In 21 days, it’s election time in Israel, the so called only democracy in the Middle East. This time everything seems to be even crazier than normal. Even if you have followed the last elections or somewhat familiar with Israeli politics you’ll probably still be confused over the utter chaos that is reigning these elections. Seeing as how the outcome of these elections might have quite an effect on the Middle-east, I thought we might need a thread to discuss and try and make sense of the this mess.
I’ll try and present as many parties and key people as I can while giving a little relevant history for each. I will also try and explain in general terms the Israeli election process and what everything means.
Note: I’m not bi-partial - I am affiliated with the Israeli left. I've been an activist for Peace Now, Solidarity and other radical-left groups. I was a member of the Meretz party until recently. I cannot promise a fair standing to the more right wing parties in this thread. If you’re affiliated with the Israeli right, get over it.
The System.
Israel is a parliamentary democracy with a unicameral parliament of 120 seats called the Knesset, which is the legislative power. The prime minister (PM) of Israel is the head of government in a (super) multi-party system. The government and ministers are appointed by the PM. The current Israeli government consists of no less than 28 ministers, some of which have no declared purpose (“minister without a portfolio.”
Only one time in Israeli history a party has managed to reach the 61 seats necessary to form a government on its own, so usually the government is comprised of a coalition of several parties.Each party has a list of its members, the more votes it gets, the more people from the list get into the Knesset (in the order of the list.) In the elections, each Israeli citizen votes for a party in a secret ballot. This means you do not directly vote to the PM or members of the Knesset. Each party must meet a threshold of 2% of the votes to be allocated a seat in the Knesset.
After the elections, each party will recommend a prime minister, not necessarily from their party, to the president (currently Shimon Peres). He will then see who is the most likely to form a stable coalition and then task him or her with forming the government.
The biggest party does not necessarily win, as we’ve seen in the last election, where Kadima got the majority of the votes, but failed to form a coalition.
The Issues
These are some of the major issues that will drive these elections:
The Economy and Social Issues - Israel saw some of its biggest anti-government protests in the last two years thank to high poverty numbers, high cost of living and other social issues, despite the Israeli economy being on the rise. The population largely attribute this to neo-con economies and unfair distribution of budget. Parties from all across the spectrum are now playing the social game, with even the traditionally fiscally conservative parties like Likud trying to catch up.
The Secular-Religious Status Quo - There's a status quo in Israel regarding the religious population. This has to do with the role orthodox Judaism plays in the country (the sole authority over marriage, divorce and conversion) and the orthodox lifestyle - This includes exemption from the mandatory military service, various government aids and funding for the religious public schools. There's a heated public debate over whether the status quo should remain or broken, as many in the secular population feel they are paying for the Haredi lifestyle while they don't have to serve or work.
Iran and Security - With Israel becoming more and more established and its presence and existence less and less debatable, people look for the unlikeliest of situations to spread fear among the country’s population. The trendiest horror story right now is of a nuclear Iran wiping Israel off the map. Parties are working hard to make sure they appear militant and strong enough - This mainly translate into adding known military figures to the parties.
The Peace un-Process - And what about that pesky little issue that costs Israel its foreign image, economy and national morality known as the occupation? Now that Palestine is a state according to the UN, and Mahmoud Abbas is signaling he’s willing to make hard sacrifices, Israel is put on the spot. While the radical-right remains opposed to the idea of a Palestinian state, the center-right still stumbles over trying to woo moderates while still not losing votes to the radical-right. The left and center block have mostly decided to ignore the issue.
The Parties.
There are no less than 34 parties running in this election. For comparison, Last elections 33 parties have run, of which 12 managed to win seats in the Knesset.
I will try to explain a little about each party, where is stands, historical context etc. But because the sheer numbers, I’ll mostly only talk about the relevant ones.
Because the biggest party is not necessarily the ruling party, there’s a much bigger emphasis on “blocs” (group of parties with similar ideologies and voter base). I’ve decided to divide the parties to - Right, Center, Left, Orthodox and Arab. In many places the Orthodoxs bloc will the merged with the Right Bloc and the Arabs with the Left Bloc, and sometimes both of them with the Center, but I feel that’s largely inaccurate.
The Right Bloc:
Likud Beitenu (a joint list of the Likud and Yisrael Beitenu parties) Party led by Benjamin Netanyahu.
This is the traditional conservative/right-wing party of Israel and the current ruling party. They have until now been the moderate center-right party, but have recently merged with the far more extreme Israel Beitenu Party, a far-right party led by Avigdor Lieberman who enjoyed huge popularity last elections. This has not only marked them clearly as much more to the right than their traditional rule, but has in a way also changed the very character of the party. This was made clear by the primaries, which resulted in a practically radical-right list (So much, that the Yisrael Beitenu members of the joint list now considered the moderates.)
So far, the polls are showing a clear decline for the joint list, and votes are continuing to drip (mostly farther to the right, like the Jewish Home party.)
The Jewish Home-National Union Party (HaBayit HaYehudi) led by Naftali Bennett.
The modern far-right incarnation of the Mafdal (National Religious) party. The original Mafdal party split into various parties, the most notable of which were the Jewish Home party and the National Union party, who decided to again merge into a single party for this election (Save for two notable figures, Aryeh Eldad and Michael Ben-Ari, who decided to run independently.) They mostly represent the nationalistic religious sector in Israel, but are gaining more and more voters from the secular right-wing as well. Their new leader, Naftali Bennett, represents the younger of the party voter base, and is considered to be bad news for Bibi.They are gearing up to be the third or second largest party this election.
