Bibi’s Coming Unstable Coalition

Over at Open Zion I argue that the coalition government Bibi is about to bring together will have tensions automatically built into it. This will likely cause the coalition to collapse before it serves out its full term:

By all accounts, the coalition negotiations in Israel will conclude in the next day or two, with a government in place by the end of the week. It’s been expected for some time now that the government will be composed of Likud-Beiteinu, Tzipi Livni’s HaTnua (which has already signed a coalition agreement with Benjamin Netanyahu), Yesh Atid, Jewish Home, and Kadima.

With a total of 70 votes in the Knesset such a coalition would be—in theory at least—very stable. But it’s more likely that the coalition will build into itself the very conditions for its early demise.

Netanyahu could well be the only one involved in the coalition discussions who isn’t happy about leaving the haredi parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, out in the cold. Though it might seem as though general agreement on leaving them out is a stabilizing factor, it could instead lead to a greater effort by these parties and their constituents to push hard to change the calculus of voting and politicking in the next round of elections, or even before then.

After all, despite the fact that they have already begun preparing for their exclusion, the haredi parties aren’t out of the game yet. There are enormous implications to their absence from government, including a redistribution of the resources that used to go to their communities; the nature of the military draft; the status of halacha in personal status issues ranging from marriage to divorce to citizenship; and genuine reform of the electoral and political systems. Because all of these would directly affect their political power, they can be expected to continue to fight even after the agreement is signed to return to power. This includes enticing Netanyahu away from Jewish Home, the party they apparently now see as their primary obstacle if not enemy.

There are still some issues to be hammered out in the coalition bargaining, including which party gets how many and which ministries and the framework that will govern Israeli policy toward the peace process (which may require a renegotiation of Bibi’s agreement with Livni). It’s likely the intense discussions between Likud, Yesh Atid, and Jewish Home continuing to take place will resolve at least most of these issues, but it’s just as likely they’ll paper over the differences. Signing an agreement on these policy problems and actually following through on them are not the same thing. The latter will be even harder than the former. In other words, any of these issues could crack open the coalition.

Personal ambitions and differing party objectives will probably also serve to make the coalition more fragile than it might appear on the surface. Yesh Atid’s leader Yair Lapid is skeptical about taking on the Finance portfolio. Given the necessity of major changes to the economy and the budget, whoever takes that Ministry will be extremely unpopular among much of the population and will be subject to intense and competing demands from other ministers for a share of the shrinking pie. Whatever comes out of such reforms could well affect his party’s ability to compete as successfully in the next election, and thus change the distribution of votes. He’ll be very much aware of these implications.

Similarly, Jewish Home’s position on settlements and Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank is at odds with all of its coming coalition partners except Likud-Beitinu. Despite Naftali Bennett’s insistence that the peace process should not lead to any serious change in the status quo (unless it’s to annex parts of the West Bank), Livni’s presence in the government, President Barack Obama’s coming visit to Israel, and a host of other conditions all point to a renewed interest in the peace process. If Obama is successful at convincing Israel to adopt his position regarding Iran, he’ll be able to demand something in return.

Similar to George H.W. Bush’s trading of Iraq for Madrid, Obama could well demand something concrete on negotiations with the Palestinians, and Netanyahu will be open to such pressure. This, in turn, would likely push Bennett out of the coalition.

A successful conclusion to the negotiations would be welcome so that the government can get back to the process of governing. But the fact that it was so difficult to get to this point, and that there are plenty of issues requiring urgent attention but with no easy solutions, indicates that plenty of uncertainty will remain even after the agreement is signed.

Why Is Obama Going to Israel?

Yesterday I tweeted that I was pre-empting speculation and that no, Obama’s coming trip to Israel wasn’t about Iran. It was a response to the conventional wisdom that seems to always assume everything about Israel is about Iran—from last year’s short-lived Likud-Kadima government to the recent elections. But I did receive some pushback on the point, so here’s a fuller accounting of why I made the remark.

It should, though, be obvious that Iran will be near the top of the agenda. It’s a major issue for Israelis, including security officials, and despite the progress made on convergence of their positions, there are still gaps between the American and the Israeli understanding of how to deal with Iran. An Obama trip to the country gives him a direct sense of what the government is thinking and why, which could close some of this distance.

