Israel 2022 election (November 1st)

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At this point, who does Blue & White represent and what do they stand for (as opposed to, say, Yesh Atid)?

A bit less urban, they are stronger in the Moshavim. A bit older. Professional army men and veterans. Old hawkish Labour voters. young "apolitical" voters. etc.

YA tilt slightly more to the left and has a more urban and liberal vibe. A younger vibe altogether.

That's why we see a bigger vote shift from Meretz to YA, and from Labour to B&W than from any of the other combinations.

It will be interesting to see how Eisenkot's imminent entrance to YA will affect their "civilian" image.

The ideological differences are minor. Gantz seems to like to talk more about the Palestinian issue than Lapid, who prefers to stay in the social liberal issues ballpark. B&W has a more protectionist attitude, with MKs Bitton and Shuster lobbying for farmers and some interest groups (like army professionals). YA is more liberal and doesn't really cater to any interest group, well, part for the tech and finance industry.
B&W likes to talk about "security", YA likes to talk about society.

I feel like Blue and White would be a natural coalition partner for Likud but for the fact that they do not trust Netanyahu as an individual. Yesh Atid on the other hand comes form a different secular, center-left tradition that does not mesh nearly as well with Likud and it's nationalist, right-wing stance, or with Likud's allies in the Haredi parties.

This is even more true for Yisrael Beiteinu, which was part of Bibi's coalition from 2009-2019. The solution for this crisis is for Likud to ditch Bibi as leader, or alternatively persuade enough floor-crossers to take the majority themselves. (Note that Bibi's alleged skill at negotiating has really fallen through: he had 60 seats at the April 2019 election without Liberman, so he needed just 1 more vote. After the September election, Gadi Yevarkan switched to Likud, and he had been courted extensively during that summer...but it all somehow came to naught.)

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A barrage of polls. The Bibi bloc is between 55-60 but never 61. It seems the only way they squeeze the 61 is if 2/3 of Meretz\NH\Yamina will be below the threshold.
Meretz are the most fragile with voters very displeased but Michaeli of Labour is against any union. She still thinks she could be a future PM and a merger would push her to the left. She may have not gotten the memo but no one finds her PM material or centrist.
Yamina and NH will merge or rum-Yamina will join NH, I have no doubt about it.

Maariv poll:
Likud 34
YA 21
NZ 9
B&W 8
Shas 7
Labour 7
UTJ 7
JL 6
YB 5
Yamina 4
NH 4
Ra'am 4
Meretz 4

Parties that will hold a members primaries: Likud (only for the list), Labour, Meretz, Ra'am

that's it. YA are planning their first primaries in the next cycle

This is just a redux of the (very well-hung) September 2019/2020 elections, right? Unless YB rejoins the right bloc, the only solution is a grand coalition. Ra'am-to-Yamina isn't an option anymore, either.

Much as Bibi stayed PM through all of the elections which didn't return a government, does Lapid remain in power until the next election which actually produces a government? That could take quite a while -- seems to me very plausibly years.

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Is there a reason that Yamina couldn't, or wouldn't, run on a joint list with New Hope? (For that matter Labor-Meretz also makes a great deal of sense and has been done in the past, but since the leadership is the same as last time this doesn't seem very likely.)

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Hopefully the Netanyahu clowns don't win too much. He is kinda like Trump in the sense that he really increased hatred around the world for Israel and Jews in general.

See, I'm not a fan of Netanyahu, but I don't think this is true. He presided (from 2009-2020) over an epochal increase in support for Israel from countries around the world (certainly relations are better with most of Latin America/Africa/Arab countries/non-western Europe/India/China); something like the reverse of this is probably closer to accurate. His foreign policy successes are the most coherent reason to support him.

[Vosem]

Hopefully the Netanyahu clowns don't win too much. He is kinda like Trump in the sense that he really increased hatred around the world for Israel and Jews in general.

See, I'm not a fan of Netanyahu, but I don't think this is true. He presided (from 2009-2020) over an epochal increase in support for Israel from countries around the world (certainly relations are better with most of Latin America/Africa/Arab countries/non-western Europe/India/China); something like the reverse of this is probably closer to accurate. His foreign policy successes are the most coherent reason to support him.

Yeah it’s a very US/UK centric view to think support for Israel has decreased recently, just because Pro-Palestine politicians are/were prominent in the last decade.

