Israeli General Election: April 9, 2019

[Walmart_shopper]

So here are my predictions:

Blue and White: 34
Likud: 29
Labor: 9
Hadash-Taal: 7
UTJ: 7
Zehut: 6
United Right: 5
New Right: 5
Meretz: 5
Liberman: 5
Ram Balaad: 4
Shas: 4

Right wing + Zehut: 61
Center-left + Arab parties: 59

My hunch is that we'll get a national unity government of some sort led by Benny Gantz, but I won't bother predicting coalition talks at this point.

Just gonna leave this here.

[Walmart_shopper]

https://twitter.com/OryxMaps/status/1115691724519690240



One of these has a tied block. Either way, it looks like my earlier hypothesis was right that there would be a centralization of votes unseen in israeli politics in a  long time.

Raam Balaad getting over the threshold would be stunning.

Also, I24 basically just cut and pasted my prediction into its exit poll. Not cool, guys. Not cool.

[Walmart_shopper]

One of these has a tied block. Either way, it looks like my earlier hypothesis was right that there would be a centralization of votes unseen in israeli politics in a  long time.

Peak Israeli politics would be that they form a coalition and both get beaten badly next time round.

But that's exactly what's going to happen. Kaholavan will fall apart after the election because Yeah Atid and Gantz's Likud Lite won't work out. And Likud after Bibi will be messy.

[Walmart_shopper]

Raam Balad and Likud numbers seem to be the two main differences between 12 and the others.

Channel 13 four (!) right wing parties with only four mndates each. Bibi probably has a coalition in that scenario, but it if literally every single party hangs on AND Raam Balaad doesn't cross the threshold.

[Walmart_shopper]

So what do Gantz' chances to form a government look like right now?  Seems from the numbers above Bibi would likely come out on top?

If Channel 12 is correct, very good. In the other exit polls it depends entirely on how many and which parties near the threshold actually get across.

I'd say that it's probably a little better than 50/50 that Gantz gets to form the government. I'd say it's almost exactly 50/50 whether he succeeds in doing so.

[Walmart_shopper]

Looks like Likud has not received the landslide loss it deserves.

In Israel, going from a win by six mandates to a loss by four mandates is absolutely a landslide loss.

[Walmart_shopper]

Votes Counted: 29K
blue and white:  30.34%
Likud:                24.38%
United Right:      8.8%
Labor:                8.14%
New Right:         5.96%
Meretz:              4.31%
Shas:                3.65%
Zehut:               3.61%
Kulanu:              3.44%

I expect Likud to go higher as this is mostly urban.

Also kahlon said he will recommend Netanyahu as PM.

Kahlon did not say he'd recommend Netanyahu. He said that he was waiting for actual results and that he had not made a decision.

Also, there is no real urban/rural divide in Israeli politics. Many rural areas are kibbutzim and are very leftist. Many cities like Ashkelon and Jerusalem are very right wing.

[Walmart_shopper]

https://twitter.com/EylonALevy/status/1115714663726178306
Well i got that Kahlon recommended from here but if you got something different then i will trust you.

Interesting. Channel 12 reports that both Liberman and Kahlon are not committing to Netanyahu (or Gantz)  at this point, at least publicly.

[Walmart_shopper]

Votes Counted: 29K
blue and white:  30.34%
Likud:                24.38%
United Right:      8.8%
Labor:                8.14%
New Right:         5.96%
Meretz:              4.31%
Shas:                3.65%
Zehut:               3.61%
Kulanu:              3.44%

I expect Likud to go higher as this is mostly urban.

Also kahlon said he will recommend Netanyahu as PM.

This vote is all actually all rural from places where polling places closed at 8. However, Likud does b5etter in urban areas than rural areas overall.

Which places close at 8 and why?

[Walmart_shopper]

Also how can you tell where exactly the vote is coming from? There is תל אביב or ירושלים in the locality list.

I think those are added when the results from those places actually come in. I noticed that, too. There's actually not any of the big cities listed.

[Walmart_shopper]

The election site is bugging out and showing nonsensical results right now, hope it gets sorted soon.

Start up nation.