Beyond that, there is the fact that Colin Kahl, who worked for Obama during the election campaign, all but promised during a conference call with the media last July that there would be a visit if Obama was re-elected. Not following through would raise serious questions about Obama himself and his administration at a time when he’s facing all sorts of domestic pressure from pro-Israel Jewish groups and politicians to Republicans.

At the same time, the rest of Obama itinerary provides clues to his motivations. He’ll also be visiting with Palestinian and Jordanian leaders. These countries aren’t important for the confrontation against Iran, but they are for the peace process. Jordan’s domestic problems and its proximity to the Syrian civil war highlight its importance in other ways. In fact, given Israel’s growing concern about the consequences of the breakdown of central authority in Syria, that country is likely to be as high as Iran on the agenda.

The optics count, too. It’s the diplomatic version of smoothing things over and establishing a more personal basis with Benjamin Netanyahu on which to conduct the next four years of policy.

All of this raises the question of timing. In theory Obama could have gone later in the year. But reports are that he is going in March or April. I can think of several reasons.

His new Secretary of State, John Kerry, has already called Israeli and Palestinian leaders to tell them the peace process is one of his priorities. He’ll be visiting the region possibly within the month. An Obama follow-up will underline the importance of the relationship and demonstrate commitment to issues of concern to both countries.

Also, it’s likely that the new Israeli government will have been formed by the time of the visit. The weakening of Likud-Beiteinu and the strengthening of the soft right (Yesh Atid) and the left (Labor, Meretz) have opened up space for a different kind of government than the previous one. Although there is some debate over whether the likely inclusion of Yesh Atid can kick start the peace process, the unexpected priority that the administration has placed on this issue indicates that the president sees this as an opportune moment to remind Israel and Israelis that the US has their back, that peace is necessary for Palestinians and Israelis, and to provide some cover for Netanyahu on this issue against members of his own party, Yisrael Beiteinu, and possibly Jewish Home (if it’s included in the coalition).

Finally, Obama has been stung by accusations that his administration is at best insensitive to Israel and at worst anti-Israel. A visit to Israel is the most effective visible way to counter these attacks. We are constantly reminded by the president’s supporters that only four sitting presidents have ever visited Israel. Joining this small club is an effective way for Obama to address these kinds of domestic and Israeli concerns.

More specifically, the AIPAC conference is scheduled for March 3-5. It’s not clear yet whether Obama will be again speaking to the convention. If he does, he’ll be able to claim not only that he continues to show his commitment to Israeli security through military support, but can demonstrate a personal interest as well—the all-important kishkes factor. And if he’s not speaking at the conference, a visit to Israel is surely the next best thing.

Coordinating against Iran will be an important topic of discussion during Obama’s visit. But the president doesn’t have to travel to Israel for that; his political and defense officials can and do exchange visits with their Israeli counterparts for such purposes. I think, rather, that this convergence of factors explains the motivation and the timing of Obama’s visit.

Coalition Considerations after the Vote

The Israeli election is upon us, or at least upon them. There have been lots of good analyses about the campaign and likely results of the voting—though there has been less discussion of possible outcomes of coalition bargaining. But this is important—the voting itself will heavily influence what government eventually emerges after several weeks of discussions, but several other factors will come into play, including how the parties determine their interests, the number of seats each got, and the regular give-and-take of politics.

Most of those who have considered what a post-election government will look like have assumed it will be a right-religious one. This is entirely plausible, but as I’ve argued already I don’t think it’s a given. Here are some of what I think are these other factors, all predicated on the assumption Netanyahu will be asked to form the government:

- Benjamin Netanyahu is more interested in stability and maintaining his position than anything else. He’s a pragmatic opportunist, and he can be pushed (through domestic and international pressure). He’s very committed to making Israel a free market economy, as his work in the 1990s and 2000s and his spinning away from promises to account for the demands of the 2011 tent protests have demonstrated. But he is open, I think, to moving around on other domestic issues like electoral reform, the haredi draft, and religious freedom. On the peace front, while I don’t think he wants to actively pursue an independent Palestinian state and does believe settlements are a legitimate expression of Jewish identity, he has in the past signed agreements (Wye River, Hebron) under the right conditions. In other words, his conceptualization of interests opens the door to more potential coalition partners than it seems.

