israel is too fun — the Arab Joint List was, in April, made up for 4 different Arab parties. It’s not clear what they agree on OTHER than opposing Bibi. This is often the case among ethnic minority parties, like the Hungarian Slovaks (tho, despite Slovak citizenship, they might consider themselves Slovak Hungarians, meaning they are Hungarian first).
My wife being an active Christian Democrat, narrowly missing being among those elected in our Slovak elections 3+ years ago, makes me very interested in EU & parliamentary politics. (Cutoff 5%, her party got 4.97%, no seats) She’s already preparing to run with KDH in upcoming elections “in or before March 2020”. When the gov’t is currently NOT popular, they prefer to NOT call early elections, so most expect the election in March.
The US district based winner-take-all system is not always better, but usually is,
Channeling Donald Horowitz: competing electoral systems may be better or worse adapted to the facts-on-the-ground. There is no system that’s the best in all circumstances. de Gaulle understood that the systems in use during the 3d and especially the 4th Republic in France exacerbated the pathologies in French political society rather than containing them. His system was contrived and imperfect, but therapeutic.
The utility of slate systems is that they avoid the pathologies incorporated in the process of drawing districts and they allow for expression of minority viewpoints. The disutility you can see in Israel’s political tapestry. You can avoid the pathologies by having as an appendix to your constitution practice manual for drawing constituencies which contains and distributes the exercise of discretion. We would benefit from this as a replacement for Baker v. Carr.
When you have a single-member district system, you can make use of a number of alternatives for structuring contests and tabulating votes. First-past-the-post is the simplest option, but gives perverse results.
About the worst option is the use of first-past-the–post with multi-candidate districts, which you commonly see in local elections in this country. AFAIK, about the only place that has used that method for national elections is Japan.
Art Deco – after living under Israel’s slate-based, districtless parliamentary system, I am deeply unimpressed. The most important flaw is the total lack of *representative* democracy, and the check that imposes on politicians. It is possible to build a career by going down to party headquarters and kissing butt. At every election, soon-forgotten rhetorical bones are thrown to the more sparsely populated areas of the country. There is no such thing as “calling up my MP to complain” – because there are no electoral districts and nobody’s career is on the line if they stray from the mandate given them by “their” voters.
Re: Parliamentary systems: Yes, they do seem to suffer this kind of incoherence.
Re: The alternative district-based system in the U.S.: It’s better, but I think it could use a small change: We should have an instant-runoff system (specifically, “Single Transferrable Vote”). I think that should be implemented both in the primaries and in the general election.
There are five advantages:
#1 – It’s easily explained to, and understood by, anyone with sufficient intellect and competence to be trusted with the vote.
(“Here’s what you do: You rank your preferred winners of a given office in order of preference. You vote for the Candidate for Office X that you think would be best. But, since you know that your Candidate may not win, you also indicate who your Second Choice Candidate would be if your First Choice doesn’t win. And if there are only 2 candidates for this office then you don’t even need to specify your Second Choice, because it’ll automatically be whoever’s left after your First Choice. In a race with 3 candidates, you pick First Choice and Second Choice. With 4 candidates, you pick First, Second, Third. You’re allowed one write-in, if you like, which increases the number of candidates on your ballot by one, and thus your number of choices for that office by one.)
#2 – Even the counting is easily explained: All votes are initially tallied according to their First Choices. The vote-counts of all the candidates are compared. Whichever candidate has the fewest votes is kicked out, and the ballots on which he was the First Choice are redistributed to other candidates according to their Second Choice picks. The vote-counts are compared again, and again, the candidate with the fewest votes is kicked out. This process continues until there is only one candidate remaining; that candidate is the winner.
#3 – It saves money on runoff elections, because the runoff takes place in the general election; hence the term “Instant Runoff.”
#4 – It eliminates the problem of the “spoiler” vote wherein the presence of a popular 3rd-party candidate makes the election of the least popular ideology more likely. (In our current “First Past The Post” system, if two conservatives are running, the leftist normally gets elected because the conservative vote is “split.” The Single Transferrable Vote system prevents this.)
#5 – It encourages less demonization and more respectful disagreement between candidates and their base advocates, because Candidate X must strive not to alienate the voters who might prefer Candidate Y as their First Choice, but who would — if not alienated — likely choose Candidate X as their Second Choice.
There’s really only one disadvantage: More effort to count votes. This is a real problem, but is probably more than offset by the lack of the need for expensive runoff elections.
Ben David on September 19, 2019 at 11:49 am said:
Sounds like the much-discussed problem with the Detroit city council and their “at large” system.
It promoted the advancement of professional grand standers and protected corrupt incumbent morons possessing no more than name recognition, and the loyalty of a pack of paid activists and favored flunkies.
Time will tell whether the change back to districts instituted relatively recently will do some eventual good.
Re: Parliamentary systems: Yes, they do seem to suffer this kind of incoherence.
They do when the political society is such that, filtered through the electoral system, it delivers hung parliaments all the time, and hung parliaments w/o obvious partnerships between the spectra of political parties. Has worked OK other places.
Again, parliamentary systems of the Westminster or Gaullist variety are modal in this world among countries where electoral systems have abided during the last three generations. Where you see separation-of-powers at this time (aside from the U.S.) is in Latin America and Africa. If you’re looking at the subset of countries where constitutional processes have been present since the period following the 1st World War (barring foreign invasion), you have a sample of about two-dozen countries, among which only the U.S. and Costa Rica favor separation-of-powers. Switzerland and some of the microstates in Europe favor idiosyncratic systems. It’s parliamentary government everywhere else.
“3. It also demonstrates that people have short memories. And fashion counts. Being right is not enough. Even obvious truths must be marketed anew. Many conservatives ignore this.” – Ben David
Very true.
“Being right” (correct) is of the first importance; the Left, not being hindered by that consideration, takes the most advantage of short memories and fashions.
Conservatives are making headway on marketing now, I think, but they are shut out of too many markets at this time to be a big influence on the rising generation.
Art Deco – after living under Israel’s slate-based, districtless parliamentary system, I am deeply unimpressed.
Cannot recall the history of how and why it was adopted. The main parties would have to run roughshod over the others to replace it, and that’s a disposition you don’t want among your pre-eminent parties. If it were replaced in a referendum, that might be agreeable. Given the cross-cutting cleavages in Israeli society, and how the various dispositions are often orthogonal or only weakly-correlated, a more fragmented political spectrum is what you’d expect no matter what electoral system you used. Aggregation of political parties would mean more factions within the parties. I’m guessing the optimal solution might be what Donald Horowitz was promoting a generation ago for South Africa: ordinal balloting in single-member districts.
What I personally dislike (and it’s a problem that slate systems run by boss-ridden parties can foster – Nadav Safran offered that as the bane of Israel’s system ca. 1980) is having party barons around forever and ever. You see it where other systems prevail too. I’d like to see rotation-in-office rules and lower and upper age limits on candidacy to contain it.
“In addition there have been several waves of renewed interest in religion and a willingness to publicly practice judaism – in response to the decades-long supression of traditional Jewish identity by the Left. ” – Ben David
My mind always boggles whenever I see complaints that some people — living in the only nation-state ever founded to preserve a particular group that is almost universally persecuted for their religion — are being too religious.