It’s been thirty-six hours since the ballot stations closed and the Israel Election committee is busy counting the votes. The process is delayed somewhat because of the relatively large number of “double envelope” votes that were cast this time because of the Corona crisis, while the counting is slower for the same reason.
But ninety plus percent of the votes have been counted and a unique situation has arisen, whereby a large segment of voters suddenly is cast into the center of the attention of the political parties, after they were largely ignored for the past seventy years. It appears that this time around, an Arab party holds the future of Israel in its hands and will be able to decide who will form the next government.
It was long assumed that Bennett, with his Yamina party would be in a position to tip the balance in favor of one of the two blocs, and this was the main reason that he and his associates meticulously refrained from committing to either side, spewing out empty clichés such as “the good of the people” and “Israel’s best interest”. But as it turns out, Bennett seriously miscalculated and the voters saw through his cheap opportunism and left him out in the cold with only a small number of Knesset seats, insufficient to give Netanyahu a majority and while they are unable to join the anti-Bibi group after intense spats between him and Sa’ar.
For a majority, Netanyahu would need Mansour Abbas and his UAL (Ra’am) party to gain a majority, while also the anti-Bibi group does not have a majority without the UAL.
Probably the best part of this situation is the fact that a fifth round of elections will be avoided (at least for now) even if some would claim that new elections would be better than any of the current alternatives. Abbas will most likely not want to have it on his head that again the elections result in a stalemate, while of course the benefits he will be able to reap from this position of “king maker”, will encourage him to get the most out of this,for his party, and as he keeps saying for the Arab population. So which way will he go?
The Netanyahu bloc is much more homogeneous then the anti-Bibi group, which should make it easier to form a government once the UAL will give it the required majority, but is it conceivable that an Arab party will join Netanyahu, after the extreme anti-Arab rants of Netanyahu on previous occasions (remember the “Arabs are running o vote in droves”?). It is hard to believe that the attempts of Netanyahu to gain the trust of the Arab population in the past months will have convinced anybody and the consequences of Ra’am joining a coalition with Netanyahu may be grave for its leader Abbas.
Even more inconceivable is the possibility that any Arab party would consider cooperating with the Religious Zionism party of Smotrich and Ben Gvir. Even if they may have similar ideas about the LGBT population, the racism of Smotrich and Ben Gvir is mostly directed towards the Arab population and Abbas cannot possibly afford to align himself with them in any way.
Thus, that leaves the anti-Bibi group? Some of the extremes of Israeli politics have been swept together to gain one major goal: to remove Netanyahu. But at least some of the parties in the anti-Bibi bloc would welcome the participation of the Arab population (one party is the Joint List, an assembly of Arab political movements) and Meretz, a left-wing party, and the renewed Labor party would happily work with Arab coalition partners. But Sa’ar and his New Hope party? And Lieberman and his party? It will require a major shift in their view of Israel and its future for them to agree to such a radical change.
But from the start, all participants in the “anti-Bibi” bloc have been aware of the ideological differences and still they decided to move forward realizing the importance of removing Netanyahu.
So, is it imaginable, after seventy-two years, a near-utopian situation has arisen whereby in Israeli politics, finally the people will come first, including the Arabs! Political parties, from the opposite ends of the political spectrum will put aside their petty differences and agree to work together, include the Arabs (which constitute almost twenty percent of the population) and confront the severe problems that lie ahead as a nation, as Israelis with the same goals, with an open mind to find the solutions necessary and make sure these solutions are suitable and will be applied to all. It will require putting aside ego, become flexible on ideology and learning to respect and accept also those that are different but it should be possible???
Near-Utopia indeed…… And Utopia probably doesn’t last long but hopefully long enough to tackle at least some of the problems that Israel needs to tackle and has neglected for too long. And it may restore some trust in the hearts of the Arab population, which is so direly needed.
I hope you found this article interesting and I welcome any comments you may have.
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