Israel General Election Thread: March 17 2015

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Did he announce he was resigning the Knesset at the same time as he tried to step down as party leader?

It was my understanding that he asked to resign as party leader, that request was rejected by the Torah Scholars or whatever, and now he's gone over their head by resigning the Knesset.

No. The timeline is, Yishai leaked the tapes. Deri asked the Council to resign as party leader. They refused. Now he's resigned from the Knesset, and in his (public) resignation letter he refused the rabbis' refusal of his resignation and recommended ex-MK Atias to replace him. On Arutz Sheva they quote a few Shas MKs defending Deri and expressing support for the Council in their attempt to get him to reconsider. It also says Deri will meet with the rabbis on Tuesday (that is, today), so there may be more information out very soon.

In centrist-party news, Yesh Atid MK Adi Koll announced she won't be seeking reelection; she wasn't a minister, but she was #9 on the list in 2013, which would've been a realistic but not guaranteed slot today. Also, Kachlon is reportedly recruiting the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Rachel Azaria, who is an "Orthodox feminist", to join him on his list -- she checks a lot of boxes.

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Also, just for the sake of trivia, do people celebrate New Years in Israel?

Russians in Israel most certainly do; it was one of the most important holidays of the year in the Soviet Union.

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So Feiglin is out and Hotovely is out without a lot of luck?

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So Feiglin is out and Hotovely is out without a lot of luck?

Yes

What happened to Hotovely? She didn't seem to be a particularly controversial or prominent member. And who are likely to be Bibi's two picks? Is he going to parachute in star candidates, or put in his own loyalists, or could he promote people who did poorly in the primaries who he feels deserve election?

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When is the deadline for submitting the lists, so we'll know about all the candidates and all non-candidates? End of January?

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Haaretz reports that Faina Kirschenbaum asked Lieberman not to seek reelection, but that Lieberman convinced her to seek another term on the Yisrael Beiteinu list. JPost reports that Netanyahu is looking for a woman to fill the 11th slot on the Likud list, and speculates that Miriam Feirberg, the mayor of Netanya, could be it. Arutz Sheva has a conspiracy theory-ish but interesting article out saying that prominent Netanyahu ally and Modi'in mayor Haim Bibas waged an undercover anti-Feiglin campaign that was responsible for his poor showing.

Jewish Home's primaries will be on the fourteenth, but Jewish Home is more obsessed with reserving spots than Likud, so large parts of the list are already apparent. Slot 1 is reserved for the leader -- Naftali Bennett. Slots 2, 9, 14, and 18 are reserved for members of Tkuma -- likely to be Uri Ariel, Zvulun Kalfa, Orit Strook, and someone new, in that order (though Strook could be bumped up for being a woman). Slots 4, 8, 12, and 17 are reserved for women, with 4 likely to go to MK Ayelet Shaked and 8 likely to go to MK Shuli Moalem. Slots 3, 6, and 11 are reserved for candidates of Bennett's choosing, with star candidate Yinon Magal having been promised one of these slots and likely to get the third. Lastly, 10 is reserved for a member of the Jewish Home's national committee, so it will certainly be someone new -- there are four candidates running for this slot. So, heavily speculative, this is what the top ten Jewish Home list looks like:

1. Naftali Bennet (leader)
2. Uri Ariel (leader of Tkuma)
3. Yinon Magal (or whoever Bennett picks; Yinon Magal has been promised a slot)
4. Ayelet Shaked (top-ranked woman is very likely to be Shaked)
5. top male candidate in primaries -- probably either Nissan Slomiansky or Eli Ben-Dahan?
6. another candidate of Bennett's choosing
7. whoever is next in the primaries -- either Slomiansky or Ben-Dahan, whoever's not in slot 5
8. second woman -- speculated to be Shuli Moalem
9. Zvulun Kalfa (2nd on Tkuma list is probably Kalfa)
10. member of JH's national committee -- probably party chairman Nir Orbach, but also running are Netanya chairman Daniel Bashari, along with lesser-known Amiad Taub and Hagit Moshe

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I read the JH rules a bit differently.
1) The Tkuma members come separately, so the different reservations don't consider this and are then moved back, so the number 4 spot reserved for women will really be at number 5.

JPost disagrees with this, but I'll trust your reading of the rules in Hebrew over my reading of a journalistic account of them in English.

