Home » Israel at the polls: rebus alliances, but the challenge remains on Netanyahu

Israel at the polls: rebus alliances, but the challenge remains on Netanyahu

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TEL AVIV – It was born as the government of national pacification, only on May 17, but it was short-lived: tomorrow the Israelis are called again to the polls, for the fourth time in two years. The latest polls still photograph a country split, as it was for the previous three rounds, in which no coalition collects a majority of 61 seats among the allies. Everything points to the opening of another grueling phase of negotiations between the parties, of assignments entrusted and remitted, which could last months, while fifth elections remain a real scenario.

Compared to the results of March 2, 2020, the last time the Israelis went to vote, the big loser is Benny Gantz: the former Chief of Staff who took the field only in 2019, current Minister of Security, has dropped from 33 seats to 4. They do not forgive him for having broken his promise not to sit with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Covid emergency was not a mitigating factor.

Netanyahu is far from reaching 61 with comfortable allies (the ultra-Orthodox parties) and still has to count on the support of his avowed rivals to achieve a stable coalition. Between these, Naftali Bennett, leader of Yemina, a party of the nationalist right which, in order to position itself as a needle of the balance, has separated itself from the more extremist elements. With its 8-10 seats, it could be decisive for any future coalition, being the only one in the opposition who has not sworn “everything but Bibi”. Together with him, too Mansour Abbas, a parliamentarian who escaped from the United Arab List, who says he will support those who offer him the most. But Abbas is swinging on the 4 seats and above all it remains to be seen if he can really join a coalition that could include the nationalist religious right of Itamar Ben Gvir, “The settlers’ advocate” as they call him, who for the first time appears to be joining the Knesset.

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Netanyahu is given 32 seats, since last year he has lost 4, which go to a new rival: Gideon Saar, exited from Likud, former minister in past Netanyahu governments. With his “New Hope” it is given to 8-10 seats. Yair Lapid’s “C’e Futuro”, which last year broke away from the coalition with Gantz in order not to support the government of national unity, is the second party, with 18 seats, but both Bennet and Saar have declared that it is not their premier candidate. And this remains the great vulnus of the anti-Bibi camp that could jeopardize an alternative coalition: fragmented, without a true glue ideology other than that of wanting to replace the longest-serving prime minister in the country’s history.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, is a river in flood: his reconfirmation as prime minister is critical with the trial that sees him accused of corruption, fraud and abuse of office, which enters the trial phase in April. He promises normalization agreements with four other Arab countries, direct flights Tel Aviv-Mecca for Muslim pilgrims and does not fail to remember how it is thanks to him that “the country comes back to life” – a slogan that the electoral committee has forbidden him to use because “Too identified with the vaccine campaign of the Ministry of Health“. With half of the population immunized in three months, the vaccination campaign has matched the electoral one: tomorrow we will vote with restaurants, beaches, museums and bars as overcrowded as in recent days. Netanyahu is confident that, between a coffee and an aperitif, voters will not forget him.

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