Elections are coming up in Israel
Can Netanyahu pull it off again?
Trump has endorsed him, and Israel is one of the few countries where that would seem to be a plus. The elections are on October 27, and as usual, they promise to be complicated because of the challenges of forming a coalition government no matter who wins:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed concern over the possibility of failing to win the upcoming election during an interview with Radio North on Sunday.
“We need to make sure we win. I am not certain of my victory, and I am very worried,” he said.
Netanyahu also addressed the possibility that he might fail to form the next government. Asked whether he would retire from politics if he lost, Netanyahu replied, “No, I will not retire from politics.”
Netanyahu alPso criticized his political rivals, including Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, and Avigdor Liberman, claiming that a government led by them would depend on the support of Arab parties.
Polls – for what they’re worth – generally say that Eisenkot leads. But in the sort of parliamentary system Israel has, that’s not necessarily all that important:
With just nine days left until the election, Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party has maintained a consistent lead over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud in four recent election polls, but neither political bloc comes close to securing the 61 seats needed for a Knesset majority, according to surveys published by Maariv, Channel 13, Kan News, and Channel 12.
The four surveys paint an almost identical picture: the Zionist opposition averages 51.25 seats, compared with 51 for Netanyahu’s bloc, a virtual tie that leaves the Arab parties and smaller factions hovering around the electoral threshold in key positions ahead of election day.
Netanyahu has held the position of prime minister longer than anyone in Israel’s history: from 1996 to 1999, from 2009 to 2021, and from 2022 till now. So I would never count him out. He’s seventy-six years old at present, but that doesn’t seem such an advanced age these days for a head of state.
Benny Gantz dropped out today in what I take it has been a precipitous fall from a higher popularity. Israeli politics are opaque enough without bringing rigged (yet useful!) opinion surveys into the picture.
The global left hates Netanyahu partly because he’s pro-Israel and not globalist, partly because he’s effective, but there’s another reason. It has a parallel with RIchard Nixon.
Something I myself didn’t realize until I was well into adulthood, because the event occurred before my time, is that the Establishment hated Nixon to a considerable degree because of Alger Hiss.
Netanyahu, likewise, has been hated in part because he played a significant role in turning the Israeli economy away from the kibbutzim. It’s often forgotten today that Zionism was a lefty cause in the early 20C, and early Israel had a strongly socialist economic bent.
Netanyahu was not solely responsible for the change, but he presided over a lot of it, and the global Left has never forgiven him, or Israel, for it.