Israeli General Election (2nd of March, 2020): Madness

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Expected date: 10th of March.

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That's the day after Purim, I think. Keep the fun alive, right?

yes, they might merge the events to save some money, but it might cause some funny-unfunny events in the polls.
As it stands there's no party funding left for this election cycle, which is also quite problematic, Likud spent over 140 million NIS the past year

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Is there any reason to believe the results might be any different this time?  Perhaps Arab fatigue lower seat count of Joint List and helping Likud.

Arab fatigue could be equaled by fatigue of poor voters of the Likud base.

I don't believe the seat map will change much. the left-centre-arab bloc might increase by 1-2 seats but still not enough to swear in a minority government.

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Channel 13 poll:
Blue and White -37
Likud - 33
Joint List – 13
Yisrael Beytenu – 8
United Torah Judaism – 7
Shas – 6
New Right – 6
Labor – 5
Democratic Camp – 5

Centre-Left-Arab: 60
Right: 52

UTJ and Shas are losing that many seats. Junk poll

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Likud leadership primaries will be held on December 26th. I’ll be in Potsdam so man the fort.

No other party will hold any primaries again as I gather. Labour are divided between running with DU and joining B&W. Peretz wants to join B&W and most of them dislike Shaffir and don’t want her through the back door. Meretz aren’t too keen on the DU and especially Yair Golan. It will be insanity if both run again separately. Anyhow no primaries are planned.

Btw fun fact: this government is so ancient Avi Gabbay was a minister in it.

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Meretz is talking about merging with the Arabs again.

Lol yikes

This will never work in their favor. Their voter base will flock to Labor and they’ll probably fail to make the threshold at the following election.

I think you're underestimating the radicalism of Meretz voters.

I think you overestimate

[Hnv1]

Can I also just say how mindbogglingly weird it is that in Israel (of all places) the left is ascendent while in so many other countries, even more conventionally leftist ones, the right has recently come near or actually into power. Obviously the same global political trends happening in the UK, Australia, Italy, Uruguay and Poland and on and on are at work here, too, but the fact that Israel still has a meaningfully competitive center-left in a global milieu like this is perhaps a small miracle. I think that is less about the left or the right in Israel than about the catastrophic influence Netanyahu is having on the right wing, but I suppose the fact that one of the world's strongest right wings is letting itself implode to protect one morally questionable man from prosecution for serious felonies is actually not believable. Of all the places in the world, Israel is one where the left shouldn't be so resurgent. As much as I would love to see this phenomenon copy-pasted in the US, Hungary, and Brazil, the truth is that bad (and probably much worse than Netanyahu) leadership is not necessary crippling the autocratic right in those places.

I don’t know what left is ascending. B&W is centrist at best with edges on both sides, but it’s a left party and the 4 chiefs especially are pretty right wing

[Hnv1]

Can I also just say how mindbogglingly weird it is that in Israel (of all places) the left is ascendent while in so many other countries, even more conventionally leftist ones, the right has recently come near or actually into power. Obviously the same global political trends happening in the UK, Australia, Italy, Uruguay and Poland and on and on are at work here, too, but the fact that Israel still has a meaningfully competitive center-left in a global milieu like this is perhaps a small miracle. I think that is less about the left or the right in Israel than about the catastrophic influence Netanyahu is having on the right wing, but I suppose the fact that one of the world's strongest right wings is letting itself implode to protect one morally questionable man from prosecution for serious felonies is actually not believable. Of all the places in the world, Israel is one where the left shouldn't be so resurgent. As much as I would love to see this phenomenon copy-pasted in the US, Hungary, and Brazil, the truth is that bad (and probably much worse than Netanyahu) leadership is not necessary crippling the autocratic right in those places.

I don’t know what left is ascending. B&W is centrist at best with edges on both sides, but it’s a left party and the 4 chiefs especially are pretty right wing

In what way is Gantz right wing?

In what way is he left wing?

