Legislative elections in Israel | “It’s all about Netanyahu”

For the fifth time since April 9, 2019, Israelis are called to the polls on Tuesday 1^er November to elect the 120 members of parliament, the Knesset. What to expect this time? That Binyamin Netanyahu, leader of Likud, is once again the center of attention. Overview.

Andre Duchesne
The Press

Since the 24^e Knesset

The most recent elections, the 24^are since the founding of Israel in 1948, took place on April 6, 2021. At the head of the Likud (right), Benyamin Netanyahu obtains 30 of the 120 seats in the Knesset (parliament) and forms a coalition government. This lasts two months. The opposition, centered around Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid (center) party, is invited to form a new government. Very fragile, this coalition government where Mr. Lapid alternates as Prime Minister with Naftali Bennett (Yamina, radical right) was overthrown in June 2022. Everything has to be redone.

About Netanyahu

Prime Minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021, Binyamin Netanyahu is arousing controversy due to accusations of fraud, corruption and breach of trust brought against him in 2019 and still before the courts. His personality divides voters. “The cleavages between the parties have not really changed,” said Csaba Nikolenyi, professor of political science at Concordia University. You have those parties that strongly support Mr. Netanyahu. And you have those forming the “change bloc” who are doing everything to prevent his return to the head of the country. Professor of history at the University of Montreal, Yakov Rabkin sees this new campaign as “an exercise in procedural democracy”. “Everything is centered on Bibi [surnom de Nétanyahou], he said. For the rest, both the domestic policy and the country’s foreign policy, nothing changes. »

popular rhetoric

It must be admitted that Mr. Netanyahu cultivates a certain popularity so that his party comes first, campaign after campaign. It’s that the man, a bit like Donald Trump, has a popular rhetoric that appeals, sums up Yakov Rabkin. “He can use slurs, even racial ones,” he said. It is very popular among the workers, the less educated, the disadvantaged and also the young people within the army. [le service militaire est obligatoire]. Mr. Nikolenyi for his part remarked that the Likud is a party “very loyal to its leaders”. “Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership has been challenged before, but those who did have backed down or lost,” he added. You don’t see that in Quebec or Canada. A leader who does not advance his party is replaced. »

The critical importance of the Arab vote

There are nearly 1.9 million Arab citizens in Israel and they make up 20% of the population. They are represented by different parties which, in recent years, were grouped under the name of “Joint List”. List which exploded when one of the parties, Ra’am, joined the coalition around the Yesh Atid party to form the government. Some observers fear that Arab voters, tired of always finding themselves in the opposition, are abandoning the ballot box, which would favor the right. “In the past, Arabs were encouraged to vote by telling them that they had a real chance of making their voices heard in the Knesset. But there, the message of the Arab parties is not unified, indicates Csaba Nikolenyi, who is also director of the Azrieli Institute of Israeli studies at Concordia. This division is likely to discourage these voters. »

Up: Hadar Muchtar

Something new in this campaign? Yes, and it comes through the voice of Hadar Muchtar, a 21-year-old young woman who founded her party, Ardent Youth. On TikTok, his videos, followed by tens of thousands of fans, are impactful. “She is extremely dynamic,” says Csaba Nikolenyi. You should hear his interviews on Israeli television. She denounces the establishment, which, she says, does not represent young people and their issues well: access to property, access to employment, etc. To draw attention, the young woman recently handcuffed herself to a Knesset fence and was arrested. The problem: the polls indicate that his party does not collect the threshold of 3.25% of support necessary to send deputies to the Knesset.

Down: Labor

A formation that has long dominated the Israeli political scene, notably with Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak, the Labor Party (Labor or Ha’Avoda) is struggling in the polls, according to Yakov Rabkin. “It was the equivalent of the Liberal Party here,” he says. But now they fear not even crossing the 3.25% threshold. It shows a change in Israeli society. The party is currently led by Merav Michaeli, who is transport minister in the outgoing coalition government.

Source: knesset.gov.il, The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post