Harder to say about the UK, but polling from the US suggests that positive opinions of the Israeli state actually rose over the last decade (and are certainly higher today relative to two decades ago), even as pro-Palestinian advocacy might have become much better organized.

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Hopefully the Netanyahu clowns don't win too much. He is kinda like Trump in the sense that he really increased hatred around the world for Israel and Jews in general.

See, I'm not a fan of Netanyahu, but I don't think this is true. He presided (from 2009-2020) over an epochal increase in support for Israel from countries around the world (certainly relations are better with most of Latin America/Africa/Arab countries/non-western Europe/India/China); something like the reverse of this is probably closer to accurate. His foreign policy successes are the most coherent reason to support him.

Yes, but isn't that governments rather than people?

In the Muslim world, sure, but elsewhere I think it goes deeper. Both Pew numbers and just a casual look at rhetoric throughout Latin America/sub-Saharan Africa/eastern Europe shows an enormous shift, and in the US polling pretty clearly says that consolidation on the right (which not that long ago was pretty ambivalent) has been worth much more than very little sliding on the left. The one country where it seems like there's solid evidence that views of Israel have plummeted in the Netanyahu era is, oddly enough, Ireland.

I don't know how much of this is attributable to Netanyahu -- it kind of seems like something that would've happened anyway -- but success at foreign affairs is probably his biggest selling point.

[Vosem]

Hopefully the Netanyahu clowns don't win too much. He is kinda like Trump in the sense that he really increased hatred around the world for Israel and Jews in general.

See, I'm not a fan of Netanyahu, but I don't think this is true. He presided (from 2009-2020) over an epochal increase in support for Israel from countries around the world (certainly relations are better with most of Latin America/Africa/Arab countries/non-western Europe/India/China); something like the reverse of this is probably closer to accurate. His foreign policy successes are the most coherent reason to support him.

Yes, but isn't that governments rather than people?

In the Muslim world, sure, but elsewhere I think it goes deeper. Both Pew numbers and just a casual look at rhetoric throughout Latin America/sub-Saharan Africa/eastern Europe shows an enormous shift, and in the US polling pretty clearly says that consolidation on the right (which not that long ago was pretty ambivalent) has been worth much more than very little sliding on the left. The one country where it seems like there's solid evidence that views of Israel have plummeted in the Netanyahu era is, oddly enough, Ireland.

I don't know how much of this is attributable to Netanyahu -- it kind of seems like something that would've happened anyway -- but success at foreign affairs is probably his biggest selling point.

Most of the people in countries you refer don’t know who Bibi is and would have drifted anti-Israel even if Herzog was PM since 2015. Correlation is not causation, especially soft correlation.
What you’re referring to is simply woke post-colonialism, and tbf I couldn’t care less what Sociology students in Latin America or Dublin say about anything.

I think you misunderstand me -- one of the most visible shifts is poor or right-wing or especially poor and right-wing parts of Latin America becoming much more in favor of Israel, to the point that talking about ~The Conflict~ is now a staple for people right-wing candidates (particularly in Central America, but also, eg Colombia/Brazil; overlaps with places where there've been really large-scale conversions to Protestantism) in a way that it really wasn't 20 years ago.

Whether that matters any more than sociology students in Dublin can be questioned, but if we're going to have a conversation on international opinions on Israel then it's tough to avoid noticing that rhetoric from a Bolsonaro or Duque or Bukele has shifted from 'not caring' to 'overwhelming positivity'.

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Anyway Lapid stays as PM?

Until somebody else forms a coalition, yes. Bibi’s 2015 mandate theoretically continued until he signed a power-sharing agreement with Gantz in 2020 (so for significantly longer than the length of a single Knesset term). Lapid remains in power until somebody else demonstrates that they have the confidence of the Knesset; a purely negative vote of no confidence does not suffice.

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In a vegan commune where some of my friends live, the antivax party grew from 4.6% (18 votes) to 7.6% (29 votes), while RZ grew from 3.9% (15 votes) to 13.7% (52 votes). Labor won there last time with 20.3% (79 votes) and now fell to 4th with 9.2% (35 votes). Meretz down from 19% (74 votes) to 13.4% (51 votes), Yesh Atid up from 18% (70 votes) to 41.8% (121 votes)

The antivax thing unfortunately makes sense, but what's the appeal of RZ in a vegan commune?

https://twitter.com/HeTows/status/1588246765580726272

RZ has a little appeal basically everywhere.