[Walmart_shopper]

I'm just marveling at some of the google translations and wondering how accurate they are.

Kulanu seems to be "We are all the sane right"

Also whatever party is "It was all right because the time had come for the living"

Kulanu means "all of us." it's the name of the party. "Sane right" is literally their slogan and campaign motif.

[Walmart_shopper]

Huh I feel like an idiot now, I did not know there was a substantiall size muslim population in Israel proper until today lol.

If you count occupied territories, there are more Muslims than Jews.

That's why it would be insanely stupid to actually annex these areas.

I meant in the formal area of Israel, not even including Gaza and West Bank, I had no idea that it was nearly 20% muslim. I thought it was like 95% Jewish 5% Armenian and Greek Christians.

Where did you think the Joint List got its votes from?

Very left wing Jewish people.

That's what Meretz is

To be fair, it's also Hadash, which was part of the Joint List.

[Walmart_shopper]

So Bibi and Trump really are sort of Brothers from another mother in many ways... Both stoke racial tensions for their benefits & use race-baiting fear tactics as an campaign strategy, both have at best questionable financial dealings, Both have been married 3 times, both grew up fairly non-religious- yet exploit the religious right to their benefit, Both took their highest office without winning the most votes...

...at least Bibi does understand how government works (Trump still doesn't) & Bibi has military experience (Trump faked an injury).

Is this close to accurate?

Nailed it. But, frankly, the reason both have thrived in their respective countries has a lot to do with the fact that the US and Israel are very similar in all the wrong ways.

[Walmart_shopper]

So Bibi and Trump really are sort of Brothers from another mother in many ways... Both stoke racial tensions for their benefits & use race-baiting fear tactics as an campaign strategy, both have at best questionable financial dealings, Both have been married 3 times, both grew up fairly non-religious- yet exploit the religious right to their benefit, Both took their highest office without winning the most votes...

...at least Bibi does understand how government works (Trump still doesn't) & Bibi has military experience (Trump faked an injury).

Is this close to accurate?

Nailed it. But, frankly, the reason both have thrived in their respective countries has a lot to do with the fact that the US and Israel are very similar in all the wrong ways.

But the younger generation here is far more liberal and secular than in Israel.

The younger generation in America is maybe one of the most liberal in the West. Israel's is one of the least. Americans only have to wait and their country will be massively different. A huge number of liberal Israelis, on the other hand, have already left or are leaving the country to escape the future. I'm not sure that this election changes that, but there are very few people that are truly optimistic about the future. Turnout this year may not even get to 65 percent, in an election that nearly everyone believed was a referendum on the future in a way most elections here are not. People, right and left, didn't even bother showing up. The thing is that nobody here really believes in the future. It's all despair. The Haredim believe it,. The settlers believe it. Nobody else does. You feel that in our politics. People, right and left, have given up on peace, on Zionism, etc. In America I think there is a lot more optimism.

[Walmart_shopper]

Votes are still being counted but New Right is now above the threshold.

They are presently 600 votes over, if there are any more votes left...

There are still about 20,000 overseas and soldiers votes.  So it probably depends on how much of those are overseas and how much are military.

[Walmart_shopper]

If the New Right does get in then the right bloc will have 67 votes. I don't think Netanyahu at all wants Naftali Bennet in the Knesset, but I so think it will give him some cover in coalition negotiations. The Kahanist Alliance is demanding 5hat Ben Gvir be allowed into the Knesset after they take the hugely important Education and Justice ministries.

[Walmart_shopper]

I'm reading NR ultimately won't get in and Meretz will win a seat from UTJ, which means it's 64-56 and Netanyahu needs Kulanu.

This is pretty much the final result, it seems. Raam Balad also made it in, which is incredibly surprising to me. Meretz says that it was the Arab vote for them which saved the party from collapse.

Netanyahu needs Kulanu, Yisrael Beitenu, and the settlers. The last government fell apart after Liberman got sick of the Haredim and left the coalition. There's an obvious right wing majority on security issues in Israel. But at the same time the public is growing more hostile towards the Haredim (who collectively garnered less than 13 percent of the vote this week). At some point people will get so tired of the influence of religion on government and the Haredi parties that they turn on secular parties like Yisrael Beitenu and the Likud. With only 64 seats this time it's not a cozy majority and that by itself will probably make this Knesset less uniformly right wing.

