On 24 December 2018, the right-wing coalition in Israel led by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been prime minister for nine years now, fell apart. Since that date Israel has not had a stable government. Three elections have been held, the most recent in March 2020 resulting in a fragile coalition between the Likud Party and the Kahol Lavan (Blue and White) Party led by Benny Gantz. The coalition survived for eight months, then crumbled, and the Knesset was dissolved in December 2020. 

Next week, Israel will hold a fourth round of general elections amid concerns that the crisis will continue and a fifth election will be required in less than three years.

The crisis of the past two years has been unique. Around the world, governments fall when they fail to meet the public’s economic, social or political expectations. In Israel, they are focused on removing one person from office despite his nine-year tenure, during which the country witnessed its best economic and security conditions in four decades. The greatest concern of a key segment of Israelis is that their country will move away from a democracy that adheres to rotation of power into an authoritarian regime, whereby there is a strong and efficient government in power but one that lacks procedures for popular consent or the protection of individual rights.

Lending support to this perspective of the opposition parties, including those on the right, is that Netanyahu is now facing court charges of bribery and abuse of power without this impacting his ability to continue in office. Concern over the future of democracy may drive sectors of Israeli public opinion and explain why the past three elections focused on one goal: overthrowing Netanyahu. But this is not enough to clarify the reasons for the current scene overall. The crisis on the right over the past two years better elucidates Netanyahu’s inability to form a stable coalition government. This once cohesive front was composed of the Likud and ultraorthodox or Haredi parties, such as Shas and Yahadut HaTorah (United Torah Judaism), as well as Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) and Yamina (Right). Today, the front is so severely fractured that Yisrael Beiteinu, led by Avigdor Lieberman, was ready to sever all ties. There is also a serious divide within the Likud Party itself, after Gideon Saar (the party’s number two after Netanyahu) left and formed his own party Tikva Hadasha (New Hope).

Smaller but more radical right-wing parties are also emerging, and they are intent on running for election independently even though they may not meet the required threshold. They will decimate the right-wing vote without winning any Knesset seats, just as the HaBayit HaYehudi (Jewish Home) Party led by Rafi Peretz did in the last elections.

This fracture of the right-wing front has prevented Netanyahu from securing 61 Knesset votes in order to form a coalition government in the past three elections. Meanwhile, Gantz emerged on the political scene last year and formed the Kahol Lavan alliance with the Yesh Atid (There is a Future) Party led by Yair Lapid. This strengthened centrist parties, which became Netanyahu’s key rivals and managed over the past three elections to form a bloc that prevented Netanyahu from finding new partners with which to replace the right-wing parties that walked away and thus form a stable government.

Even when Netanyhau convinced Gantz to partner with him in a coalition in April last year, this alliance failed, so quickly it was over by December. And now Israel is facing a fourth election, with 39 parties and electoral lists in the race. According to opinion polls over the past two months, the outcome will be similar to the last three elections: Likud will win the most seats, between 27 and 29; Yesh Atid will come in second; and the number of Haredi seats will remain the same.

The most recent poll on 12 March indicated that Likud is likely to win 29 seats; Yesh Atid, 19; Yamina, 12; Tikva Hadasha, 11; the joint Arab list, eight; Shas, eight; Yahadut HaTorah, seven; Yisrael Beinteinu, seven; Labour, six; Kahol Lavan, five; Meretz, four; the Religious Zionist Party (a splinter from Yamina) led by Bezalel Smotrich, four; and the coalition of Arab parties (Raam), four.

According to these polls, the right-wing front (Likud, Yamina, Shas, Yahadut HaTorah and Religious Zionist) led by Netanyahu could win 60 seats, which is not enough to form a coalition government since they will be one short of the minimum 61 seats. Even if Netanyahu convinces Knesset members from other right-wing parties that dislike him, such as Tikva Hadasha or Yisrael Beinteinu, to join him, the coalition will be built on a hairline majority of one or two seats which would disintegrate instantly if they quarrelled over socio-economic policies or security issues.

Opinion polls in Israel have for years failed to accurately predict Knesset election results. Netanyahu and his right-wing allies may not win 60 seats, as predicted above, and lose one or two seats which will be a repeat of their failures in the previous three elections. Arab parties, which are never invited to participate in a ruling coalition by any Zionist parties, whether right, left or centre, represent a major obstacle for the anti-Netanyahu camp to form a coalition under any circumstances. This could mean the only way is a fifth round of elections, or a sudden change of heart by Yisrael Beinteinu, which was part of the right-wing front but left in 2018.

Although Lieberman, the leader of this hardline secular party, often said he would never join Netanyahu’s camp which includes his arch nemeses religious parties Shas and Yahadut HaTorah, he recently noted the need to avoid a fifth round of elections. He stated that, after the fourth election, the bloc that has a real chance of forming a government should be called on to do so. This means that Lieberman, who does not want to see a coalition led by Yesh Atid and Tikva Hashada that includes left-wing parties like Meretz and Labour supported from the outside by members of Arab parties, may be willing to return to the right-wing camp under Netanyahu.

This would be a surprise and a miscalculation on Lieberman’s part, especially since he saw the fate of Kahol Lavan leader Gantz after he agreed to partner with Netanyahu last year, and lost his credibility among his supporters because he had promised them he would never join forces with Netanyahu. Due to those broken promises, Gantz’s party may not succeed in meeting the threshold for the next election or win four to five seats only -- when it had 14 members in the last Knesset.

Even if Israel avoids a fifth round of elections due to a sudden and unlikely change by Yisrael Beiteinu and its leader, other factors could play a role in another surprise. Netanyahu may upend opinion poll predictions and win a large number of Likud seats, in which case he would be able to form a cabinet of right-wing loyalists without the need for Lieberman’s participation. If this happens it will be because Israeli voters are eager to avoid a fifth election.

More importantly, most voters tell pollsters they are confident in Netanyahu as the prime minister of any future government, because they are worried about a military confrontation with Iran, which is pursuing a nuclear programme that threatens Israel. Voters believe Netanyahu is the only figure who can manage any security crisis in the future, whether a military confrontation with Iran or any other rival. It is difficult to imagine any other prime minister who has enough confidence and expertise to steer the country through such crises.

What makes this more plausible is that the greatest military confrontation that caused serious damage to Israel was in 2006 with Hizbullah, while Ehud Olmert was prime minister, having succeeded Ariel Sharon (who had had a stroke). Olmert lacked Sharon’s experience and the public didn’t have as much confidence in him, which resulted in a weak and shaky leadership in a battle that the Israeli public viewed as an indirect confrontation with Iran. Therefore, if leadership is weak, direct confrontation with Iran would be catastrophic for Israel.

Israel will hold the fourth election in a few days’ time, and anything is possible. However, Netanyahu will remain the enigma whether he makes a comeback with a cohesive right-wing coalition or continues to lead an interim government through a fifth round of elections, or even if he is forced out of politics due to corruption indictments this year. The worry is that, without Netanyahu, democracy and legal transparency may well expose Israel to serious security and political risks.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 18 March, 2021 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly