Netanyahu Gets Two More Weeks to Form Coalition

On Saturday evening President Shimon Peres gave Prime Minister Netanyahu a two-week extension, after his initial month-long period for coalition formation had elapsed, in which to form a government. If Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Beitenu joint list of Likud and Israel Beitenu, is unable to form a government in this time Peres will either offer a chance to someone else or schedule new elections. The problem is that the number two and number three parties in size, Yesh Atid ("There is a future") and HaBeit HaYehudi (Jewish Home), have banded together and refused to enter any coalition that contains ultra-Orthodox or Haredi parties. This is because Yesh Atid ran on the platform of eliminating the religious exemption from national military service for Yeshiva (Jewish religious seminar) students, who also rely on financial aid extracted from the religious parties in coalition negotiations for their livelihood. Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett is also fine with eliminating this exemption as religious Zionists do serve in the Israeli army. Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid has emphasized the "equal burden" issue over other election issues.

Two Likely Coalitions for Netanyahu

With the final results of the Israeli election to the 19th Knesset in  two possible coalition choices for Netanyahu appear likely.  The first would be a Center-Right coalition with Yesh Atid:

Likud Beitenu      31

Yesh Atid             19

Jewish Home       11

________________

Total                    61

Kadima with two seats could be added to provide a little safety margin. In this scenario, Netanyahu would agree to a draft of the ultra-Orthodox Haredim and Yesh Atid would go along with continued settlement. As Yesh Atid appears to put more emphasis on ending religious privilege and coercion and the ultra-Orthodox draft exemption than on achieving peace, this is possible. Certainly, if Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid is anything like his father, Tommy Lapid, leader of the Shinui party of the 1990s-2006, he is closer to the Likud when it comes to borders than he is to Labor. Here is an article from Foreign Affairs that indicates that on territorial issues Lapid is very compatible with Netanyahu.

The second coalition, would be more Centrist:

Likud Beitenu    31

Yesh Atid          19

Labor                15

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Total                65

Under this scenario, there would be a religious draft, an end to subsidies to the ultra-Orthodox, and settlement construction would probably be defined by some formula or committee that would allow for "natural expansion" within settlements but not much in the way of new settlements outside of Jerusalem.  There would also probably not be any renewed peace talks with the Palestinian Authority. Labor leader Shelli Yakhimovich campaigned on socio-economic issues, so as long as there was a change in budget priorities towards helping out the secular poor it would probably be happy.

This Jerusalem Post article discusses various coalition possibilities and graphically illustrates four of them. And here Ben Birnbaum of The New Republic discusses the winners and losers of the latest Israeli election in terms both of parties and individuals.

The Center-Left lacks the sufficient Knesset votes to construct a stable coalition of its own without the Likud, even if it was inclined to include the Arabs--which they have not been willing to do in the past.

The Israeli Election: A Preview

Israel goes to the polls on January 22. Everyone has already conceded that Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu will be heading the next government. His Likud Beitenu (Union: Our Home) party is forecast to receive between 34 and 38 seats out of 120 in the Knesset. Next largest will be the centrist Labor Party with 16 to 18 seats--up from 13 in 2009. Third will be the Jewish Home (haBeit haYehudi) party with 13-14 seats- (Hebrew link) --this will be a record for the old National Religious Party, which normally received anywhere from four to ten seats in each election since the 1950s. For another forecast in English see here. The Kadima party, founded by Ariel Sharon as a splinted from the Likud in November 2005, is likely to only receive two seats despite being the largest party after the 2009 election with 28 seats. Most of its voters are said to be either returning to the Likud after seven years, returning to Labor after three years, or going to former Kadima leader Tzipi Livni's haTnua (the Movement) party that is projected to receive seven seats. Overall the Right is projected to receive about 53 seats and the Center-Left about ten seats less than that. Daniel Levy, an analyst affiliated with a number of European and American think tanks as their resident Israel expert, has a very good article organized around the concept of Israel's "four tribes" or electoral blocs.

There are many explanations for this move to the right.  But the important thing is the effect that it will have on the policy of the Israeli government. Netanyahu is likely to form another rightist coalition with one of the Center parties in the coalition, such as Yesh Atid (There is a Future), as a legitimizing party in the small role that Labor has periodically filled (after 2001, after 2009 etc.) An attempt to form a Center bloc with Yesh Atid, Labor, and haTnua blew up last week when Tzipi Livni issued a statement about a meeting that the three party leaders held and then the other two contradicted her.  This will make it easy for Netanyahu to play the three parties off against one another after the election. The most interesting figure in this election cycle has been Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party, portrayed in this New Yorker article by David Remnick.  Here is an article that ran on Sunday January 20--two days before the election--in The Times of Israel on the Likud's post-election coalition options.

The Israeli elections and Israeli psyschology

Yesterday Americans for Peace Now, the support organization for Israel's mainstream peace movement, hosted a briefing phone call-in on the Israeli elections on Jan. 22 by retired Ha'Aretz senior diplomatic correspondent Akiva Eldar. A recording link can be obtained by going to the APN website (www.peacenow.org) or by emailing Sarah Sagan at ssagan@peacenow.org. Unfortunately there was very little analysis of the polling data or of the trends. Usually with these call-ins there is a mixed audience of very knowledgeable American Jews who follow both the American and Israeli media and either newcomers who just happened to see the link or freelance journalists who aren't up to speed on the beat. 

Eldar did mention that the discrepancy between the percentage of Israelis who claim to support a two-state solution and the election results in election after election can be easily explained by the tendency of Israelis to believe that they don't have a real partner and that the conflict is all the fault of the other side. But Israelis don't want to sound like they are opposed to peace so they say they support a two-state solution and vote for parties of the Right. Israelis lie to themselves and then vote for leaders who lie to the world. 

The New Israeli National Unity Government

About two weeks ago I was getting ready to do a post about the upcoming early Israeli elections in Israel. All the pundits had decided that Netanyahu would go to the polls in September--some even mentioning September 4 as the date. Several even attributed this to a decision by Bibi and Barak to strike Iran before the American election in early November. But then a funny thing happened on the way to the election...As a bill to dissolve the Knesset and set a date for new elections had passed its first of three mandatory "readings" or votes in the Knesset, things suddenly began to slow down as Kadima members began to delay. Behind the scenes new Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz was negotiating a new coalition government with Netanyahu that would delay elections possibly until they were required by law in mid-2013. The new government was announced as ostensibly being motivated by the need to pass a new law on national service for the ultra-Orthodox and by the need to pass electoral reform. But what really motivated the two main protagonists and what are the chances of their proclaimed agenda being enacted?