- Tzipi Livni is desperate to make something of herself out of this election. I won’t say it’s her last chance, but she did nothing constructive when she served as leader of Kadima. Her perhaps surprising ability to garner 7-10 mandates, according to polls, is an indication that her name still matters. Look for her to try to enter the coalition; if she doesn’t, she’ll have nothing to show for two election cycles, which could well end her political career.

- Yair Lapid seems to have surged toward the end of the campaign, again according to polls. He, too, isn’t interested in remaining outside of government. Look for him to get in so that he can work on his credibility, legitimacy, and experience.

- The coalition negotiations will prove trying for Shas. In addition to competing with another religious party (Jewish Home), it will have to compete on the social-economic front with Yesh Atid, Labor, and possibly Am Shalem as well. Its position is the weakest it’s been in for a long time because of the emergence of so many rivals to its key positions.

- Final thought for now: whatever coalition does emerge, don’t get too excited or lose hope (depending on your views of it). It would not be a surprise if the coalition doesn’t stay together for four years. Bibi has a lot more choice than usual, but this also makes whatever government he puts together more unstable in the sense that the more parties there are inside and the more waiting for their chance in the wings, the more he and they can play everybody off everybody else.

There are some shared ideas between different sets of parties, but each of them still represents a set of very narrow interests. Those parties in government will have to stay true to them if they want to remain credible to their constituencies—and that includes those with narrow constituencies and those that are fighting for the same ones. But if they stay too true to them, in the face of competing demands from coalition partners and policies they don’t like, they can lose their position in the government. I suspect these dynamics will very much matter.

For other good posts about things to consider at this point in the election, read Michael Koplow’s piece and Noam Sheizaf’s analysis.

Bibi and Bennett Break Up?

It’s becoming increasingly common to assume that Naftali Bennett and Jewish Home will join a Benjamin Netanyahu-led coalition government after the election. I’m not sure it’s a done deal, and this piece from Open Zion explains why:

Last week Jonathan Tobin wrote a piece in Commentary explaining the rise of Israel’s right. He focused on Jewish Home, the religious Zionist party set to become the third largest party in the Knesset, and its leader Naftali Bennett. After listing Bennett’s “advantages” (including being “savvy”), Tobin assumed that Bennett, because he was in a powerful position, would be brought into the next government coalition and “demand and get” a Cabinet position.

The problem with Tobin’s assumption about Bennett is just that—it’s an assumption. In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite of what Tobin concluded. There’s every reason to believe that its Bennett’s very strength that will make Bibi nervous and therefore just as likely to exclude Bennett from any coalition. Tobin neglects to mention, for instance, that Netanyahu and Bennett had a major falling out a few years ago, and only recently started speaking again. It’s not clear their personal relationship is a strong enough foundation to build on.

Of course, in politics personalities alone don’t founder political alliances. But Bibi is in Likud, and he wants his party to maintain control over whatever coalition emerges from the election. A powerful Jewish Home serving in the government, with its own agenda, could derail Bibi’s efforts to maintain a stable coalition and endanger his own position.

There is also the image problem. David Horovitz correctly notes that—despite popular misconceptions—Bibi hasn’t been building settlements throughout the entire West Bank. But Bennett would—at least throughout Area C, which he wants to annex—while maintaining security control over the rest of the territory. And unlike Bibi, who has publicly said he supports the two-state solution, Bennett has been explicit that the Palestinians won’t get their own state.

Bringing Jewish Home into the government will also distract from other issues, particularly social and economic ones—which Israelis have said are their top concerns. Expending resources on settlements at this time might even bring back the ghost of Yitzhak Shamir to haunt Bibi. In the 1992 election, Shamir insisted on defending expenditures on settlements even while Israelis were telling pollsters they wanted the government to focus on issues within the Green Line. Shamir’s West Bank focus cost him the election.

Because of all this, Bibi is less comfortable with Bennett than Tobin, and others, assume. He’s always had other coalition options, but it’s been hard for Bibi to directly attack Bennett. Bennett is very popular, and many among the right and religious Zionist community see him as a savior-type figure. And Bibi’s own Likud party’s shift to the nationalist right has constrained him.

