Israel at total deadlock after fourth election — Only Got A Minute!

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You thought you had politics fatigue: the polls are closed on Israeli’s fourth election in just two years. It’s been called “unprecedented” by the Israeli media. As expected, though, we are still nowhere near the decisive majority any group needs to be able to govern Israel in any meaningful way. Another round of hand-wringing and politicking from all sides await until we see if we have a government. Meanwhile, these elections are crucial to knowing what might happen in the future of the Middle East. No pressure then.

As expected, current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud (“Consolidation”) Party emerged as the largest party, but, as usual, no party has the 61-seat majority they’d need to govern Israel alone. That leaves Netanyahu at the mercy of other smaller parties to govern. Recently, these have been taken from strict religious minorities and those campaigning for Israeli annexation of the Palestinian West Bank. This time, though, his coalition has been cut down because some of his former colleagues and allies broke away to form their own parties, making their allegiance less secure. 

The final results show that Netanyahu’s Likud-led coalition got 52 seats in total, nine away from getting an overall majority. He could get seven more seats from a smaller right-wing party whose leader was once loyal to Netanyahu, but that’s far from certain, as is the possible support of an Arab-interest party that would be unthinkable for some of Netanyahu’s allies. It would get Netanyahu the seats he needs to make a government, but defy political gravity.

Knocking on the door of power is an ‘anti-Netanyahu’ bloc fervently wanting to force his exit from politics. Three high-profile and massively controversial corruption cases involving Netanyahu himself are due to start after the election, and some are worried he will use his office to grant himself immunity. 

The anti-Netanyahu bloc is made up of parties with an extremely diverse range of political ideas; some have previously ruled out working with others, making a non-Likud government a non-starter if that remains the case. The main leader of that movement is the “avowedly centrist” Yesh Atid (“There is a Future”) party, led by Yair Lapid, a well-known liberal broadcaster. His movement is based in defending the very essence of Israel as a liberal Western democracy, criticising Netanyahu as having damaged the media and rule of law and stopping Israel from planning long-term development. 

As a self-styled ‘bloc of change’, an aversion to Netanyahu has seemingly become the only thing required to join the Israeli opposition, but, ironically, that refusal may help to continue the very blockage in Israeli politics they criticise the PM for. After all, Likud as led by Netanyahu still won the most seats in the election by a margin. Meanwhile, Likud have called that bloc “anti-democratic” for disqualifying a candidate, calling it a move that Iran would make by “cancel[ling] the choice of over a million citizens.” Whether ‘democracy’ for candidate choice or blocking potential criminals is more important, that’s up for debate.

With the deadlock depressingly familiar to Israeli voters, don’t expect any movement on what the new government will look like just yet. It has taken weeks in the past for the parties to come to some sort of arrangement. And with the two blocs tightly balanced in representation, a fifth election sometime this year looks more than likely. If the comparatively low turnout was anything to go by, Israelis hardly relish the thought. 

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So who should we look for as the deals begin? With results confirmed, there are only two realistic parties that could decide what happens. Naftali Bennett, the leader of the pro-West Bank Israeli settlement Yamina party, reached prominence when Netanyahu made him defence secretary in 2019. His party has won seven seats and could put Netanyahu tantalisingly close to the finish line. 

But in recent months, Bennett has become critical of Netanyahu despite being reasonably in-sync politically. He hasn’t promised to work with the Likud-bloc, and his seven seats remain up for grabs. That being said, he did sign a pledge days before the election not to go into government with opposition leader Lapid as Prime Minister. That effectively reduces his options to either Likud or forcing a new election if he doesn’t go back on his word. Although he’s made overtures about healing rifts in Israeli society, Bennett can charge Netanyahu a very high price for his loyalty, such as high-profile government jobs and bigger influence. 

Then, there’s Mansour Abbas, the leader of the small Palestinian-Israeli party United Arab List (or Ra’am in Hebrew). The UAL only received four seats in the election, but those would be enough to put the anti-Netanyahu bloc just over the line on their own, or the pro-bloc over the line as long as Bennett also chooses that side. Choosing Netanyahu would be a turn up for the books for Abbas: the PM’s made a political name for himself in past campaigns by calling the Arab minority the ‘fifth column of “terrorist” sympathisers’.

But Abbas is also seen as a pragmatist, open to working with Netanyahu so long as the government does what’s necessary for his Palestinian-Israeli base, who speak Hebrew, have citizenship and have solid representation in the public sector. He split his party away from the larger Arab coalition to be able to choose which side to support once the elections were over. He could also ask for a lot to support Arab Israelis in return for loyalty.

