Mellemøstgruppen inviterer til møde om det israelske valg og dets konsekvenser for Israel og palæstinensere
Oplæg og diskussion ved Jonathan Ofir.
Mødet holdes på engelsk med mulighed spørgsmål / svar på dansk
Jonathan Ofir is an Israeli musician, conductor and blogger / writer based in Denmark.
In 2019 Israel was thrown into a series of forever-elections, as Netanyahu was mired in corruption cases. This made him, even to some of his ideological allies, an illegitimate candidate. The subsequent votes were more or less evenly split for-and-against Netanyahu and left the government undecided for three election cycles. A fourth vote last year resulted in a government that was ideologically wide, but largely unstable. That “government of change” seemed united only in preventing Netanyahu from governing and of course didn’t offer any real change in terms of Israel’s Apartheid policies. It broke up in June this year, throwing Israel into a fifth election cycle in three years.
Netanyahu’s goal has been to build a coalition that would be loyal and completely right-wing, which in addition to sharing a political affinity would also give him a better chance at changing laws to help him in his corruption cases. He has that coalition now. Likud has about 31 seats. Religious Zionism about 14. Shas, the ultra-orthodox Mizrahi party, has done better than expected with about 10, and United Torah Judaism, the ultra-orthodox Ashkenazi party, has about 7. This is a fervent nationalist-religious coalition, with a tight merge of only few parties.
Netanyahu’s goal has been to build a coalition that would be loyal and completely right-wing, which in addition to sharing a political affinity would also give him a better chance at changing laws to help him in his corruption cases. He has that coalition now. Likud has about 31 seats. Religious Zionism about 14. Shas, the ultra-orthodox Mizrahi party, has done better than expected with about 10, and United Torah Judaism, the ultra-orthodox Ashkenazi party, has about 7. This is a fervent nationalist-religious coalition, with a tight merge of only few parties.
The opposition bloc led by Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party does not appear near the 60 seat threshhold. The closest it could come is around 58 seats if it incorporated the
Palestinian party Hadash-Ta’al with its 4 seats. But due to the Zionist refusal to include Palestinian parties in ruling coalitions these seats would serve as external support only.
No, it appears Netanyahu will not need to compromise to the left. He can now claim to offer Israel stability through right-wing rule. And this is not really inappropriate for Israel, where the right-wing dominates the political spectrum by two-thirds. In this way, this radical government will not even fully reflect the full right-wing nature of Israeli society.
Nina Ellinger
ninaellinger@gmail.com