But Bibi now has his opening. Last Thursday, Bennett said in an interview that if given an order from the army to evacuate settlers from their West Bank homes, he would ask to be excused from carrying it out on the grounds of conscientious objection because “to kick people off of this land is a terrible thing.” Bennett added that he wasn’t calling for widespread disobedience, but if he personally could ask for an exemption on these grounds, others could as well. He opened the door to mass refusal of IDF orders.

Reactions across the political spectrum came quickly. The leader of a Zionist party contending he’d ignore orders from the military set a dangerous precedent—alternate sources of power and refusal to acknowledge the authority of the state are some of the components that make for a failed state. It’s also an unpopular position among rightists and the national-religious for whom the state is an important vehicle for realizing (their understanding of) the Zionist dream.

It took some time for Bennett to fully clarify that he wouldn’t disobey the order if his request was rejected. But the point was already made, and for Bibi this was a bigger opportunity: to castigate Jewish Home, and Bennett himself, for its extremist priorities and the damage they would cause Israel in the international arena.

“Anyone who upholds insubordination will not serve in my Cabinet,” Netanyahu responded in an interview. Some of his ministers took more direct aim at Bennett. But Bennett then gave Bibi further opportunity by reacting harshly to the criticism, accusing Likud of being behind a series of ads attacking Bennett (and comparing his comment on IDF orders to a similar one made by Labor candidate Merav Michaeli), and claiming Bibi himself opened the “gates of hell” on him.

Painting Bennett as an extremist who will undermine the state itself while strengthening international condemnations of Israel will probably be a new Likud tactic in the days to come. Since Bibi can’t attack Jewish Home or Bennett for their lack of dedication to the Land of Israel, hitting them for their lack of dedication to the State of Israel appears to be the next best thing.

Coalition Math

The talk on Twitter this morning is of Naftali Bennett and the sudden surge his Jewish Home is making at the polls. The fear is that if Bennett is included in a coalition government under Bibi, he’ll drag Bibi further to the right. As Michael Koplow has already shown, even before the bargaining over government spoils has begun, Bibi has been announcing settlement expansions all over the place. It will, conventional wisdom suggests, only get worse after January 22.

But the coalition math indicates that a Likud-Beiteinu-Jewish Home government is not a sure thing. As I’ve argued before, Bibi isn’t an extreme rightist who wants to build and build in the West Bank and damn the international consequences. If he think Bennett is pulling him too much in that direction, he’ll think twice about such a coalition.

It’s true that right-religious bloc is maintaining its majority. But it’s malleable; Jewish Home could easily be replaced with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid and Tzipi Livni’s Tzipi Livni Party. Both are more centrist than leftist. Lapid’s election program has been more vague than anything else, and although Livni has a history of hostility with Bibi, she’s a natural fit for a rightwing government.

In addition, both have worked hard for centrist and center-right votes by staying within the Israeli consensus on settlements: keeping the main settlement blocs (probably including Ariel) but willing to evacuate the rest.

“Third” or “centrist” parties such as theirs’ don’t last long in Israeli politics. And neither of them entered the race in order to stay in the opposition; they both want a piece of the action, which they believe is in the government. They’ll make themselves available, and Bibi will know this.

None of this is to say either a far-right government or a centrist government is a done deal. The joint ticket with Yisrael Beiteinu might have leaned Bibi toward the latter. But this is why the Likud primaries are so important: the staunch pro-settlement, illiberal-leaning rightists who now occupy top positions on the list will constrain Bibi from moving toward the center. It’s one thing to leave Jewish Home out of a coalition; it’s another to go against the politics and trends within his own party.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens: Jewish Home’s momentum might not last; Bibi might be stronger than most assume when it comes to dealing with other Likudniks; or Shas or Avigdor Lieberman might upset the balance one way or another. But at this point we shouldn’t assume outcomes. Israeli politics is fluid, and this election is no exception.

The Multiplying Effect in Israeli Politics

The party system in Israel is fragmenting more and more, as new parties continue to emerge. In theory, this is good for the voter, since it offers more choice. But in reality, this will have the effect of strengthening Benjamin Netanyahu’s chances of forming a coalition government with Likud Beiteinu at its core.

