Israel entered these elections for the 120 seats in the 26th Knesset seemingly around two main Jewish poles. The first was the personality and character of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving head of state.
He was portrayed as a liar, a failure, psychologically corrupted and previously aware of the Oct. 7 debacle. He supposedly refused to take responsibility—a politician leading Israel into authoritarian rule and one whose personality traits had placed him in court, being charged with criminal offenses.
The second point of focus was a campaign based on the lack of mobilization of the Haredi society into the ranks of the Israel Defense Forces. An “Alliance of Servers” appeared, accusing all the rest of either being “evaders” or “shirkers.” Candidates called for a complete defunding of public monies from these shirkers (and not so incidentally, avoiding any call for obligatory national service for Arab citizens) and their families.
Of course, the ongoing security concerns, Israel’s international standing, its economics, the Bedouin Negev’s lack of administration and other matters did not disappear. Nevertheless, the media set the framework around these two aforementioned issues.
Did the media play an interfering role? Did it seek to serve one political camp, as it has been doing for years? Did it, for example, exacerbate the Netanyahu trials, the Kaplan Street demonstrations over judicial reform and more?
A possible insight is the published exit polls last Tuesday evening. Of the four main television polls—which, of course, are electronically broadcast over the Internet and mobile phones immediately—three crowned Gadi Eisenkot, the former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, as the next prime minister.
Yediot Achronot published a half-page headline with that message on Wednesday morning (recalling Harry S. Truman’s famous “loss” to New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey of New York). But by then, it turned out that 75% of the polling companies employed by the anti-Netanyahu media and who had been feeding dozens of other outlets erred.
Erred? Some missed by more than six seats in addition to other faux pas.
The pollsters were now seen by the public as consciousness engineers. Columnist Amit Segal of Channel 12 bravely asserted that the pollsters had undergone a “Yom Kippur,” an Israeli code term for a complete surprise and failure. A “very, very bad night,” he declared.
What did emerge from the elections was a clear Arab and Islamist point of reference, which has set a new and challenging agenda for Israel’s governing bodies and institutions.
The unexpected growth in the turnout of the Arab voting public, perhaps ultimately bringing them to an 18-seat bloc in the Knesset (as of this writing, we await the double-envelope votes and the distribution of excess votes between lists that signed a pre-election agreement), places Arab society front and center.
Not only will Israel’s camp of liberals and super-democrats be demanding this, but the Arab Knesset members will be pressuring, but the issue will compete with the resettlement of the Land of Israel theme from outside of the state’s borders.
In truth, do-gooders like the New Israel Fund have been pushing the matter for perhaps three decades. One major impediment all these years has been not only the Arab, mainly Muslim, community’s identification as “Palestinians” with its non-Zionist stance, the 2021 riots, the unmanageable Negev happenings, as well as the soaring internal criminal murder statistics. Also of great concern is the thought that they will demand a say on Gaza operations or actions in Judea and Samaria, besides various state secrets of a military or diplomatic nature.
It cannot be denied, too, that the rhetoric coming out of the Ministry for Internal Security, headed by Itamar Ben-Gvir, probably contributed to a feeling of revenge-seeking by the Arab public.
It also may have caused right-wingers—perhaps those who had moved from Likud, seeking out a more rightist positioning— to move back after Ben-Gvir’s performances with the flotilla detainees and other incidents. To be fair, that possibility cannot be dismissed.
Nevertheless, the display put on by former MK Osama Saadi, who hailed the Arab Joint List’s projected gains on Tuesday night and enthusiastically dedicated the party’s achievement to “Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem,” will make it difficult for the so-called Change Bloc to link up with that party and the two others in a leftist-Islamist coalition. This despite the joining of Ra’am by Jewish Yoav Segalovitz, formerly a Yesh Atid Knesset member (who made a very lucky personal choice, as it turns out), and Avrum Burg’s crossing the floor (with now conservative U.S. podcaster Tucker Carlson writing the introduction for his new book).
Despite all this, what has emerged from the Arab populace vote is that social, educational and communal needs will, once again, be shunted to the background as nationalist agitation will take over.
But more importantly, while the counting continues and is finalized, of considerable concern are the announced plans by opposition activists and even leaders to act out a coup d’état of sorts through near-seditious parliamentary maneuvers even before a government is formed.
This could be achieved in two separate steps: taking control of the Knesset’s procedural machinery and then assembling a majority for several pieces of legislation. It would start with a quick swearing-in of the Knesset, which, honestly, would require coordination amongst several parties. Even if doubtful, they are serious in subverting Israel’s democratic customary procedures.
As reported, the next step would be “gaining control of the Knesset’s Arrangements Committee, which oversees parliamentary business during the transition to a new government … [which] could allow them to replace the Knesset speaker within days and begin advancing legislation to repeal or delay the coalition’s laws.” (I heard Yariv Oppenheimer repeating the plan on Oct. 28 while speaking on Channel 11.)
As of this early writing, if serious talks are initiated between Netanyahu and Eisenkot, one lesson is that there should be a mutual commitment to be agreed upon that anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine terror groups are to be excluded from participation in governing institutions.
As for the suspicion of Qatar’s financial involvement, we’ll have to wait for the full GSS investigation.