2) The chosen by the Bennet part only says that Bennet can put one person in every five spots by his choosing, but again this only for JH and not related to Tkuma, and doesn't limit the specific place beyond one in each five. Also, it is quite likely that Bennet doesn't use all of his theoretically available spots.

JPost seems to suggest it's just three slots (one in the first five, one in the second five, and one in the third), or alternatively that Bennet only intends to use three slots. But again, I'll trust you on this.

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The person who posted the aggregate numbers based it on whether the party was a member of the Likud coalition or the opposition in the last Knesset.

That's not really applicable, since there have been new parties created since 2013 and there is also one case of two parties running together one list (Labor-Hatnuah) where one party did not participate but the other did. So...that system can't work.

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The former commander of South Command, Yoav Galant, is joining Kulanu. Galant was nominated for Chief of Staff in 2011, but his appointment was controversially canceled by Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

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When are the JH primaries going to take place? I've seen 'January 5' in a lot of places but that obviously can't be right, since they'd be over in that case.

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When are the JH primaries going to take place? I've seen 'January 5' in a lot of places but that obviously can't be right, since they'd be over in that case.

If you are wondering about the date for the primaries:

Likud: 31/12
Labour:13/1
Jewish Home: 14/1
Meretz: 19/1

I see. Thank you!

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Interior Defence Minister Aharonovic announces his departure from political life as well. Liberman's party is breaking apart it seems

An Arutz Sheva article about a different topic casually mentioned at one point that Lieberman intends to promote popular MK Orly Levy (sister of very likely Likud newbie Jackie Levy) to spot #2 on the YB list ( http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/189714#.VLBIOmTF9As ) -- is that true?

The article says that Orly Levy and Netanya mayor Miriam Feirberg were Netanyahu's first two choices, but apparently they both seem unlikely to take the offer. I think 11th on the Likud list might be safer than 2nd on the YB list at this point, but I guess that's debatable. Hotovely is actively campaigning to have one of the two slots.

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Three pieces of big news:

1) Kind of expected, but Aryeh Deri will rejoin Shas and will run as party leader. The past week of polling has looked pretty good for him, with Yishai under the threshold in almost all polls and Shas consistently getting 5-7 seats; obviously a decline from 2013, but polling at the end of December had called Shas' very survival into question.

2) Yisrael Beiteinu MK Faina Kirschenbaum won't seek reelection because of corruption allegations. Kirschenbaum was never a minister, but she was considered to be a very close confidante of Lieberman, who apparently tried to dissuade her from retiring. She is the fourth Yisrael Beiteinu MK to retire, after MK David Rotem and Ministers Yitzhak Aharonovich and Uzi Landau.

3) Moshe Kachlon has recruited Ethiopian-Israeli journalist/radio station director Tzaga Malko to be #3 on his list -- she will be the highest-ranked woman on the Kulanu list. Of the top seven people on the Kulanu list, 3 are women. The articles I saw made a very big deal of this, but it isn't really that impressive -- Labor and Meretz will very likely both have the same proportion.

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Apparently Mofaz was offered the 20TH stop on the Labor list and he turned it down as insulting. He won't be joining the list at all now.

Amos Yadlin now sure to get the 11th spot. I guess Herzog was going to give it to him regardless.

JPost says that Herzog and Mofaz have actually not spoken in several weeks, and that Livni did not want Kadima to join the Zionist Center.

So...is it too late for Mofaz to be snapped up by some other list, or is he out? Running independently after barely crossing the 2% threshold in 2013, and having declined in polls since then, seems kinda hopeless, but it seems strange that no parties want anything to do with him.

EDIT: In their article on Ksenia Svetlova being given the 21st seat on the Labor-Hatnuah list, JPost noted that one of the two remaining Hatnuah slots is expected to be given to former MK Yoel Hasson -- is that just speculation or is there some truth to it?

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JPost says that Yadlin will be the Labor candidate for Defense Minister if they can keep the portfolio, but that he won't be seeking a seat in the Knesset. So it's still unclear who will get the 11th spot, leaving an outside opportunity for Mofaz.

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Yesh Atid announced that they will be announcing () their list tomorrow.

So, the Israeli media has kind of gone wacko with hypothetical merger possibilities. Ones included:

Likud-Bayit Yehudi: the reason they'd do this would be to be certain they'd get the largest number of seats forcing Rivlin to give them the nod. Bennett isn't hot on the idea though, and might ask for a pm rotation in that case.

