SEP 18, 2019
Binyamin Netanyahu appears to
have fallen short in his quest for a majority of 61 in the 120-seat Israeli
parliament or Knesset. As I write, his far-right Likud Party is tied 32 to 32
with its center-right rival, Blue and White. Netanyahu campaigned frenetically
and acted a little unbalanced during this election season, striking militarily
as far afield as Iraq and attempting to suppress the internal
Palestinian-Israeli vote by proposing putting cameras at voting booths, knowing
that discriminated-against Palestinian-Israelis would therefore avoid coming
out to vote. The proposal was struck down. But Netanyahu relentlessly demonized
the Palestinian-Israelis as wanting to kill all of the Jewish Israelis (this is
not true) and warning that his rival, Benny Gantz, would put Palestinian-Israelis,
or “Aravim” as Netanyahu calls them with a sneer– horror of horrors– in the
Israeli cabinet (this is also not true).
Holding a value that 20% of
the population must be excluded from high political office is called Jim Crow
or Apartheid or just racism. Netanyahu is always going on about how anyone who
opposes his colonization of the Palestinian West Bank is a racist bigot, but
there really is no greater racist bigot than he. The problem is that his rivals
in the Blue and White coalition at least so far agree with him about this
exclusion.
And, of course, while
Palestinian-Israelis inside Israel can vote in this election, the some 5
million Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories of Gaza and the West
Bank are kept stateless and have no vote.
Although Palestinian-Israelis
form roughly 20% of the electorate, they have often played a muted role in
Israeli politics. In the last Knesset or parliament, they were down
to 10 seats out of 120, and turnout among them was only 35%.
Palestinian-Israeli members of the Knesset or MK’s have also frequently been
ostracized and left voiceless or on occasion even expelled for thought crimes.
Early returns Tuesday evening
suggested that the Joint Arab List, a coalition of four parties (Hadash, United
Arab List, Balad and Ta’al) will improve to at least 12 seats. Few Arab
constituencies had been counted at that time, allegedly in part because of
extra scrutiny of those ballots by Israeli authorities.
A large Palestinian-Israeli
turnout resulted in large part from the extremist racist language directed at
them by Netanyahu.
Channel 12% is claiming to
have 85% of results (I don't know how), producing:
Likud 32
B&W 32
Joint List 12
Shas 9
Beitenu 9
UTJ 8
Yamina 7
Labour-Gesher 6
Democratic Union 5
Right 56
Centre/left/Arabs 55
Liberman 9#Israelex19v2
Likud 32
B&W 32
Joint List 12
Shas 9
Beitenu 9
UTJ 8
Yamina 7
Labour-Gesher 6
Democratic Union 5
Right 56
Centre/left/Arabs 55
Liberman 9#Israelex19v2
The returns are showing fewer
seats for the Joint Arab List than did exit polls,
which had suggested earlier on Tuesday that there might be as many as 15 seats
for them. Since so few Palestinian-Israeli votes have been counted, though,
they could still gain another seat or more.
But another possibility is
that Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s rival, might be able to survive at the head of a
minority government that is tacitly supported by the Joint Arab List (or by
elements of it, since it may splinter). That is, if Gantz can put together a
coalition with 55 seats, and the Joint Arab List votes with that coalition
informally, then he wouldn’t be in danger of having his government fall.
Gantz’s problem is the same as
Netanyahu’s. It would be easy to get to 61 seats if you could entice both the
Haridim (ultra-Orthodox religious far right) and the largely ethnically Russian
Yisrael Beitenu of Avigdor Lieberman into the same government. But Lieberman
and his party are militantly against the influence of the Haredim and have
refused to serve with them.
In any case, Lieberman will
decide whether Gantz or Netanyahu gets a chance to try to form a government. He
has formed a deep dislike of Netanyahu, but for the completely terrifying
reason that Netanyahu has not recently made war on little Gaza. Lieberman has
suggested a Yisrael Beitenu / Blue and White / Likud government of national
unity, but makes it a precondition that Likud dump Netanyahu as party leader.
Although the Joint Arab List
got more seats than Lieberman, they will not be able to play kingmakers, since
the Jewish parties ostracize them.
It doesn’t matter much who
forms the next Israeli government though, for Palestinians. Both major parties
have the same creepy kleptomania when it comes to Palestinian land, water and
resources.
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