A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

High Turnout, Nervous Bibi?

Binyamin Netanyahu issued a late call to Likud voters to get out and vote after it became clear that there are very high turnouts in much of Israel, but lower than expected in some Likud strongholds. There are also early indications that Yair Lapid's new Yesh Atid Party is doing very well.

None of this is reason to expect an upset; by almost all estimates, Likud will still be he biggest party. A resurgent center might, however, persuade Netanyahu to form a center-right coalition rather than a hard-right one. But I won't speculate further here; we'll soon know the results.

3 comments:

Jonathan Wright said...

I do wish US-based commentators would stop calling Netanyahu Bibi. It sounds like he's some childhood buddy or that they actually LIKE him, which reflects quite badly on them, I think

Michael Collins Dunn said...

It's a lot shorter in headlines than "Netanyahu," but if it sounds like I like him, I'll have to rethink.

David Mack said...

Agree with Jonathan Wright.