[Walmart_shopper]

There is also a lot of talk about Kulanu actually merging with the Likud. Given that ideologically they are utterly indistinguishable, that seems logical. I wonder if at some point soon parts of the Likud begin to smell Bibi's blood in the water given his likely trial and form a faction behind Gideon Saar.

[Walmart_shopper]

Seems as if the prognosis has changed again. Likud and Kulanu pick up another seat, Meretz doesn't get one after all, and UTJ and URP lose one. It would be as follows:

Likud 36, KL 35, Shas 8, UTJ 7, Hadash-Ta'al 6, Labour 6, YB 5, Kulanu 5, URP 4, Meretz 4, Balad-Ra'am 4.

Of course Likud would then have 35 seats and URP 5 because of the Ben Dahan arrangement. In this case it would be 65-55 after all, but Kulanu would still be needed.

Overall good result in my book. Ben Gvir is kept out if the URWP are at 4, and Kulanu is the lesser evil in that government. Kinda disappointed Ali Salalha (Meretz no. 5) doesn't get in, but oh well.

Yeah, I mean, when you accept the fact that Israel is a right wing nationalist country that is growing more and not less right wing, it's possible to look at the glass as half full despite the fact that in a normal country Bibi wouldn't have been re-elected and Haredim wouldn't be in charge of the government. The majority is thin, it is without ideologues like Bennet and Shaked, and I'm extremely excited that Balaad got in because there are so many interesting Arab leaders in both Arab parties that could really transform the way the Arab sector does politics. It would have been a shame for them to have been left out. It's notable that had Arabs not actually boycotted the election the blocs would basically be tied. And if Arabs actually voted at the rates Jews do the right wouldn't have a majority. I understand the boycott, though I don't think it's a hugely great idea, but it's worth pointing out that while most voters are right wing most Israelis are not. The problem is that any so-called silent majority is just a consolation prize for political losers if people don't vote.

Also, I think the country is getting more and not less secular and that Bibi will be forced to resign in a year. So the future is probably a lot more interesting than it seems today.

[Walmart_shopper]

Also, Gabbay will be gone by next week. Labor is my political home and it's been amazing to watch a one-time right winger posing/running as a leftist (Gabbay) and then a leftist posing/running as a right winger (Gantz) decimate the Israeli center left. I have no clue why Itzhik Shmuley or Stav haven't been given a shot at leadership yet. Labor does need to re-brand itself as modern, youthful, forward-thinking, and serious. But why anyone thought Avi Gabbay was the guy to do that is beyond me.

[Walmart_shopper]

Kulanu merging into Likud would certainly lend the latter credibility, depending on how those last votes come, B&W and Likud could still be tied. Gives Likud a better mandate as the largest party. However given the right wing 'jumps' to Likud pre-election, and now Kulanu's merger post-election, Likud might be getting a little fat on personalities. Are they expecting a cut of Likuds success, or are they expecting a internal party war?

If Kachlon and Kulano are basically Likud MKs they will have to follow party lines on immunity law votes.

True. But I am not sure they can get all 36 Likud MKs on board for that. In any case,  I'd be shocked if that passes and Bagatz doesn't stop it.

[Walmart_shopper]

There is a lot of talk lately about a secular national unity government with Liberman and Kaholavan. It's not clear if there's anything to those rumors, but apparently Lapid and Liberman, who actually share many of the same core political priorities, met in Europe to discuss a unity government. Liberman has definitely been acting a little strange since the election, not at all embracing the idea of entering into another religious-right coalition with the Haredim. So we'll see if there's anything to this.

The political weakness for the right wing in Israel has always been its reliance on religious parties in an very secular country. A lot of what the Likud does, even the ugly stuff like the nation-state law, is fairly popular. But settlers and the Haredim are some of the most disliked groups in Israeli society and especially politics. The majority of Israelis share almost none of Haredi political priorities (huge majorities support civil marriage, separation of religion and state, breaking up the chief rabbinate, public transit on Saturday, drafting Haredim, gay rights, etc). At some point people are going to get tired of their Likud votes empowering Haredim.