Hamahane Hatzioni- Yesh Atid: If there's a Bibi/Bennett merger, these two parties would likely merge to boost their chances of being the largest party.

Kulanu-Yesh Atid: Kahlon already shot this down, but if his share of the votes keeps dropping, he may decide to change his mind (for funding purposes if nothing else).

Yachad-Otzma: Yishai with the Kahanists, in order for them to both get above the threshold. Yishai's Rabbis have been in contact with the other side, and negotiations may have started.

But only the last one is more than a pipe dream, right? At least, with that one the articles I read sound like "reporting", while the others sound like "speculation".

Why is Kulanu dropping? It's actually been a very consistent trend from the start of the election.

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former Beitar Jerusalem football star Eli Ohana will join the Jewish Home in one of the reserved spots. Significant because Beitar has a very right wing fan base, traditionally connected with the Likud Which Bennet is now going for.

Is it slot 11 that he's getting? And everyone else is getting bumped down one slot (except Strook and Kalfa, who "can't" be bumped down)?

For the YA list, up to 8 looks very likely, 9-12 possible, and 13 down is doubtful. Three Yesh Atid MKs are not seeking reelection -- Adi Koll (who made a public announcement), but also Rina Frenkel and Shimon Solomon.

So, at this point...it seems like the lists are known, except for the identity of who Netanyahu intends to appoint to slots 11 and 23 in the Likud. That's the final mystery (unless some parties really do choose to suddenly unite over the last few days).

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Livni has decided to replace Shlomo Molla on her list with Eyal Ben Reuven, who crossed over from Meretz, which means there may well be no Ethiopian immigrant in the next Knesset, since Tsega Melaku, who was given the 3rd spot in Kulanu, was apparently disqualified from running. (Molla, who was to be given slot 25 on the Zionist Camp, would have been a 50/50 shot to enter the Knesset). Not counting Melaku, the two likeliest candidates are now Pnina Tamano-Shata (13th for Yesh Atid; probably not, but possible) and Nagosa Avraham (27th for Likud; probably not, but possible). Molla reacted with very harsh words for Livni and an almost-but-not-quite endorsement of Kulanu.

In other news, Mofaz announced that he won't be seeking reelection in 2015, and that he's stepping down from the Kadima leadership. The new Kadima leader, a Druze named Akram Hasson who briefly served in the Knesset from 2012-2013, is apparently in negotiations with Kahlon about a joint list.

And, yeah, there was a great deal of drama in JH, with Eli Ohana being given a spot in the top 10 (I think he gets slot 10 on the JH list, so slot 12 on the joint list with Tkuma, but I'm not sure about this) and the reserved slot for woman being given to Anat Roth, bumping down Yehudit Shilat. There was a great deal of anger about this from certain quarters, and Zevulun Kalfa, who was 4th on the Tkuma list (18th on the overall list) resigned his spot; he will be replaced in the 18th spot (a reach, but not impossible) by Tkuma party director Nachi Eyal. It is rumored that Kalfa will join Yishai's list.

Slot 12 on the Wamab list, which was reserved for a member of Ta'al (so, someone picked by Ahmad Tibi) will go to human-rights lawyer Osama Sa'adi, who is also Ta'al's brother-in-law

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So Kadima is effectively a Druze vote bank now? Remarkable.

Funnily enough, Kadima is apparently the first-ever majority-Jewish party with Knesset representation to be led by an Arab, even if that is right before its untimely doom.

...it's not really a Druze party of any kind, but putting Hasson in charge is very probably a gimmick to try to increase Druze support for the party. It might've worked with the old threshold, but I doubt they can get to 3.25% (though it seems Hasson may be negotiating with Kachlon; he might still be worth 1.5%-2% or so, which is not worthless).

The top four of the list (it goes on for a while, but everyone after #4 is hopelessly obscure and has no chance anyway):
1. Fmr MK Akram Hasson (2012-2013; Druze)
2. Fmr MK Doron Avital (2011-2013)
3. Fmr Givatayim Mayor Reuven Ben-Shahar
4. MK Yuval Zellner (2012-2013; 2014-present)

So officially Eyal Ben Reuven is a member of Hatnuah? From Meretz to Hatnuah...

I think Ben-Reuven is more concerned with his political career than his ideological beliefs.

