Carolyne explains the situation in Israel and the different political parties standing in November’s election
In the past few weeks there has been a terrible rise in attacks against Israelis and soldiers. In an early pre-dawn raid the IDF attacked the Hamas backed terror group known as Lion’s Den, who had taken control of the Arab town of Nablus, after the PA security forces had allowed them to establish themselves and to carry out the recent attacks.
During the operation the IDF destroyed a bomb factory and killed 5 Palestinians, including a top commander, after intense fighting broke out. 48 hours previously, their top commander, was eliminated in the Old City of Nablus, which has become a sanctuary for terrorists to plan and execute their attacks.
Operations to cleanse the West Bank of illegal weapons continue and several arrests have been made.
The fifth elections since 2019, are due to take place in one week after the kaleidoscope coalition government led first by Naftali Bennet and now Yair Lapid dissolved after one year.
Political preferences are so divided in Israel and the proportional representation system weighs heavily against a united government that elections are a common occurrence. Bibi and his Likud party was in power for many years supported by the ultra religious parties, who don’t really mind who is in power as long as they serve their narrow interests.
Likud remains the largest party and is expected to attract the most votes. It was established in 1973 by an alliance of right wing parties. Netanyahu led it from ‘93-99 and then from 2005 until the present. They support the right of Jewish settlements and although they do not explicitly reject the idea of a two state solution, neither do they support it. Although they are moderate on religion they always team up with the more religious right wing parties and most secular Israelis object to this type of coalition.
Yesh Atid,the second largest party, led by Yair Lapid, is fairly new, formed in 2012 and represents the middle class secular Israelis. They support a “shared burden”, which would see the end of exemptions to do military service for the ultra orthodox. They support a free market and tend to be more a liberal, centralist party, focusing on social justice, education, housing and health. They support “two states for two people”, while maintaining the “ settlements”, but not expanding them. Lapid has been in a coalition with both Likud and Jewish Home. (Both more right wing).
Benny Gantz and Gideon Sa’ar merged their parties, Blue and White and New Hope, together to form National Unity Party. Gantz was previously in line to be Prime Minister when he joined Bibi’s coalition under his Blue and White party. Bibi pulled the plug before Gantz could serve and then lost the next election to the present coalition. They support a nation state for the Jewish people and term limits for Prime Ministers. They see Israel as both democratic and Jewish and want to rehabilitate the economy so are focused on welfare issues. Gantz was a former Chief of Staff and is presently Defence Minister so they should be strong on security issues.
Religious Zionism, led by Bezalel Smotrich, is the most right wing party and do not support any territorial concessions to the Palestinians and some of their members would like to annex the whole of the West Bank. They do not recognise same sex marriages and would push more money towards religious education. They have merged to run with Ben-Gvir’s Otzman Yehudit faction who are calling for a one state solution, strengthening Jewish education and expanding settlements.
Israel Beitenu is led by Avigdor Liberman, once an ally of Netanyahu who abandoned the Likud coalition in 2018 over a disagreement allowing Qatari money into Gaza. Liberman maintains a right wing stance on security but is close to the left on religion and state. His base vote comes traditionally from immigrants from the former Soviet Union and recently he has stayed steady at about 7 seats.
Shas is run by Aryeh Deri (who served 22 month of a 3 year sentence in jail for corruption and tax offences ). They are the ultra-orthodox religious party supported by the religious Sephardic and Mizrahi, enjoying support also from the moderate Mizrachim. (People of eastern descent) . The party opposes any freeze on settlements and is anti LGBT but totally condemns violence against the LGBT community, They are demanding compensation for the nearly 1 millions Jews who were forced to flee their homes from Muslim countries.
United Torah is another religious party but they hold no views on settlements . They have a non Chasidic demographic and form part of the National Camp when Likud forms a government. They have few political views, outside of strict Jewish Halacha (Jewish laws), and function to represent the ultra religious and ensure money for their programmes.
The Joint list which was made up of four Arab parties, have had internal disagreements so they are running as two separate factions. Balad and Hadash Ta’al.
Balad is the nationalist Palestinian party who would like a one state solution giving citizenship and rights and democracy to all regardless of ethnicity, nationality or religion. It opposes the Jewish state and supports a binational state.
Hadash Ta’al supports a two state solution and has support among secular Arabs and left wing Israelis . They support a socialist economy and the evacuation of all settlements. They have however, lent their support to the terrorist group the Lion’s Den so should be banned from running in the election.
Labour or HaAvoda is a Centre left wing party supporting a mixed economy, same sex marriage, legalisation of cannabis, surrogacy rights for gay couples and public transport on Shabbat. They support a two state solution with a demilitarised Palestinian state next to a Jewish democratic state.
Meretz is Israel’s far left party formed in 1992. It is a social democratic and secular party.
It promotes LGBT rights and environmental issues alongside a separation of “Church and State”.
2012 saw it have a representative in the government for the first time in 20 years. Meretz wants to work towards peace by giving up all “occupied territories“.
Ra’am also known as the United Arab List was once part of the Joint List and the first ever Arab party to join a coalition under Naftali Bennet’s coalition. It supports a two state solution with Jerusalem as it capital, the release of Palestinians prisoners and the rights of return for all descendants of the 1948 Palestinians. It advocates for recognising Israel’s Arabs as a nationals minority group with their rights enshrined in a national constitution. It is supported by the Bedouins.
Zionist Spirt was a new party of right wingers led by Ayelet Shaked. Also known as Yamina. They support the implementation of the National State Law strengthening Jewish Identity.
They believe in expanding the West Bank settlements and oppose the establishment of a Palestinian State. Zionist Spirit has since broken up and has joined with Jewish Home and Yamina.
These parties can easily change or merge in the next 7 days as those who are unable to pass the electoral threshold merge with other smaller parties.
It is still predicted that Likud will gain the most votes but if they do not pass the minimum 61 seats they must then find partners to make the government and there are not that many parties except the religious who will serve under Bibi.
As you can see even reading through the various groups and their different agendas is exhausting. Forming a government which mandates 61 seats is a real problem and forming a government that is stable and can last has proved all but impossible recently.
Society in Israel is now so diverse and maintaining a Democratic, Jewish state that protects civil rights and simultaneously protects the security of the country while promoting the economy is an extremely challenging job.
The government must also have one eye on the opinions of the world who only receive news about Israel through propaganda and anti Israel social media. Some parties, both Jewish and Arab could do Israel an awful lot of harm and we must hope that no one leader is so desperate to be in power, that they take these anti Israel or anti democratic parties into the government just to make up the numbers.
Israel’s world standing has much improved even though the BBC has just been voted one of the most anti Israel news outlets.
Israel has never been very good or frankly had the time to promote the truth and the dangers the country faces daily, so world opinion is not well managed. The Abraham Accords has brought a better status quo to the Middle East, as did Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
With the war in Ukraine showing no sign of ending the energy crisis has made Europe, who are not traditionally pro Israel, turn to Israel for its gas supplies. The newly hammered out maritime deal with Lebanon could make Israel the largest gas supplier to Europe, so maybe they will look beyond the hate and realise what a diverse and free country Israel really is.