Israelis voted in their national elections on Tuesday. This is going to require a lot of explanation.
Israel has a unicameral legislature, meaning there is only one “room.” Unlike the US with a House and Senate or the UK with Commons and Lords, there is only one Knesset in Israel with 120 members.
Israel also has only one electoral district. Instead of dividing the country into 120 districts, everyone in the country votes for the same list of people. They do not have a representative from their local area.
So how does the whole country vote for 120 people? Do you get to vote 120 times?
Proportional Representation
They have what is called a proportional system, in which you vote for a party. If the party gets 1/120 of the votes in the country, it gets one seat. Each party publishes a list of names in order of importance. If the party gets only one seat in the Knesset, the guy at the top of the list gets one of those 120 spots. If the party gets two seats, the top two are in. And so on.
To get one seat in the Knesset you need to get 3.25% of the national vote. That isn’t a lot. In this election cycle it’s only about 160,000 people, or a little more than the number who attended the most recent San Diego Comic-Con. (Thankfully, most Israelis don’t dress as cartoon characters to vote.)
This low bar of 3.25% allows very niche interests to set up their own parties. Sometimes the parties revolve around a popular politician. In San Diego, Cpt. James T. Kirk could have his own party.
A multi-party proportional system allows people to vote for a very specific party, one that aligns very closely with what they believe. The advantage is that you do not have to compromise when casting your vote. If you are a pro-life vegetarian, you don’t have to vote for a pro-life candidate that sometimes eats a bit of meat. Those guys have their own party. No compromises!
The downside to this system is that it’s almost impossible for a party to form a majority in the Knesset on its own. Parties have to join together in coalitions. But this means the compromises you didn’t want to make when you were voting are going to be made after the election. And you have no choice at that point.
To take our example, if you voted for your very principled pro-life vegetarian and he gets into office, he would probably be the only one from that party. And let’s say the pro-life omnivore doesn’t get 3.25%. You can feel good about keeping such a degenerate out of office.
But your lone representative can’t do much sitting all alone in the Knesset, so he will want to join a coalition. What if a major party (but not a majority on its own) is a party of pro-abortion vegetarians? What if they need just a few more members to join their coalition? They promise your representative a position as Minister of Vegetables. He just has to agree not to vote against their abortion legislation. Let’s say he agrees because he is far more committed to vegetarianism than pro-life issues. (Yes, there are such people in the world.) How do you feel about that?
Coalition Governments
Political parties as we have them are coalitions that get together before the elections. In proportional systems, coalitions are parties that form after the election. Both are compromises. With our system you know what you’re getting before you vote. In a proportional system you really don’t.
In the current Israeli election, there are two coalitions or “blocks.” One backs the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the other opposes him.
Pro-Netanyahu:
Likud: Netanyahu’s anchor right-wing nationalist party.
Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power): An ultranationalist far-right party led by Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Religious Zionism-Zehut: A hardline religious nationalist alliance led by Bezalel Smotrich.
Shas: An ultra-Orthodox religious party representing Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews.
United Torah Judaism (UTJ): An ultra-Orthodox religious party representing Ashkenazi Jews.
Amcha Yisrael: A newer hardline right-wing security and identity party led by Ofer Winter.
Anti-Netanyahu:
Yashar!: The primary centrist party anchoring the opposition, led by Gadi Eisenkot.
Beyachad (Together): A major center-right security and regional normalization alliance led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.
The Democrats: A center-left faction formed from the merger of the historic Labor and Meretz parties, led by Yair Golan.
Yisrael Beytenu: A secular right-wing nationalist party led by Avigdor Liberman that strongly opposes religious coercion.
Reservists-Economic Party: A center-right Zionist faction focused on defense and economic reform, led by Yoaz Hendel.
(Thank you, Google for this handy list.) I haven’t adjusted the descriptions of the parties. I might want to change a few, but notice that there are no real left-wing parties. Ever since the Second Intifada, an uprising of Palestinians with a lot of terrorism in Israel from 2000-2005, there has not been an organized left in Israel. It was generally accepted that their policies led to the terrorism.
There are also two Arab parties which send members to the Knesset. Only once, briefly, has one of these parties, Ra’am, joined a coalition. In 2021-22, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid were able to form an anti-Netanyahu coalition government that included Ra’am. Notice that these two lead the Beyachad (Together) party. They signaled that they might welcome Ra’am back into a coalition. Gadi Eisenkot, leader of Yashar! and current leader of the new anti-Netanyahu block, has said he would not allow such a thing.
All of this is background to the elections on Tuesday. So what happened?
The Election Results
Counting the votes is pretty quick, but there are still votes coming in from military bases, hospitals, and other locations. An exact count might not be available until Thursday. But as things stand there are two projections from what we know:
Chanel 12 Projection
Pro-Netanyahu Bloc: 52 seats
Anti-Netanyahu Bloc (Opposition): 49 seats
Arab-Majority Parties: 19 seats
Chanel 13 Projection
Pro-Netanyahu Bloc: 51 seats
Anti-Netanyahu Bloc (Opposition): 51 seats
Arab-Majority Parties: 18 seats
On one projection Netanyahu will have a few extra seats in his coalition than the opposition, but he will be far from the 61 seats needed to form a majority. On the other projection the two blocks are tied.
Remarkably, the Arab parties have achieved historic highs in the Knesset. Unless major chunks of one block or another break off and switch sides, the only way to get to a majority is to get the help of the Arabs. That won’t be easy.
Forming a Government
The process in forming a government is, ideally, to win a majority. Then the President of Israel (largely a figurehead position elected by the Knesset once every seven years) asks the leader of the majority to form the government. In the case where there is not a majority party, now the norm in Israel, whoever can form a majority coalition will be asked to become prime minister and hold the executive power of the state. But if a coalition cannot reach the 61-seat majority, the coalition with the most seats will be asked to form the government. This is called a minority government.
If Chanel 12 is correct, Netanyahu will be asked to form a minority government. Minority governments are very unstable. In a parliamentary system like the Knesset, a government “falls” and new elections take place if the governing party/coalition loses a major vote. With only 52 seats, winning any vote is almost impossible. Netanyahu would have to get at least nine votes from either the coalition devoted to getting him out of office or the Arab parties. Unlikely.
Once there is an election, however, almost everyone in the Knesset has an incentive to stay in office. Elections are difficult, expensive, and you never know what could happen. You could lose.
Let’s not forget that Netanyahu has been very good at forming coalitions. He might be able to pull off a few erstwhile opponents to join him. On the other hand, his coalition at the moment is not perfectly coherent. There’s no reason a few of his allies might not find a reason to join the anti-Netanyahu block.
The thing to remember is that, even though the voting is over and the counting soon will be, the politics of forming a government is just beginning. It is very likely we will know about the makeup of the US House and Senate before anyone knows who will be governing Israel.