With Netanyahu having openly courted the Arab vote this time, that could put Abbas in either bloc, much to the consternation of some Arab commentators. Likud are split on that idea, too, and a religious party in Netanyahu’s coalition ruled it out. Earlier in the week, it was reported that Abbas had already arranged a meeting with Yair Lapid. 

Lapid can afford to lose Bennett and gain Abbas, but he would have the smallest possible majority in the Knesset, the name for Israel’s parliament. Given that the only thing that ties those parties together is kicking Netanyahu out of power, that government sounds pretty unrealistic beyond ensuring Netanyahu doesn’t grant himself immunity — that could well be the only thing that coalition feels it needs to achieve. Netanyahu needs both Bennett and Abbas to make a majority, and Abbas’s party is a tough ask for other bloc members. This really is “deadlock”. 

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Israelis have been in and out of polling stations more times in recent years than even Brenda from Bristol. On the last count, this election is the fourth election since 2019. During this time, Benjamin Netanyahu has been marred by a series of scandals. However, while the centre-right/right-wing coalition he leads had remained relatively intact (until recently), the centrists and left-wingers have split, fallen out with each other, made new parties, and generally not had the unity to be able to boot Likud’s bloc out of office. 

This most recent election got called in December 2020, when Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, leader of the Kahol Lavan (“Blue and White”) party, failed to come up with a state budget that they could pass. The coalition partners had not been natural bedfellows from day one; Gantz had made a point in the previous election that he wouldn’t work with Netanyahu if he got into a position of forming a government, and that line won him a lot of support.

But when the election happened and the numbers only really added up if he did just that, he gave in. That alienated many people in his own coalition and caused both Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party and another partner party to break away. Despite that, it should be said that this happened as COVID-19 had begun to really bite Israeli society, with an “emergency unity government” formed to tackle it. 

In the agreement they signed, Gantz was supposed to take over as PM this autumn. This won’t happen now, and many wonder if shooting down the budget and taking Israel to more elections was an attempt by Netanyahu to protect himself: Gantz could have tried to ensure Netanyahu was punished if he were found guilty. Some initially thought that Gantz might not even get a single seat, and should be relieved to have received just shy of double figures in the new Knesset. 

That’s not to say Netanyahu has been completely without praise. He scored arguably a huge diplomatic victory in forging diplomatic relationships with four more Arab countries. Those countries see Israel as a good partner to counter Islamic fundamentalism in Iran and elsewhere, as well as a resurgent Turkey. That might run those countries into confrontation with the Biden White House: it’s suggested they want to bring Iran back to the negotiating table to stop them from building nuclear weapons. 

That being said, some think those agreements are superficial or could only deal with regional power struggles instead of really changing hearts and minds. In Egypt and Jordan, countries who have existing treaties but ‘deep reservations’ about Israel, people still see the country as a main security threat. Morocco, who signed last year, got a major prize from the Trump Administration when the US recognised Morocco’s control of the contested region of Western Sahara. The continued question of Palestine keeps many on their guard about working with Israel. 

Where would Israel fit into the international community with these results? If Likud squeaks it over the line, then Netanyahu’s leadership will keep Israel’s government more in the company of more authoritarian leaders such as the Brazilian President Boslonaro and, until very recently, the former US President Donald Trump. If Yesh Atid’s bloc takes it, then Israel has a leader that considers himself more in step with the French President Emmanuel Macron and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Having said that, even ruling as a much more moderate potential Prime Minister, one expert said he would only support such a system “as long as it doesn’t come for Israel.”

Either way, Israelis are reasonably united on what they see as their place in the world. Many continue to see Iran as their common threat, and Lapid, along with Donald Trump and the Israeli ‘defence establishment’, believes that the agreement led by former US President Obama in 2015 was the “worst option”. He supports further sanctions or a renegotiation. He was also happy with the US recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and recognition of Israeli control of a contested northern region called the Golan Heights. While he agrees that a two-state option for Palestine must happen to make Israel truly democratic, Jerusalem would have to remain a united city. There was majority public approval for the government rejection of the International Criminal Court’s decision to probe Israel for war crimes. 

But fleshing out all of these ideals into a long-term strategy needs a stable government, whether that’s centrist or on the right of Israeli politics. When that will happen is anyone’s guess.