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No, I think Hasson will lead Mofaz and Zellner from outside the Knesset

And, yeah, there certainly is a history between Kadima and the Druze -- some of their best 2013 results were in Druze communities -- but it's still an exaggeration to call it a "Druze party".

Also, quote from Shaul Mofaz's not-running speech: "I am not an outstanding politician"

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Jeremy's Knesset Insider took an average of all the polls of the past week (though he added a disclaimer saying there were significant differences in polls from before and after the Eli Ohana saga, which was midweek, so to some extent the electorate has "already moved on"), and came up with (rounding to the nearest whole number):

Zionist Union 25
Likud 24
Jewish Home 15
Wamab 12
Yesh Atid 9
Kulanu 8
United Torah Judaism 7
Shas 7
Yisrael Beiteinu 5
Meretz 5
Ha'am Itanu 3

Ha'am Itanu averages 3 seats in polling, but they also average a popular vote figure below the threshold (though most were polls were before the merger with Otzma, so they may be above the threshold by now). Removing them would give a seat to the three parties closest to a seat -- Likud, Yesh Atid, and Yisrael Beiteinu. Like so:

Zionist Union 25
Likud 25
Jewish Home 15
Wamab 12
Yesh Atid 10
Kulanu 8
United Torah Judaism 7
Shas 7
Yisrael Beiteinu 6
Meretz 5

...which seems to be, basically, where we stood about Thursday morning, and still a fairly good approximation of where we stand now.

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Did he get a spot on the list? He didn't get a realistic one.

Jeremy says spot #12. Probably still more realistic than Kadima spot #1.

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Panels/Knesset

Likud - 25
Labor/Livini - 24
Jewish Home - 13
United Arab Parties - 12
Yesh Atid - 11
Kulanu - 8
UTJ - 7
Shas - 6
Meretz - 5
Yisrael Beitenu - 5
Racists - 4

Calling Eli Yishai's party "racists" doesn't make sense at all. I suggest you just put "Yachad Ha'am Itanu-Otzma" there.

Well, factually it's correct. I'll agree that it doesn't make much sense to single them out, considering parties like Balad, Ra'am, and Shas are also running.

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The English word "racism" is frequently and commonly used to refer beliefs involving discrimination and inferiority/superiority among ethnic groups in addition to races. There is no Jewish (or Israeli) race (though both are ethnic groups, of which the one is part of the other), just as there is no Palestinian (or Arab) race (though both are ethnic groups, of which one is part of the other).

As for racism among parties running in the Israeli election of 2015, there are several groups that probably "deserve" banning under the 1988 law (which bans not only racism, but also the denial of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state). But none will be. The law of 1988 was originally passed in order to ban not one but two parties: Kach, which was banned for being racist, and the Progressive List for Peace, which was to be banned for denying that Israel is a Jewish state (and which thankfully has since fallen apart). This was very, very controversial, and the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the ban on Kach while striking down the ban on the PLP was also. Since then, in order to maintain basically the image of the Supreme Court as a neutral arbiter in Israeli politics, no bans have ever been upheld (except the ban on Kach itself, and on a descendant party literally named after Kahane), which has allowed racists and anti-Zionists, including literal Kahanists like Michael Ben-Ari (and, unfortunately, probably soon Baruch Marzel) and Syrian fifth columnists like Azmi Bishara and the rest of his party, to infiltrate the Knesset.

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Knesset Jeremy is out with his average of the past week:

February 1-7, 2015 polling average:
Likud (Netanyahu) 25
Zionist Union (Herzog) 24
Jewish Home (Bennett) 13
Joint List (Odeh) 12
Yesh Atid (Lapid) 10
Kulanu (Kahlon) 8
United Torah Judaism (Litzman) 7
Shas (Deri) 7
Yisrael Beiteinu (Liberman) 5
Meretz (Gal-On) 5
Yahad (Yishai) 4

If there're notable trends to be pointed to, Yahad is now consistently above the threshold; Likud is gaining at the expense of Jewish Home and Yesh Atid is gaining at the expense of the Zionist Union. Of course, these are oversimplifications and much more is going on than this. Netanyahu's Likud has actually taken an outright lead, as opposed to a tie or narrow trailing, in Jeremy's average for the first time in several months; of course, Netanyahu's on track to stay PM regardless of whether his party narrowly beats or narrowly loses to Herzog's.