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Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Election Results in Israel: More Uncertainty, More Hope

by Hillel Fendel

Israeli election ballots

This morning's preliminary results showed that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his allies had reached a clear majority of 61 MKs. However, as the hours passed and more votes were counted, a very significant change was registered: The small Arab party named Raam – which originally was thought to have not received the necessary 3.25% of the vote to even enter the Knesset – began picking up proportionately more votes. We now know that Raam will, in fact, enter the Knesset, with five seats.

And where did these seats come from? One is from the Likud, and another is from Yemina – leaving the pro-Bibi camp with only 59. 

This is not the final picture, of course, for many polling stations have not yet been counted, and will not be for at least a day or so. The uncounted votes include those from the army, which tend to provide proportionally more votes for the right-wing parties.

With nearly 90% of the votes counted, we know that flagship party of the camp, "Religious Zionism" headed by Betzalel Smotrich, did very well indeed, receiving six Knesset mandates – more than had been predicted by most pre-election polls. In addition, as part of an agreement between Netanyahu and Smotrich, the Likud Party reserved spot 28 on their list for Religious Zionism party candidate Ophir Sofer, bringing Smotrich's party to a total of 7 members of Knesset. The party is comprised of three factions: the National Union, the "core" of the party, as well as Itamar Ben-Gvir's "Otzmah," and "Noam" spearheaded by Yeshivat Har HaMor in Jerusalem. This, together with the relatively many religious-Zionist MKs in Yemina (headed by Naftali Bennett) and the Likud, means that a wide spectrum of views standing for "the Nation of Israel in the Land of Israel according to the Torah of Israel" will be represented in the coming Knesset. 

And of course, let us also not forget the religious MKs of the hareidi parties, expected to number 8 in the United Torah Judaism party and 9 from Shas. 

Because of an interesting agreement between two right-wing parties – the anti-Bibi "New Hope" party headed by Gideon Saar, and Yemina, which tends to support Netanyahu – the scales could be tipped by a matter of a few thousand votes. That is, the two parties signed, before the elections, a vote-sharing contract, stating that their surplus votes that do not add up to a full mandate's worth will all be counted towards the party that can use them to gain an extra seat. 

At the moment, says commentator Amit Segal, the "contested" seat belongs to Saar – but if Bennett can pick up enough votes to pass Saar by 14,000 – and thus give the pro-Bibi camp a critical, all-important extra seat – it will go to Yemina.  Segal notes that Bennett has traditionally done quite well among the soldiers, "but 14,000 is a lot of votes."

All this begs the question - what government will be formed?

Former National Union party leader and MK Yaakov (Ketzaleh) Katz told Bet El Institutions' Baruch Gordon that several distinct scenarios are now possible: "Hold on to your seat, but one distinct possibility is that a fifth election will actually have to be held. But the truth is, though this is a nightmare for many, it has its advantages: The United States will not be able to pressure us regarding our growth in Judea and Samaria for several more months – and then they themselves will be busy with their own midterm Congressional elections. So that's good for the Jews in Yesha."

The second option, and the one most discussed at present, is that Netanyahu might seek to form a minority government based on the tacit support of Raam. That is, no one expects the Arab party to actually join or be included in the government, but if it abstains in critical votes and does not vote against the coalition, the government will be able to subsist. 

This option is the least preferred for most MKs in the Likud camp, Ketzaleh noted. It has also been said that when issues such as the need for retaliatory action against Hamas terrorists arise, the Arab party will effectively have veto power, leaving the government's hands tied. This is a critical matter that has not been yet resolved by those favoring this solution to the satisfaction of others.

Finally, Ketzaleh noted, Netanyahu can try to find one or two Knesset members from parties such as Blue and White and New Hope to quit their parties and join the government. Netanyahu will say to them, "True, you ran on a platform demanding that I be replaced – but do you want to be personally responsible for the need to hold a fifth election campaign in 2.5 years?? Now is the time to overlook your personal preferences and do the right thing for the country by enabling a stable government to be formed." 

He will also add, of course, that they can each expect a nice ministerial position in exchange for their sacrifices. 

"I truly believe that a solution will be found," Ketzaleh said, "and that at the end of the day, Netanyahu will remain Prime Minister - because the bottom line is that there are really more than 70 right-wing nationalist MKs in the Knesset, because of Lieberman's 6 and Saar's 7. Some 72 MKs support the right-wing nationalist ideas!"

Ketzaleh himself says the obvious – that it is very hard to predict what will happen – and that he himself has not yet formed a clear opinion. On the one hand, he believes that in the end, Netanyahu as a very experienced politician will find the way to form a government with himself at the helm – but on the other hand, the stalemate could very well continue for three months up until the time that a fifth election campaign will have to be announced. "I don't see anyone in Saar's party jumping ship, although there are one or two long-shots. The same is true for the Blue and White party." 

"Generally we believe unity to be a good thing," Gordon noted, "but here we see that the two parties that can claim to be religious-Zionist [Bennett's Yamina and Smotrich's Religious-Zionist] received way more than the total they received when they ran together. How did this happen?"

Ketzaleh answered that in truth, the two parties reached out to different voters within the religious-Zionist camp, and that many who voted for each of them would not have done so had they been united. In addition, Smotrich's party benefited from the excited spirit of the young Noam and Otzmah supporters, both of which were weakened in the last campaign when the two parties ran separately on their own.

Noam party chairman Avi Maoz, who will be a Knesset Member several weeks from now barring unforeseen circumstances, told his celebrating supporters last night: "Thank G-d for all the goodness… His kindness is forever. How fortunate we are that we succeeded in uplifting within the public the great spirit of the Jewish identity of the State of Israel and the struggle against foreign spirits that threaten us."

Let us hope that we are also not threatened by "internal spirits" of discord, and that the way can be found to form a strong, long-lasting, nationalist Jewish government.