Ruthie Blum: Is Netanyahu’s Significant Victory Sufficient?
Which brings us to the importance of the election results, and the reason that Netanyahu and his supporters were celebrating on Monday night with confetti and all.Jonathan S. Tobin: Three Israeli elections reconfirm two basic facts
This election constituted a defeat of the “anybody but Bibi” hysteria. It represented a win for the sane center-right that believes in Netanyahu’s handling of domestic and foreign affairs, and strongly opposes the tyranny of the courts. It also illustrated that Israelis care about ideas and actions, and that they are not as swayed by empty slogans and outrageous assertions as certain politicians seem to imagine.
Take Gantz, for example, who has spent his campaign trying to out-Bibi on the one hand and accuse him — appallingly — of behaving like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the other. You know, the same Erdoğan who jails anyone who disagrees with him, including judges, lawyers, academics, and more journalists than any other autocrat or dictator in the world.
As all Israelis know, the only person in danger of getting locked up for his political views is Netanyahu himself. But never mind; the fact that he dares to criticize the police and Supreme Court is enough to stick him with the egregious label.
The good news is that Netanyahu is still Israel’s prime minister and likely to remain so in the foreseeable future. The bad news is that the makeup of the next government, if one is established without the need for a fourth election, could take weeks and be less than satisfactory to an electorate eager to move on.
It took Israeli politics nearly a year to get back to square one.With 99% of votes counted, right-wing bloc slips to 58 seats, 3 shy of majority
That’s the basic fact to understand about the third round of general voting held within a year. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is right to claim the vote as a personal victory, it is only by comparison to his near defeat last September that it can be viewed as a great triumph. Israel’s crazy political system may have exhausted and infuriated its citizens, but the three contests held in this period changed very little about the way the country is governed.
As was the case before the first vote, Netanyahu is still the country’s most popular politician, though arguments can be made that no one under indictment should stay in power, even if the charges against him are questionable. And yet, a critical mass of Israeli voters doesn’t agree, let alone buy the claim that Netanyahu is a threat to democracy or the rule of law. Though it shouldn’t have taken three elections to clarify that point, when Netanyahu goes, it will be either of his own volition (something that he doesn’t seem to contemplate in the foreseeable future) or because the judicial system takes him down. As long as his fate is in the hands of the voters, he will remain prime minister.
The other main conclusion concerns policy, and it is one that many commentators are ignoring. Though the rest of the world, including some of those running for president of the United States, still advocates for Israel to make dangerous concessions to the Palestinians for peace, the vast majority of Israelis have more or less stopped discussing the issue. Even if many Americans refuse to accept reality, a broad consensus on the lack of a peace partner encompasses not only Netanyahu’s right-wing/religious bloc, but also the Blue and White Party, which campaigned on stands virtually identical to those of the prime minister.
These are two basic facts about the country that its foreign friends, and especially its critics, should take to heart.
As votes cast in so-called double envelopes in the Knesset elections were being tallied, the Central Election Committee updated the count Wednesday morning, giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and the centrist rival Blue and White led by Benny Gantz an extra seat apiece, leaving the premier’s bloc of right-wing supporters at 58 seats.
After 99% of the votes were tallied, Likud gained a seat for a total of 36, with the rival Blue and White party also increasing its power from 32 to 33.
The Joint List of predominantly Arab parties dropped from 16 seats to 15, while the ultra-Orthodox Shas party dropped from 10 seats to 9.
The rest of the parties’ seat totals remained the same: seven for United Torah Judaism (UTJ), seven for Yisrael Beytenu, seven for Labor-Gesher-Meretz and six for Yamina.
Based on those seat totals, Likud and its allies would have 58 seats combined. The right-wing religious bloc supporting Netanyahu — consisting of Likud, Shas, UTJ and Yamina — though, falls short of the 61 seats needed to form a government.
The counting of the “double envelope” ballots of soldiers, police staff, diplomats, handicapped citizens, hospital patients and staff, and prisoners began overnight and was expected to conclude later in the day.