Israel’s Electoral System Faces a Crisis, but Its Democracy Remains Strong

In December of 2018, the Knesset voted to dissolve itself, triggering early elections. Since then, the Jewish state had two inconclusive elections, both resulting in do-overs, and a third that yielded a unity government, which lasted for all of seven months. The fourth election, held on Tuesday, has proved similarly indecisive, and the possibility of another unstable and short-lived governing coalition, or even a fifth election, looms large. David Horovitz takes stock of the situation:

The pro-Netanyahu camp has 52 of the 120 Knesset seats. The anti-Netanyahu camp has 57. Naftali Bennett’s [right-wing] Yamina, possibly inclined toward Netanyahu, has seven. And the great election confounder, the conservative Islamic Ra’am party—which not one of the three ostensibly ultra-accurate TV exit polls predicted would make it into the Knesset—has four.

Dismally, Israel has been hamstrung by political crisis since way back in December 2018. . . . But its politics have not been paralyzed. These latest inconclusive elections saw Gideon Sa’ar break away from Likud, and Bennett directly challenge Netanyahu—rivals from his own side of the spectrum who rendered Tuesday’s vote the closest yet to a pure referendum on the prime minister, with forces left, right, and center all vying to oust him.

He’s not finished yet, but neither was he victorious, despite the vaccination success, which enabled the electorate to cram the supermarkets, beaches, and restaurants on election day.

Four inconclusive votes in less than two years, with no state budget and a crippled parliament, would indicate that [Israel’s] electoral system is dysfunctional. For now, at least, the pillars of our democracy are holding firm.

Read more at Times of Israel

More about: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Election 2021, Israeli politics

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF