A Tale of Two Cities: The Party Vote in Jerusalem vs.Tel Aviv

Even a casual tourist surely notices the profound contrast between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and the more one gets to know each city the sharper the contrast appears. The way folks dress on the beaches of Tel Aviv and the streets of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem are at opposite poles of just about everything. If someone approaches you on the street in Jerusalem there's a fair chance they're proselytizing (for which religion depends on the part of town); in at least certain parts of Tel Aviv (the hotel and nightclub districts for example), it's likelier they're offering some form of negotiable companionship for the evening. There are things I like about each city, although as a historian, Jerusalem to me is an irreplaceable monument while Tel Aviv is almost American (with a touch of a European capital) and barely over a century old in a region of ageless cities. So it's hardly surprising that the two cities don't vote alike.

Shmuel Rosner at jewishjournal.com has a post called "Israel is a Moderate Country: 20 Short Notes on the Election." It's yet another look through infographics and pie charts at the vote results, but his No. 16, a comparison of the top five parties by votes in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, makes the point of his brief conclusion: "These are not two different cities, these are two different universes." If you don't know the parties by name, three of the five in Jerusalem are religious parties and the fourth is secular rightist Likud; only Yesh Atid is nominally centrist; in Tel Aviv none are religious parties and all are center-left except Likud:

A Weakened Right, Strengthened Center with Hard Bargaining Ahead

Exit polling (not, at this time, official results) suggests that while Netanyahu's Likud is still the largest party in the Knesset and thus he will likely form the next government, the right has been much weakened. Likud is forecast to win only 31 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, down from 42 in the outgoing Knesset. Yair Lapid's new Yesh Atid (There is a Future) Party is forecast to be the second largest party with 18 or 19 seats. More importantly, if the exit polls hold up, the right wing and Orthodox religous parties will command, at best, 61 seats, with the center and left holding 59: a nearly split Knesset.

Coalition building is never that simple in Israel, and a seat or two difference in the final results might even make it possible for the left to block Netanyahu or limit him to a weak, unstable coalition. His own Likud Beitenu now includes the rabid secularists of the former Yisrael Beitenu, who favor policies anathema to the religious parties.

Yair Lapid

Lapid looks to be the kingmaker here. He can join Likud in a strong center-right coalition or join the left in blocking that. His party may have a dozen fewer seats than Netanhyahu's but he is the real winner in this election since both sides will be wooing him, and he's likely to drive a hard bargain. His party favors military service for all Israelis, ending the exemption for Yeshiva students, which will not sit well with religious coalition partners.

At this point, though, a caution: that 61-59 split is so close that if the exit polls differ from the actual results by only a seat or two, all bets are off. Stay tuned

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.

Thoughts on Israel's Election Day

I haven't been writing about the Israeli elections, and in fact coverage in the Western media has been relatively light. The reason is that few can conjure up a scenario under which anyone other than Bibi Netanyahu will form the next government. But in fact the prospects are that these elections will be among the most transformative in the history of the state. The government formed four years ago was widely described at the time as the most right-wing in Israeli history. Unless the polls and prognosticators are dramatically wrong, dovish Israelis may look back on that government wistfully.

Four years ago I had just begun this blog, and my coverage of the elections was one of my first major themes. Given the tenor of the government which emerged, it is easy to forget that the party that won the most Knesset seats in 2009 was the centrist Kadima, led by Tzipi Livni. She could not form a  coalition so Likud did instead, joined by the hard-right Yisrael Beitenu of Avigdor Lieberman, and Labor under Ehud Barak as a moderating force.

Today, Kadima, now led by Shaul Mofaz, is polling in the single digits, while Livni now heads a rival party, Hatnuah, further splitting the left and center, also splintered due to Yair Lapid's new Yesh Atid Party. Labor, from which Barak split, is fighting the election from the left, but more on social than on peace issues. (Barak, who had split with Labor to start his own party, is now retiring from politics.) Likud, though it has combined with Yisrael Beitenu as Likud Beitenu, is running a bit behind previous performance, but much of the drainage seems to be to the right, to the Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) Party. A right-wing religious party that was in the current coalition, it has a new leader, Naftali Bennett, a hardliner ho rejects the peace process, favors annexing most of the West Bank, and does not even particular pay lip service to negotiating with Palestinians. (As this leftist commentator notes, at least you know where he really stands.)

