0 Editorial: A more moderate Israel?

A final tally released on Thursday of votes from the Israeli parliamentary election mathematically offers no significant change in the country’s political constellation, as the right-wing bloc secured the 61-seat minimum majority needed to control the 120-member parliament, the Knesset, compared to the 59 seats won by center-left parties. According to the central election committee, conservative parties in the next Knesset will consist of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud (20 seats), Jewish Home (12 seats), nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu (11 seats) and ultra-Orthodox parties Shas (11 seats) and the United Torah Judaism (7 seats). 

The center-left was led by newcomer Yesh Atid (19 seats) and the Labor Party (15 seats); followed by Hatnuah and Meretz, with six seats each; the United Arab List (11 seats), and the centrist Kadima, which won only two seats. The election on Tuesday, however, produced surprises and significantly revealed a significant shift in the Israeli voters’ behavior and expectations of their state leadership. Besides Kadima’s free-fall performance, dropping from the largest party in the last Knesset to the smallest in the next one, the results of Tuesday’s election were also a slap in the face of the Likud-Beiteinu partnership because as a combined force they will fall from 42 seats in the previous Knesset to 31 seats in the next Knesset. 

On the other hand, the latest election welcomed a new centrist party — Yesh Atid — to prominence, thus revealing that a significant part of Israeli society expects changes in the government’s political establishment, shifting from a conservative view to a more centrist one. Netanyahu, who will very likely be in the premiership for another five years, is expected to establish the new government next month. And from a strictly mathematical standpoint, the final tally gives Netanyahu the option of forming a purely right-wing government with his so-called natural partners. 

However, the results of Tuesday’s election and the fact that a similar coalition of right-wing and religious parties was unable to pass a 2013 budget, which had led to a call for early elections, clearly show that such a coalition will be highly unstable and deadlocked on key issues, such as the prolonged Israel-Palestine conflict. The new government of Israel therefore needs to pay serious attention to the shift of its voters’ political views. Otherwise, it will only lose domestic political support after it has significantly lost the same from the international community.

source : the jakarta post