A divided center-left bloc cannot challenge Netanyahu
All the polls clearly show that the right-wing bloc, without Yisrael Beytenu, safely passes the minimum threshold for forming a government of 61 seats.
By ORI WERTMANIsraeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Benny Gantz hold a press conference in Tel Aviv on July 27, 2020.(photo credit: TAL SHAHAR/POOL)
The continuation of the internal struggles in the unity government between Likud and Blue and White clearly illustrates that further elections are imminent. After three rounds of elections in which no clear decision was reached between the blocs, the Israeli public expressed a deep yearning for a national unity and governmental stability.Israelis expected their elected representatives to do everything in their power to prevent a fourth round of elections. However, despite the desire for national unity and avoiding another round of elections, the cooperation between Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz does not work and probably will not last long.In essence, the situation – in which cabinet meetings are postponed due to disagreements, coalition members clash with each other, and most of all when the prime minister humiliates both the defense and foreign ministers in a live broadcast in announcing the normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates by hinting that both leak confidential information and therefore cannot be trusted – all of these illustrate how much the mistrust between both sides is probably unbridgeable. Hence, in light of the fact that the unity government is no longer functioning, when it is mainly engaged in disputes between the Likud and Blue and White, it seems that going to elections for a fourth time in less than two years is the least bad option at present.However, even if further elections are held, it seems that the identity of the winner is already known. All the polls (as of mid-August) indicate that the Likud is safely leading Yesh Atid-Telem by a gap of approximately 10 seats. Moreover, since the victory in the election is determined by the size of the bloc and not by the identity of the largest party in the Knesset, here too there is a clear advantage for Netanyahu.All the polls clearly show that the right-wing bloc, without Yisrael Beytenu, safely passes the minimum threshold for forming a government of 61 seats. Thus, it seems that the expectation of Netanyahu’s opponents in which a center-left government will be formed after another election campaign does not reconcile with reality.But why did the center-left bloc actually fail in its attempts to offer an alternative to Netanyahu and the right-wing bloc since 2009? There seem to be three main reasons for this conundrum.First, there is no doubt that the Palestinian terrorism that accompanied the Oslo process during the 1990s, which culminated in the outbreak of the Second Intifada in September 2000, led to a deep crisis of confidence among the Israeli public regarding the path of peace led by the center-left bloc.As of today, although the vast majority of the Israeli-Jewish public supports an Israeli-Palestinian peace, unfortunately, only a small minority believes that a peace agreement with the Palestinians is a viable option in the foreseeable future. Therefore, the collapse of the Oslo process led to a sharp decline in the Israeli public’s confidence in the peace agenda led by the center-left bloc.SECOND, DESPITE repeated attempts, the center-left bloc has failed to convey the support of former right-wing voters. In practice, all the allegedly center parties that ran against the Likud – Kadima led by Tzipi Livni in the 2009 election, Yesh Atid led by Yair Lapid in 2013, and the Zionist Union led by Isaac Herzog in 2015 – all failed in their missions to obtain the support of soft right-wing voters and thus were relied entirely on center-left voters.For example, Yesh Atid, which won 19 seats in the 2013 elections, managed to acquire only a single seat of Likud voters in the 2009 elections. Even In the April 2019 elections, the new center-wing party Blue and White, which comprised well-known figures from the right-wing camp such as former defense minister and chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon, failed to attract soft right-wing voters and relied entirely on center-left voters, especially Zionist Union’s voters in the 2015 elections.Moreover, as of mid-August, opinion polls clearly indicate that while Netanyahu and Likud lost about 10 seats in favor of Yamina and Naftali Bennett, they managed to take four seats from Blue and White voters in the 2020 elections. Thus, instead of the center-left bloc taking votes for the right-wing bloc, an opposite phenomenon is currently taking place that is only intensifying.Third, while in the 1992 elections about half of the Arab public voted for Zionist parties, mainly from the center-left bloc, today the Arab public votes almost entirely for the Joint Arab List. Thus, while in the 1992 election the two Arab parties, Hadash and Mada, received five seats together, the Labor Party alone won approximately three seats among the Arab public.However, in the March 2020 elections, almost 90% of the Arab public who went to the polls voted for the Joint Arab List, which won a record achievement of 15 seats.This phenomenon has a negative effect on the center-left bloc, which consequently shrank in its electoral strength. In fact, this polarization has created another political bloc, an Arab bloc. Unfortunately, however, in light of the anti-Israeli positions of the Joint Arab List MKs, there is no real possibility of any political cooperation between the center-left bloc and the Arab bloc, such as sitting together in a government.In conclusion, the political reality in Israel illustrates that the center-left bloc does not constitute a significant challenge and a viable alternative to Netanyahu and the right-wing bloc. If its leadership wants to return leading Israel, the center-left bloc must conduct a substantial revision within it. The first step should be uniting all of the main Zionist forces within the bloc. Only a united force will be able to challenge Netanyahu and the right-wing bloc.The writer is a PhD candidate and research assistant at the International Center for Policing and Security at the University of South Wales, UK.
Related TagsYamina
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