Their new model for an Israeli-Palestinian arrangement calls for the annexation of all the C areas in the west bank which is totally not apartheid. Sounds foolproof.
The Center Block:
HaAvoda (Labor) Party led by Shelly Yachimovich.
This traditional center-left... Err, I mean just center, was at one time the biggest party in Israel. Hard to believe now, when the party is at an all time low after being led by Ehud Barak who steered the party much more to the right, to the point he left the party to form his own and then quitting the race in a hilarious act of political seppuku. Since then the party has elected social-democratic Sheli Yachimovich to lead it. Noted for her fierce stance on welfare and economics issues, she’s less clear on foreign policy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the point one might think there’s no conflict at all.
Recently, Yachomovich stated that calling Labor a left-wing party is a historical injustice, and gave a speech in the settlement of Ariel to appease more right-wing voters. Whether this is a pragmatic masquerade or an ideological turn for the party remains to be seen. The primaries meanwhile have resulted in clearly leftist list, populated by many new and young people (many from the protest of summer 2011.)
Yesh Atid (There’s a Future) led by Yair Lapid.
Ah, the new player in Israeli politics. Yair Lapid was a late-night and news host, journalist and general douche who now turns to politics. He’s the son of former Knesset member Tommy Lapid. As a journalist he was insanely popular in Israel, and was at one time seen as the epitome of everything Israeli. He announced his bid to run for Knesset earlier this year, and has since then said everything to try and appease everyone while not saying anything in particular either. He’s running as the savior of the middle-class (even though his fiscal stances are strictly neo-con) and as an opposition to the religious winds in the Knesset (even though he has a homophobic Rabbi as his no. 2) In objective terms, the guy is a total slimeball.
HaTanua (The Movement) led by Tzippi Livni.
Tzippi Livni, you might remember the name as the biggest opposition to Bibi four years ago. After winning the most Knesset seats she decided to do nothing but sit on her ass, which turned out not to be the best strategy, as she soon lost the primaries in Kadima, her former party, to Shaul Mofaz. After quitting and a brief period of irritating teasing, she decided to run in a new party into which she gathered every Israeli politician who ever lost an election.
Kadima led by Shaul Mofaz.
If you followed the last elections, you might recall this name, or even the name of the former party leader Tzippi Livni. This centrist party was founded by former PM Ariel Sharon in 2005 with moderates both from the Likud and the Labor parties. It enjoyed some strong years as a ruling party and won the majority of the votes in the last election, only to fail to build a coalition. They were marketed as a center-left alternative to Bibi in the last election, but the huge pile of nothing they have done in the opposition since then has all but wiped out this party, with recent polls suggesting they are barely scraping the minimum votes required to enter the Knesset. Their fade from relevance has been so swift they’re only still in this thread because I started writing it a few weeks ago.
The Left Bloc:
Meretz led by Zahava Gal-On.
This party has traditionally filled the gap to the left of Labor (though now that Labor is denouncing its leftist heritage, it is the only party describing itself as Zionist Left.) It was founded in 1992, and enjoyed high popularity in the 90’s among young voters and liberals, peaking at 12 seats. Since then, as the Israeli voter leaned more and more to the right, the party has lost it’s power until barely maintaining relevancy. They are for social-progressive economy, the immediate return to the peace talks with the Palestinians and dovish foreign relations. Also, Sarah Silverman is apparently a supporter.
Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), led by Mohammad Barakeh.
A leftist Jewish-Arab party. They have strong ideal in terms of social issues (some even describing them as Marxists) and the peace process (they call for recognition of Palestinians Arabs as a national minority in Israel.) Their no. 3, Dov Hanin, is a very respected figure in the Israeli left and one of the most active people in the Knesset.
The Orthodox Bloc:
Shas, led by Eli Yishay.
Shas is The Sephardi ultra-orthodox religious party of Israel. While they’re aligned with the right, they will usually join any government that offers them seats as long as they can promise to keep the religious status quo in terms of exemption from military service, control over their religious school system etc. They recently saw the return of Aryeh Deri, their former leader who left politics for jail after he was convicted of accepting bribes and other crimes. He rejoined his old party after his release. They also lost a key member, Haim Amsalem, who supports integrating orthodox Jews into the workforce and conscripting them into the army. Amsalem is running in his own party (see below.)
Am Shalem (Whole Nation) led by Haim Amsalem.
A splinter party from Shas, which is more focused on general welfare and to further integrate the orthodox Haredim jews into the Israeli society, while still maintaining a right-wing agenda.
United Torah Judaism, led by Yaakov Litzman/Moshe Gafni*
The Ashkenazi Haredi ultra-orthodox party. This party is a merger of two smaller orthodox parties. They are a curious party, as they cannot fully recognize Israel (a Jewish state can only rise after the arrival of the messiah, according to scripture) so they never serve as ministers in the government. Their only real concern is keeping the religious status quo in Israel.
*To keep all hasidic courts happy, the party rotates its leadership.
The Arab Bloc:
Balad (National Democratic Assembly) led by Jamal Zhalka.
Usually described as a Liberal Palestinian nationalist party. The party supports the transition of Israel from a “Jewish democracy” to a social-democracy for all its citizens.
United Arab List-Ta’al led by Ahmed Tibi.
This arab party consists mostly of the more religious and nationalistic arab voters. It’s actually a joint list of three parties - United Arab List, Ta’al, and the Islamic Movement.
Polls:
(Taken from Haarez.com.)
(taken from +972 Magazine.)