Wh8le the traditional opposition Labor Party has been somewhat revived under the leadership of Shelly Yachimovich, she has also positioned it to run on economic and social issues, rather than peace. For genuine advocates of the peace process one must look to the leftist parties, the traditional Meretz and a new Arab-Jewish Party called Da'm, which is led by an Israeli Arab woman,  Asma Aghbarieh-Zahalka. Several of my dovish Israeli acquaintances are excited by her, but of course she has no chance in the present Israeli political environment. (But if the two-state solution really does collapse, one can imagine some scenarios down the line where such a party might play a real role.)

The fact is that even Likud's own leadership is to the right of where it was; the moderate wing of the party was mostly swept away in the primaries. So once (barring huge surprises) Netanyahu starts to form a government the issue will be whether he goes exclusively to the hard right and religious parties for a coalition, or whether he tries to include the centrists. His own party is likely to be pressuring him in the former direction.

The debate over whether there is still a future for a two-state solution may be riding on these elections, and the auguries are not good. More as the returns come in.

The Likud-Yisrael Beitenu Merger

The announcement that Benyamin Netanyahu's Likud Party and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu will merge prior to the January elections will, assuming is approved by the parties, create a consolidated rightwing secular bloc to fight the Israeli elections, something the two men (who often have been at odds on specific issues) calculate will strengthen their hold on power.

An early poll, however, suggests the merged party might win fewer seats than the two parties running separately, which might frustrate the intention, though they would still easily win the largest bloc of seats. It's also likely that the merger on the right will increase pressuire among the splintered parties of tf the center and left to form some sort of unified bloc of their own,

The calculus is not necessarily as simple as it sounds. Likud has always been a secular party of the right, but it has not been openly hostile to the religious parties, which are almost always necessary to coalition building. Lieberman's party, on the contrary, has been an outspoken opponent of the power of the religious bloc, and vigorously secularist like much of its ex-Soviet immigrant support base. In a year when military service for Yeshiva students has been a divisive issue in Israel, it will be interesting to see how a Likud-Yisrael Beitenu merger handles such issues.

One thing is clear: Yisrael Beitenu is clearly the junior partner. Netanyahu made clear that he never considered any merger plan that would have required a rotation of the Prime Ministership between the leaders: Netanyahu would serve ss PM the entire term. Lieberman seems content with this, acknowledging that compromises must be made.

The fragmented center-left parties have now had a gauntlet thrown down by the rightist parties, who are hoping to lock in their dominance of the Knesset. Whether the center-left can counter with some kind of bloc of their own, or whether indeed they are increasingly irrelevant, may become clearer as the campaign proceeds.

Last-Minute Netanyahu-Mofaz Deal Scuttles Elections, Upends Israeli Political Scene

In the early hours of Tuesday (tomorrow) morning, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Shaul Mofaz reportedly agreed on a government of national unity, canceling September elections after the Knesset had already passed the first reading of a motion to disperse (dissolve itself). Reports from Haaretz here and The Jerusalem Post here.

The immediate deal appears to give Kadima the right to work on modification of the Tal law, which involves exemption of haredi Yeshiva students from military service, and which has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. 

If, as initial reports indicate, Mofaz may become a Minister without Portfolio, which may seem odd since Kadima actually has more seats than Likud; on the other hand, Kadima was expected to lose heavily if elections were held.

How this may affect the threat of military action against Iran, which Mofaz opposes, remains to be seen. It also may lead to a moderation of the government's policies overall. One interesting issue will be the role of Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu Party, which has been the second largest in the government.

There is some political sense, however, in avoiding elections for now, as both Kadima and Likud might have stood to lose seats; in any event Netanyahu avoids having to campaign this year. But the eleventh-hour deal on the brink of Knesset dissolution came as a surprise, and if it holds — uncertain at this point I suspect — and doesn't unravel, it will transform the political scene.

If more details emerge tomorrow, I may have more to say,