A cursory glance at the record-breaking attacks coming out of Israel's political parties in recent days gives the appearance of an all-out war. The parties are firing in all directions, in a desperate attempt to grab what remains of the public's attention over summer break, a time when the people of Israel become afflicted with one big attention deficit disorder, the entire nation either on its way to or from Ben-Gurion International Airport, many with screaming children in tow.
But upon closer inspection, we see that the battles are being waged within the two political camps. In just the last 24 hours, Democratic Union leader Ehud Barak has managed to attack Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, who responded to the former prime minister in kind. Blue and White directed its fire at Labor leader Amir Peretz, while United Right's Bezalel Smotrich found time to quarrel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who responded by calling him in for a dressing down. And all the while, the far-right Otzma Yehudit incessantly attacked parties on the Right.
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The reason for all this seems to be that all the parties have reached the conclusion – at a relatively early stage in the election campaign – that the battle between the political blocs is in fact irrelevant. The assessment is that a great deal of energy will need to be invested in bringing votes over from one side to another, with rather poor results, while the pool of potential voters that can be more easily persuaded to vote for a different party can in fact be found within their camp. Sometimes, it's just easier to wage a civil war than manage a war among ideologues.
This situation appears to serve Netanyahu's interests. The right-wing bloc is set to garner a larger majority than the left-wing bloc, and in the absence of any competition for right-wing votes, will be the bloc that guarantees him his next victory. This time around, Netanyahu is free of any sentiments or political concerns. With United Right's Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett, whom he recently fired from his government, being the strongest figures to his right, and their party predicted to safely pass the electoral threshold, there is nothing keeping him from stealing Knesset seats from United Right unhindered.
But this is all seemingly true. Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Lieberman could turn out to be an effective tool for stealing Knesset seats from the Right for the Left, thereby doing Gantz and his fellow Blue and White leader Yair Lapid and Barak's work for them, seeing as they are incapable of doing it themselves.
But the right-wing parties aren't suckers either. They won't allow Netanyahu to steal votes to his heart's content this time around. While the prime minister will claim Bennet and Shaked will join forces with Gantz, they will throw the same exact accusation back at him.
On the Left, the situation, while similar, is more dangerous. The parties look stable now, but then again, so did the New Right on the eve of the last election. Peretz still has plans of taking votes from the Right and the periphery, but it seems that Blue and White, and certainly the Democratic Union, have given up on this option, and prefer to direct their arrows inward.
And there is one more explanation: The attacks within the blocs are convenient not just for the election but for the breaking of campaign promises later. With Gantz is focusing his attacks mainly on Barak, who will remember that at some point in time, he promised not to join a government under Netanyahu? And when Netanyahu designates Shaked, Bennett, and Smotrich enemies of the Right, who will blame him should he decide to leave them out of the coalition and join forces with Peretz instead?