First, the operation in Gaza appears to have strengthened the far right parties. A Knesset Channel poll, for instance, immediately after the ceasefire gave Likud Beiteinu only 33 seats, from the 42 it currently has. More importantly, it gave the merged party of Jewish Home and National Union 13 mandates, up from the five it has now. And it had the new far right party of Michael Ben Ari and Aryeh Eldad (Strong Israel) reaching four seats.

I’m not sure these smaller rightist parties will maintain this momentum. In the immediate aftermath of the ceasefire, rockets were still falling on Israel. And while many Israelis are dissatisfied with what seems to them to be an inconclusive ending, this sentiment will diminish as time moves away from the conflict and relative quiet returns to the south. But the parties themselves will likely still be around come January.

Second, perhaps unsurprisingly, Tzipi Livni is now expected to announce next week the formation of a brand new party, National Responsibility Party. First reactions are good: A Channel 2 poll gives her nine seats, drawing some support from Labor and, especially, from Yesh Atid—which is decimated and left with four mandates. In this poll, too, the far right parties don’t do as well: Jewish Home/National Union only gets nine seats, and Strong Israel doesn’t get any.

It’s still too soon to know which of these estimates holds true in January. But in many ways it doesn’t matter: both of these processes will strengthen Netanyahu. The far right, regardless of how many parties compose it, won’t join a coalition with Labor. And given that Livni is identified with having focused on the peace process at the expense of, well, everything else, it would be difficult for them to work with her, as well.

At the same time, Livni’s party will split the center and center-left vote. Yair Lapid’s efforts to appeal to right-leaning voters will have been undermined, and there will be another party jostling for influence and another ego to be appeased—making it difficult for the center and center-left to come together (or more importantly, to stay together) to balance against Likud.

Alternately, Livni will, despite her protestations against his policies, be more likely to join a coalition with Bibi, putting off his need for the far right parties. Livni and those Kadima members who will be joining her party are more likely to garner rightwing voters, which makes her more of a natural fit in a Likud Beiteinu coalition than Labor or Yesh Atid.

In addition, all of this will undermine Shas’s ability to project a new image and pursue a new direction under Aryeh Deri. It will now have to compete with the far right and Livni for right-leaning voters. In the bargaining that comes after the election, it will have to fight them for a share of the coalition pie. Acting dovish, either on foreign policy (the West Bank) or domestic policy (African migrants and asylum-seekers) won’t work under these conditions.

In short, it looks right now as though Bibi and Likud Beiteinu come out on top in any scenario. It was always the most likely to form the coalition, but all of the changes that continue to occur in Israeli politics seem to strengthen its position of having more choice, more parties to play off each other, and to get the best coalition deal possible.

Laying The Groundwork For A Rightist Government?

This piece was published in Open Zion on November 8. It is reprinted here in full.

Arutz Sheva reported today that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Naftali Bennett to congratulate him on his election as the new leader of Jewish Home, the reincarnation of the old religious Zionist party, Mafdal. The story speculated that this was a signal of a reconciliation between the two leaders, who hadn’t spoken in three years, which in turn likely paves the way for Jewish Home to enter a Likud-led coalition after the January election.

This assumption shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, Jewish Home joined the coalition in 2009, and its leader Daniel Hershkowitz became a minister in the government. Bennett was previously the chairman of the Yesha Council, the umbrella organization of Jewish settlements in the West Bank; the continuing expansion of settlements under the Likud government makes him a natural fit for a new rightist government.

Moreover, Bennett’s plan for resolving the conflict with the Palestinians includes nothing less than the annexation of all of Area C, the extension of Israeli security control over the entire West Bank, and (only) autonomy for the Palestinians—and damn the world, which will get used to it. This certainly jives with some of the views of Netanyahu himself and many fellow Likudniks, who see Jewish settlements as appropriate and necessary; and it fits with their belief that Israel must stand firm in the face of the siege the world is laying to it. And it resembles some of the priorities of Avigdor Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beiteinu is now running on a joint ticket with Likud.

Whether such a relationship survives the realities of governing is a different story. According to current polling, the right-wing bloc is likely to get between 63 and 66 seats in the Knesset. Depending on how strong the center left and leftwing parties do, that might not be enough to easily form a coalition.