Also, both UTJ leader Yaakov Litzman and Aryeh Deri (of Shas)  are likely to be indicted within the next year for crimes arguably more serious than Netanyahu's.  I never thought we'd get to the point where Liberman is the least corrupt leader in government, but, alas. In any case, the Haredim are loyal coalition partners but they are very unpopular and Liberman seems pretty tired of dealing with them. So it's possible that Bibi could use Liberman's intransigence as a ruse for bringing Kaholavan into to the coalition. It would also be massively among the public.

[Walmart_shopper]

But settlers and the Haredim are some of the most disliked groups in Israeli society and especially politics. The majority of Israelis share almost none of Haredi political priorities (huge majorities support civil marriage, separation of religion and state, breaking up the chief rabbinate, public transit on Saturday, drafting Haredim, gay rights, etc). At some point people are going to get tired of their Likud votes empowering Haredim.

Is that point before or after the Haredim become the majority of Israeli Jews? The Haredi population is exploding, and current official projections are for them to be >20% of Israeli Jews by 2028 and half  by 2060. This excludes settlers and others who may be Haredim-friendly.

Assuming Netanyahu succeeds in annexing the West Bank, this makes for interesting demographics down the line with a Palestinian underclass that may or may not have any rights, an economic drain of Haredim, and the remainder having to support the economy. Of course if Haredi growth levels off (as is starting to happen for Palestinians), things ease up a bit.

Well, a couple things...

Bibi's annexation idea included only the actual settlements, probably includeming area c. This would add all of the Jews in the West Bank but only a fraction of the Palestinians. It's a profoundly dumb idea, but it's not nearly as radical and demographically meaningful as annexing the whole West Bank.

Also, the Haredi demographic bomb is one of the most overrated in Israeli social and political discourse. Haredi birthrates are dropping, and the modernization and secularization of the community is happening pretty rapidly, often due to basic economic necessity that goodies from the Haredim in government don't help with. The joke is that Haredi women give birth to a greater number of secular babies than secular women, because the rate of people leaving Orthodox Judaism is so rapid.

I think more likely is that we reach some kind of equilibrium where the population is basically a third Arab, third secular Jewish, and a third Orthodox. As somebody not particularly invested in the idea of Zionism I don't really mind that outcome. But most Jewish Israelis probably would.

[Walmart_shopper]

There is a lot of talk lately about a secular national unity government with Liberman and Kaholavan. It's not clear if there's anything to those rumors, but apparently Lapid and Liberman, who actually share many of the same core political priorities, met in Europe to discuss a unity government. Liberman has definitely been acting a little strange since the election, not at all embracing the idea of entering into another religious-right coalition with the Haredim. So we'll see if there's anything to this.

The political weakness for the right wing in Israel has always been its reliance on religious parties in an very secular country. A lot of what the Likud does, even the ugly stuff like the nation-state law, is fairly popular. But settlers and the Haredim are some of the most disliked groups in Israeli society and especially politics. The majority of Israelis share almost none of Haredi political priorities (huge majorities support civil marriage, separation of religion and state, breaking up the chief rabbinate, public transit on Saturday, drafting Haredim, gay rights, etc). At some point people are going to get tired of their Likud votes empowering Haredim.

Also, both UTJ leader Yaakov Litzman and Aryeh Deri (of Shas)  are likely to be indicted within the next year for crimes arguably more serious than Netanyahu's.  I never thought we'd get to the point where Liberman is the least corrupt leader in government, but, alas. In any case, the Haredim are loyal coalition partners but they are very unpopular and Liberman seems pretty tired of dealing with them. So it's possible that Bibi could use Liberman's intransigence as a ruse for bringing Kaholavan into to the coalition. It would also be massively among the public.

Who is Kaholavan?

Kahol Lavan is the Blue and White coalition, i assume.

Yes, Kahol Lavan simply means "Blue White."