[Hnv1]

Can I also just say how mindbogglingly weird it is that in Israel (of all places) the left is ascendent while in so many other countries, even more conventionally leftist ones, the right has recently come near or actually into power. Obviously the same global political trends happening in the UK, Australia, Italy, Uruguay and Poland and on and on are at work here, too, but the fact that Israel still has a meaningfully competitive center-left in a global milieu like this is perhaps a small miracle. I think that is less about the left or the right in Israel than about the catastrophic influence Netanyahu is having on the right wing, but I suppose the fact that one of the world's strongest right wings is letting itself implode to protect one morally questionable man from prosecution for serious felonies is actually not believable. Of all the places in the world, Israel is one where the left shouldn't be so resurgent. As much as I would love to see this phenomenon copy-pasted in the US, Hungary, and Brazil, the truth is that bad (and probably much worse than Netanyahu) leadership is not necessary crippling the autocratic right in those places.

I don’t know what left is ascending. B&W is centrist at best with edges on both sides, but it’s a left party and the 4 chiefs especially are pretty right wing

In what way is Gantz right wing?

In what way is he left wing?

He believes in a broadly liberal and democratic society that is carefully protective of minorities and favors a cooperative and open politics over a rigid and religious ideological politics. He supports a robust and politically independent judiciary, a non clerical state, and a conciliatory approach to the Palestinians.

This is today's center-left in Israel. Yiu can compare our center left with the center left in other countries or our own center left decades ago. But in Israel today these ideas define the left and not the right.

How is he different from Rivlin, Hanegbi and other moderate right wingers?

[Hnv1]

Can I also just say how mindbogglingly weird it is that in Israel (of all places) the left is ascendent while in so many other countries, even more conventionally leftist ones, the right has recently come near or actually into power. Obviously the same global political trends happening in the UK, Australia, Italy, Uruguay and Poland and on and on are at work here, too, but the fact that Israel still has a meaningfully competitive center-left in a global milieu like this is perhaps a small miracle. I think that is less about the left or the right in Israel than about the catastrophic influence Netanyahu is having on the right wing, but I suppose the fact that one of the world's strongest right wings is letting itself implode to protect one morally questionable man from prosecution for serious felonies is actually not believable. Of all the places in the world, Israel is one where the left shouldn't be so resurgent. As much as I would love to see this phenomenon copy-pasted in the US, Hungary, and Brazil, the truth is that bad (and probably much worse than Netanyahu) leadership is not necessary crippling the autocratic right in those places.

I don’t know what left is ascending. B&W is centrist at best with edges on both sides, but it’s a left party and the 4 chiefs especially are pretty right wing

In what way is Gantz right wing?

In what way is he left wing?

He believes in a broadly liberal and democratic society that is carefully protective of minorities and favors a cooperative and open politics over a rigid and religious ideological politics. He supports a robust and politically independent judiciary, a non clerical state, and a conciliatory approach to the Palestinians.

This is today's center-left in Israel. Yiu can compare our center left with the center left in other countries or our own center left decades ago. But in Israel today these ideas define the left and not the right.

How is he different from Rivlin, Hanegbi and other moderate right wingers?

I don't actually think there is a significant ideological gap between Rabin, Rivlin, and Gantz.  The difference is that when the most crucial political decisions have to be made, the moderate Likudniks lean right (as Kahlon did over and over and over and over) while Gantz seems to lean left.

I supposed we need to calibrate our terms for left and right here. I think he leans ‘center’, certainly wouldn’t put him more than an inch to the left of the center

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MK Haim Katz (and Eti Attia) endorse Saar. This is big as Katz has a large number of likud members he controls

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This Likud primary is shaping up to be closer than I thought it would be. I was predicting a slaughter (like 75% Bibi and 25% Sa’ar) but now not so much.

Sharren Haskel who’s the dream girl for the likud libertarian groups on incels also endorses Saar

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Due to the infighting in the Democratic Camp and Meretz old guard threatening to pushShaffir and Golan back on the list - Shaffir rebranded her Green movements as the Green Party with the threat of running solo pushing both under the threshold

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Likud internal tribunal rules that there must be a primaries for the list as well. Mayhem

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Likud internal tribunal rules that there must be a primaries for the list as well. Mayhem

What are we predicting?

