Elections are supposed to settle things. That’s the idea, at least. Politicians argue, take decisions and pursue the policies they want to, but there comes a day when they have to answer to the public and face their judgment.
A day after Israel’s fourth parliamentary election in two years, no verdicts are forthcoming, not even in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial. The votes are still being counted, but it looks once again to be an awkward draw. Neither Netanyahu nor his rivals are expected to be able to form a governing coalition.
Elections in Israel have become like the difficult season of a long-running comedy, when the producers try to introduce quirky new characters without changing the core format too much. This time around it looked like the Bibi Show’s new antagonist would be Gideon Sa’ar, who dramatically quit as a Likud parliamentarian, forming a new party to take down Netanyahu. Despite a strong showing in early polls, Sa’ar’s New Hope party collapsed, winning just six seats.
Instead, the breakout star is Mansour Abbas of the Islamist Ra’am party, which could end up holding the balance of power. Netanyahu helped push Ra’am to break away from a coalition of other Arab parties and go it alone, building a friendship with Abbas in the process. Now Bibi could need his votes for a coalition.
Another new entry is Itamar Ben-Gvir, the extremist who had a photo of Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein in pride of place in his home and who attacked the car of then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, just weeks before Rabin was assassinated. ‘We got to his car, and we’ll get to him too.’ Ben-Gvir boasted at the time.
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