And the people have spoken - out of both sides of their mouths. Bibi lovers can rejoice! Despite most polls predicting his loss, his Likud emerged as the largest party in the exit polls. Bibi haters can rejoice! The opposition parties together may have earned as many as 70 seats, to the coalition’s 50.
Once again, yet another Israeli election pivoted around Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s indefatigable political sorcerer. It’s remarkable. After his October 7th failures, most people expected him to resign or be hounded out of office.
Netanyahu and Israel's political tribalism
Yet three years later, Israelis voted in “droves,” and he survived. “Droves” is the trigger word Netanyahu used in 2015 to warn of mass Arab voting, before apologizing a week later. Now, having mainstreamed thugs and descended himself into divisive demagoguery, especially as he panicked, he’s not likely to backpedal this outburst of bigotry.
Netanyahu’s endurance, even without a coalition victory, reflects Israel’s political tribalism. Party membership is often a social, ethnic, and political statement, from right to left, which Netanyahu exploits with virtuosity.
But to be fair, his resurgence is not just irrational. Many of the post-October 7 moves that made Netanyahu’s brand toxic worldwide, even in America, are what resurrected his domestic political career. Even many Israelis who detest him understand that the grueling fight in Gaza against Hamas was a just war.
They acknowledge that he ultimately brought home 168 live hostages and accounted for every murdered hostage, while presiding over a war that crushed Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. The fact that, as the Iranians and Americans keep skirmishing, neither side wants the Israelis fighting shows that the precious asset lost on October 7, Israeli deterrence, has been restored.
Anyone who predicts what governmental constellation will result has a better crystal ball than I have. But, once again, I am struck by three clashing perceptions: the buoyant democracy so many Israelis experienced on Tuesday; the racist oppressor Israel’s obsessive critics in the West decided they saw; and the infuriatingly successful society Israel’s enemies watched, yet again.
Israel remains one part kaleidoscope, genuinely projecting different, ever-changing, and sometimes contradictory images. It’s also one part Rorschach test, as people praise or curse the oversimplified, black-and-white Israel they imagine because the real Israel is so multi-dimensional and elusive.
This Election Day was particularly magical, given all that we have endured since October 7. So many observers noted how special it was that we have a Jewish democracy where we can vote freely, after thousands of years of being oppressed by authoritarian regimes.
Families picnicked and shopped, kids enjoyed the day off from school, and most voters, despite their constitutional Israeli excitability, waited patiently, appreciatively, in the impressively long voting lines, as 77.7 of eligible voters cast those old-fashioned paper ballots.
The joy, the calm, even the anxiety building toward the 10 p.m. exit poll announcement, illustrated Israeli democracy’s strength and sacredness. We awaited the people’s verdict.
Calm contrasted with chaos of Israeli politics
Such restraint also contrasted with the chaos and belligerence of Israeli politics. It’s the kind of contradiction every soldier, every reservist, experiences. With lots of time on their hands, they all know where everyone stands politically, religiously, ideologically. And with stakes so high, they aren’t afraid to shout about their differences, occasionally.
But when it’s time to spring into action, these distinct, often-dissimilar, hotheads become a high-functioning unit. And when reservist kids are bar mitzvahed, or fellow soldiers get married, you can always recognize the army friends’ table; while broadening the events’ demographics, they outdance everyone on the dance floor.
Obsessively anti-Semitic anti-Zionists cannot compute Israel’s many warm, human, intimate, and wonderfully democratic moments. Instead, burying the lede, they will emphasize the bigoted rants of Bibi and Itamar Ben-Gvir, rather than the remarkable results of this election wherein Ben-Gvir’s bigotry motivated many Arabs to vote.
Arabs not only have the right to vote, but their incredibly high turnout in this fair, peaceful election means they might be the next kingmakers. Exit polls estimate that Arab MKs may constitute 14 percent of oppressive, apartheid Israel’s next Knesset.
Israel emerges stronger, more united despite Oct. 7
Finally, one can only imagine what Iran’s Ayatollahs and Revolutionary Guards, what Palestinian terrorists from Gaza to Judea and Samaria, and what the dwindling ranks of Hezbollah are thinking. They, and their bots, will tweet all kinds of anti-Zionist trash talk, which their Western dupes, and too many Jews worldwide, will echo or at least buy into a bit. But our enemies know better. “Darn,” they must be thinking, “foiled again.”
Three years after the worst day in Israeli history, Israel has emerged stronger, more united despite all the noise, and even happier despite the trauma, still scoring high in all happiness indices. I kind of understand their blind hatred of us; nothing's more annoying than watching people you despise, and keep trying to destroy, bounce back from tragedy, live life to the fullest, and show the world what a successful society looks like, even with all its challenges.
Now that the votes have been cast, we Israelis need a quality that’s often in short supply these days: patience. The votes must be counted, and the counting should be finished by Friday. The inevitably excruciating negotiations have to begin. Then, if and when a new government emerges, and we escape electoral deadlock, every citizen should remember to be patriotic. Give the new government a chance to succeed, or fail, while respecting the democratic process on display so impressively this Tuesday, once again.
The writer is a scholar of North American history at McGill University and a senior research fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute.