Perspective 80. The Israel Election: Chance of a Fundamental Change?

Five elections in three and half years. The ongoing trial of Bibi Netanyahu for fraud, bribery, and breach of trust. A surge of support for “Alternate” Prime Minister Yair Lapid. Is there a real chance that the upcoming Israeli election, on November 1, could bring about a fundamental shift away from the dominance of right-wing and religious parties over the last two decades?

No. In a recent survey, 62 percent of Jewish Israelis identified themselves with the right, 24 percent with the center, and a paltry 11 percent with the left. In all elections but one since 2000, right and religious parties have won a clear majority in the Knesset (72 of 120 seats in the last election). The only reason that a right/religious government did not emerge was the antipathy of important right-wing leaders toward Netanyahu.

In perspective, the dominance of the right in Israel is not a passing phenomenon due to transitory factors such as the collapse of the peace process or the threat of Hamas or the fading allure of socialism. It is rooted in demographic realities, in trends that predate and supersede the peace process. It is, as the popular phrase has it, “baked in.”

The left dominated during Israel’s first three decades, but this came crashing down in the watershed election of 1977. Jews of Middle Eastern background – Mizrahim – had turned increasingly to the right; their support for Likud rose from 35 percent in 1969 to 45 percent in 1973, 56 percent in 1977, and 69 percent in 1981. Though the lines between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim (Jews of European background) are increasingly blurred, the former still constitute about 40 percent of Israeli Jews and still overwhelmingly support the right.

Two other important sectors of the Jewish population also skew to the right. One is the religious public, 25-30 percent of the Jewish population, which finds Netanyahu and other secular rightists much more compatible than the left or even centrists like Lapid (whose entrance into Israeli politics came with a campaign to end exemptions of the haredim – the Ultra-Orthodox -- from military service).

The other significant constituency on the right is recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union, with their descendants about 20 percent of the Jewish public, whose impact has been felt strongly since the early 1990s. Do the math. Though there is some overlap between Mizrahim and religious, it is easy to understand how, today, 62 percent of Israeli Jews identify with the right. And this can be read in a trend line that begins in the 1960s and continues, through all ups and downs, as demography leaves its mark.

The remaining question is not whether right and religious parties will retain their majority on November 1, but whether Netanyahu will be able to form a government without those on the right who detest him. The last poll had 60 seats for Bibi and his allies, and 60 for all the other parties running --- whose only common feature was the unlikelihood of their joining a Netanyahu-led government.

Could the anti-Netanyahu parties join together to form a Bibi-less coalition, if they get at least one more seat? That’s what happened last year, but this time around it would have to include an even more unlikely combination of opposites than the government that just fell. So the chances of Netanyahu returning as Prime Minister – his battles in court notwithstanding – are not so bad.

Stay tuned.