This time around, things are different. A fifth election is not the solution. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stubborn refusal to vacate his role despite having to dedicate much of his time to the criminal trial he faces has created a situation that has brought us repeatedly back to the ballot boxes, with all that entails. If he gives the role to another lawmaker from the Likud, that person will likely be able to establish a government within a short period of time.
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Yet on Tuesday, the option of forming a very special alliance among liberal and pragmatic parties and liberal and right-wing parties that disagree with Netanyahu arose. If before, it seemed like these elections were an internal struggle on the Right, it turned out this wasn't the case, and that the camp that opposed Netanyahu's continued time in office has 45 center-left representatives that are deeply committed to avoiding an alliance with the premier. If, over the past few weeks, center-left voters were inclined to vote for right-wing parties they thought could expedite the prime minister's deposition, it turned out that in the weeks leading up to the election, they came to realize they would be better off voting for the party that best represented their principles.
The emerging picture is one of a significantly bolstered Left and center-left. The majority of those that stuck with New Hope and Yamina are right-wingers who aren't interested in having a prime minister with a criminal record, while those on the Left who thought otherwise went back to their political roots.
Another phenomenon that stuck out this time around was a certain transition from United Torah Judaism to the Religious Zionism Party. This phenomenon is nothing new. Those with knowledge of polls have noticed for some time the phenomenon of burning Arab hatred among Haredi voters.
It is within this group that does not serve in the military and that has several prominent rabbis that preach avoiding nationalist conflict and provocations that this difficult racist phenomenon exists. If, in the past, the Haredim were characterized by opposition to the use of violence, for the past few decades, they have responded in the most radical of ways to questions pertaining to the possibility of reaching understandings, let alone peace between Israel and Arab states.
Clearly, Netanyahu knows all too well that young Haredim are the most radical group in Israeli society when it comes to our neighbors. Therefore, when he concluded the Religious Zionism Party might not make it into the Knesset, he began to encourage young Ashkenazi Haredim to cast their vote for the Kahanists, and he appears to have had some success to this end.
Netanyahu's alliance with the Kahanists won't get Netanyahu what he's after, but it did legitimize a group of people headed by Otma Yehudit head and now Religious Zionism Party member Itamar Ben-Gvir. Instead of making an effort to oust them from civilized society and reminding the public of the threat they pose, the Kahanists may now remain in the Knesset long after Netanyahu has gone, enjoying the moment when he was willing to do anything to save himself from a trial.
What Netanyahu did with the young Haredim was not to create hatred for the Arabs and anyone, like the Left, the LGBTQ community, and others, who are different form them. He simply took advantage of the potential for hatred that existed to bolder this radical group whose principle characteristic is hatred of anything that doesn't look like them. In his efforts to avoid a trial, the last thing Netanyahu had in mind was the unintentional opening of a Pandora's Box that could harm the soft tissue of Israeli society.
A watershed moment in the integration of Arab representatives
We witnessed a different phenomenon among Arab Israelis. When Israelis at one point in time voted directly for their prime minister, this led to the end of the scattering of the Arab vote among left-wing parties that carried the banner of all humans having equal value: On one hand, the Arabs voted for Zionist candidates for prime minister while exclusively using their second ballot for Arab parties. Ever since Israelis first cast their vote with two ballots, voting rates for non-Arab parties have dramatically decreased until the point where we saw the Joint Arab List garner a record number of Knesset seats in the 2020 elections.
What we saw happen in the 2021 election may be a sign things are now heading in the opposite direction: Parties like Labor and Meretz as well as those on the right-side of the political map put Arab candidates on their slates. A significant portion of these Arab candidates were independent figures that have made no secret of their criticism of the Israeli institution but understand their future is in Israel and that their role is to fight for equal rights for Arab citizens. Ra'am party head Mansour Abbas' decision to break off from the Joint Arab List and make an independent run for the Knesset contributed to the change in Arab voting patterns in this election.
It may be that this election was a landmark in the more effective integration of Arab representatives in non-Arab parties that put an end to the artificial state in which communist Arabs voted for a list that included religious figures who oppose various aspects of equality just to ensure their vote didn't go to waste.
It may also be that the elections held this week are the final chapter in the saga we witnessed over the last four election campaigns in which people cast their vote either for or against Netanyahu. If the establishment of an alternative government is indeed possible, or if there are those from within the Likud that demand Netanyahu step down so that the president can task another member of the party with establishing Israel's next government, it may be possible in the next election, which should take place another 4.5 years from now, to discuss existential issues and not just whether a prime minister of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, and who will need to dedicate his time to saving his political life, can and should serve in that role.
In conclusion, the pollsters may be the undeclared heroes of these last four election cycles. There were only slight differences between their findings on the eve of the elections. On the other hand, their findings were very similar to the final results. Since there has been much criticism of pollsters of late, we should also appreciate that they did a good job and were able to offer us a reflection of what the reality would look like the day after Election Day.
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