The biggest breakthrough from Israel’s Nov. 1 election is whether former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will return to power, with the help of a bloc of far-right parties.
Netanyahu’s main opposition, a varied coalition of right, center and left parties led by Prime Minister Yair Lapid, will rely heavily on the participation of Israel’s Palestinians to succeed.
Lapid’s alliance toppled Netanyahu last summer with the first independent Arab component to be part of a ruling coalition in Israel. But they lost their parliamentary majority in May after a left-wing Palestinian Israeli lawmaker resigned, prompting new elections.
The latest polls recommend that Netanyahu, who is the country’s longest-serving leader, is now just one seat away from achieving an outright majority. If no winner emerges, Lapid would remain interim prime minister and Israel would head to the polls in a few months.
For most Israelis, their return vote comes down to just one. “The most divisive factor is Benjamin Netanyahu,” says James Zogby, co-founder of the Washington, D. C. -based Arab American Institute. to the point that 80 percent of Knesset members are said to be to the right of Israeli politics. “
Tuesday’s election will be Israel’s fifth in less than 4 years. As a parliamentary democracy, governments are made up of giant parties that partner with smaller ones to form a governing majority: at least 61 of the 120 seats in the Knesset.
No party has ever won an absolute majority in the Israeli parliament. But neither has the country been so slightly divided, for so long, over who runs it. “Obviously, there’s a cult of personality challenge here,” Zogby says, referring to Netanyahu. .
Read more: Israeli Arabs can simply block Netanyahu’s return. Here’s why they stay home
Small margins mean that Israeli parties form and break alliances to achieve their goals and subsequently call new elections. Netanyahu survived two elections in 2019 and one in 2020, but after the 2021 vote, centrist Lapid formed a government that rotated the prime minister. with the leader of another party, the right-wing Naftali Bennett. It was the coalition that was defeated by the defection of a single member in July.
Experts say a victory by Netanyahu and his Likud component will push Israel even further to the right, given its growing reliance on ultra-Orthodox and extremist Jewish political components and candidates. the right is a component of mainstream Israel,” said Shaul Magid, a professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College.
Among Netanyahu’s top allies is far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has long been considered a pariah in Israeli politics for his racist views. -American extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, a hero. Kahane supported the ban on marriage between Arabs and Jews, depriving Palestinian citizens of Israel of their citizenship and the mass expulsion of Palestinians. Israel banned it in parliament and the United States has long classified its political party as a terrorist group.
Read more: The far right will dominate Israel’s future
Ben-Gvir has earned his own excessive reputation. The IDF deemed him too harmful to serve in its ranks. In the past, he has explicitly advocated the expulsion of all Palestinians, but in his recent efforts to appear more moderate, he now says he believes this only applies to Palestinians he considers. traitors or terrorists.
“The explanation for why Ben-Gvir is as radical as Kahane is that the whole country has moved closer to him,” Magid said.
Israel’s Arab electorate may prove key to Tuesday’s election. Variously known as Israeli Arabs and Palestinian citizens of Israel, they make up 20% of Israel’s population. But they get fewer government services, suffer higher rates of poverty and unemployment. They are not allowed to serve in the military and, until last year, had never had a party in a governing coalition.
But with Israeli Jews similarly divided, their vote may become decisive only once.
“With such a historic department among Jewish parties, Arabs have kingmakers,” says Thair Abu Ras, a doctoral student in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland and a Palestinian citizen of Israel, in an email to TIME. “A small Arab turnout will likely crown Netanyahu as prime minister, an average turnout will lead to a tie and a sixth election, but an above-average turnout will give Lapid victory.
Most surveys recommend low turnout. The Palestinian Authority predicts that Arab parties will win 8 seats. If that translates into a Netanyahu victory and a backlash against an extremist government blatantly hostile to Palestinians, “I see it as blaming the victims,” Zogby says. “They have nothing to inspire them to show up. “
As for the West Bank, where some 3 million Palestinians live under Israeli army occupation, and the Gaza Strip, where Israel reluctantly exercises de facto force over some 2 million more, rival alliances agree. But experts say a Netanyahu-led government may be more aggressive.
Read more: Problems with Israel over the murder of journalist Shireen Abu Ackleh
“When it comes to the Palestinian issue, there is virtually no difference and that’s largely because it’s not a precedent for Israelis,” says Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. worse on the floor for Palestinians under Netanyahu, even if they are not doing well now. “
Under the current administration, Israel has continued to expand Jewish settlements in the internal Palestinian territory and to demolish Palestinian homes. Israel has also come under foreign scrutiny for the killing of Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, Palestinian. But experts say that, if elected, Netanyahu would possibly be more likely to pursue formal annexation of significant portions of the West Bank, or further expansion of the deal’s structure there.
They also warn that competitive moves by an Israeli government that oppose the Palestinians generate the threat of unrest within their own borders. In 2021, riots among Palestinian citizens of Israel by a series of Israeli movements turned into street fights and bloodshed. “The country will. . . . turn right, and I think what will happen is that you can also start seeing Arab unrest in Israel and you will start to see the prospect of a third intifada,” Magid said.