Honestly who knows? You can imagine the Bibi wing to grow stronger, but likud membership showed more freedom of thought at picking the list than the head

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This might be a bad place to ask this, but why exactly does Israel have at-large parliamentary elections? It just seems a little odd having a Westminster-ish system but without constituencies. Is there some historical rationale for it?

Short answer: there was little time to decide the system in 48.

Longer answer: Between the 1921-48 there were semi parliamentary elections under British rule but as the population wasn’t evenly spread in any sensible way the elections were at large. When the state was formed there was also no reasonable way to have boundaries plus I assume that at the time the mostly Palestinian rural areas would have produced “undesirable” foreseen outcomes.
Also note that the first election were for the constitutional convention not parliament, at-large election for constitutional delegates is preferable. the constitutional convention declared itself a parliament in 1949.
Ever since then there were numerous calls for regional elections as early as 1958 but they never succeeded. There’s the fear of terrible gerrymandering and the bizarre population spread in Israel, plus the fact that let’s be honest no one trusts the poor Jewish periphery and Arab population here with running fair elections considering what we see on the municipal level.

There other reasons, some good reasons even to prevent this move. Right now there’s a trend going on for a mixed system like the Germans, this might go down more easily than the UK/US delegates system

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FPP is a terrible system, so the question isn't why some countries don't have it, but why some countries still do have it.

There’s no perfect system even in ideal theory, it’s very context and society dependent.

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The Likud list primaries were cancelled by the party's court.

Which is amusing as legally they were required and it was overruled merely because the king opposed it.
Also mass irregularities and dirty tricks by Bibi and the party mechanism before the primaries on Thursday. As usual Likud is a bin filled with rotting waste

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Looks closer to 80-20, bad defeat for Saar, even Danon had 21% against Bibi. Still can’t win a GE

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Likud primaries results show as you can imagine overwhelming numbers for Bibi. Saar managed to win in 2 small towns, some Druze villages, and Tel Aviv (excluding southern Tel Aviv).

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Likud primaries results show as you can imagine overwhelming numbers for Bibi. Saar managed to win in 2 small towns, some Druze villages, and Tel Aviv (excluding southern Tel Aviv).

So much for the New Likudniks. I always assumed that the looming Likud civil war would leave the party in ash with more moderate leadership to clean up the mess. While a Likud civil war after March is still quite likely, I'm actually very skeptical that the party will really change, much. It has lost so much of the sane right and absorbed so much of the religious and racist right that I don't know how the party ever manages to pivot left from here. It's a weird situation in which the the Likud can't win with the Bibists but they can't win without them, either.

The New Likudniks did not endorse Saar and actually stayed home

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So isn't the problem for March that Democratic Camp/Meretz might fall under the threshold and that that might screw up the left numbers? Do you all think the Democratic Camp is going to survive or not?

It’s possible, especially if Shaffir does run alone and Golan is pushed back. Meretz are trying to lure Mazen Ganaim formerly of Balad (though a moderate) and a known figure with the Arab public to run with them to attract more Arab voters

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If Meretz falls beneath the threshold it can boost the right by a maximum of 2.5 seats, so unlikely it will propel the right to 61 seats. Enough with the scare tactics, it’s time for Meretz to die

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Likud primaries results show as you can imagine overwhelming numbers for Bibi. Saar managed to win in 2 small towns, some Druze villages, and Tel Aviv (excluding southern Tel Aviv).

Where can I access these results?

Thanks.

https://twitter.com/talshalev1/status/1210357981658959872?s=21

I doubt there’s an English version

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Netanyahu is asking for immunity from indictment which the Knesset needs to vote on. Lieberman announces he’s against and will support forming the house committee even before the next election to vote against the request. The ball is now in the speaker’s lap and he needs to approve the vote.

Bibi is desperate, delaying the trial with a heavy electoral cost