Since the beginning of the century, Israel’s once-dominant Labor party has faded from importance, only able to make itself viable through alliances with various parties of the political center or moderate right. Thus the past several elections have pitted the Likud and its right-wing allies against one form or another of the center-left. But recent polls have shown a precipitous decline in the proportion of Israelis willing to vote for a center-left party. Haviv Rettig Gur explains:

Over the course of twenty months, from April 2019 to December 2020, the number of seats won by Zionist parties that did not self-identify as “right” tumbled from 49 to 26, a 47-percent drop. [Looking more closely], on December 9, the center-left came to 39 seats in an average of several polls, while the “right without Likud” group polled at 45.6 seats on average. Just over two weeks later, on December 27, the center-left shrank more than six seats while the non-Likud right grew by ten. (The remaining seats may have come from Likud itself.)

It’s the appearance of a new party on the center-right, created by the former Likudnik Gideon Sa’ar, that might explain the most recent change, Gur writes. And there are also longer-term trends at play:

There’s a demographic reality that the Israeli left has yet to grapple with seriously, though it’s been known for decades. Israeli politics are tribal, with party allegiances usually dividing according to deep-seated cultural and religious differences, and the more left-leaning of those demographics are shrinking and growing older. [But this doesn’t explain] the evaporation in twenty short months of nearly half of the center-left electorate.

Put simply, center-left voters went to the anti-Netanyahu right.

The center-left has shrunk by almost half since April 2019, but it did so in ways that did not change the underlying deadlock. That is, those voters are still in the system, and still oppose Benjamin Netanyahu’s continued rule. Israel is now headed to a fourth election in two years. There’s growing evidence to suggest it may soon be headed to a fifth.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.