Assuming Netanyahu is asked to form a coalition government, it will need either Shas, or Yesh Atid or Labor. But Aryeh Deri’s return to the party means that Shas’s commitment to both a right-wing government and the settlement enterprise is less firm, and a rightist coalition therefore less stable overall. If Netanyahu replaces Shas with Yesh Atid or Labor, Jewish Home won’t be needed or wanted.

If Netanyahu does form a right-wing coalition that includes Jewish Home, he’ll have to move fast on settlement building and avoid negotiations with the Palestinians that entail compromise over the West Bank. But this will clash with Israelis’ preference for a focus on social and economic issues. Jewish Home’s uncompromising position on settlements, then, will strain Netanyahu’s ability to manage societal demands and fend off the leftist opposition’s attacks.

Depending on what the other far right parties—National Union, set to merge with Jewish Home, and Michael Ben Ari’s new party, assuming it survives—do, this might not topple the coalition. But it will certainly make for a more difficult balancing act.

In other words, having an inflexible religious Zionist party in the government isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. This is why Netanyahu is probably far more leery of Bennett that the Arutz Sheva story indicates.

This Week in Israeli Electoral Politics

In the past week three distinct elements have emerged that might impact on the Israeli elections on January 22. I say “might” because there is still some uncertainty about who the eventual players in the campaign will be, and because of the possibility that external events (war with Iran, a Palestinian uprising, the Syrian civil war, collapse of the Palestinian Authority, and so on) could alter the calculations of Israeli voters in ways we haven’t seen yet.

The first element is really a continuation of existing trends: according to polls, the “right” is still coming out stronger than the “left” (though as I’ve argued these aren’t necessarily helpful groupings). That is, the rightwing bloc (composed of secular and religious parties) is still doing better than the leftwing bloc (composed of Jewish parties and Arab parties).

Within this framework, though, surveys indicate that if the leftist Jewish parties can work together—particularly the main figures still thinking about whether to join the campaign—then a “super” left party could actually get more seats than Likud. Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, and Yair Lapid would have to form a single party. Olmert and Livni have worked together before, so that is possible. But Lapid has already said he wants to run on his own. And it’s not clear yet whether Olmert is able to run, since the State Attorney has announced it will appeal the acquittal in Olmert’s corruption cases. If that happens, it is doubtful Livni could muster as much appeal and support on her own.

The second interesting development is the return of Aryeh Deri to Shas, the haredi party he helped found. Deri had been convicted of bribery, but he is still very popular and considered to be very, very smart; his return is a boon to Shas. The problem is that while he was gone, management of the party fell to Eli Yishai. An agreement seems to have been reached in which the two share power with Ariel Atias.

It’s good for Shas to present a united front—and polls show the party gaining seats now with Deri at its head. But because the final decision on who will lead the party has been put off until after the election, the party could well undermine its win by infighting.

The other interesting implication of Deri’s return is that he’s considered to be more dovish on policy toward the peace process, and more willing to consider withdrawal from the West Bank. Yishai is more hawkish, and closer to the nationalist right on the issue of settlements and the West Bank. Notwithstanding the question of ultimate authority in the party, Deri’s position there—he was given responsibility for coalition negotiations—puts Shas’ support for a left or right government in play. It is, of course, contingent on the leftwing parties getting their own act together, and it’s not clear Shas’ traditionalist and Sephardi constituencies would tolerate it, but new possibilities are now opened up.

Finally, it looks like that the smaller far right parties are consolidating—for now, anyway. National Union (more secular) and Jewish Home (more religious Zionist) have signed a deal to merge (again). A single party will allow the two to pool their resources and votes, and make it stronger in the Knesset, while fewer parties on the right will make it easier for Likud to construct a stable coalition government. Still, the history of far right parties in Israel has been one of fragmentation rather than unity, and this most recent deal is being challenged by members from both parties.

It remains to be seen whether these trends will hold or change. Stay tuned.

Jostling in the Religious Parties

I was going to write Part II of Who Are the Religious in Israel, but Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for early elections has sparked intense speculation about who will ally with whom and which party and bloc will come out on top. And I can’t help participating in these prognostications.

Two new polls are out today, detailing where each party stands. They more or less tell the same story—the rightwing bloc continues to gain more seats in the Knesset than the leftwing bloc. According to a Haaretz/Dialog survey, the former gets 68 seats while the latter gets 52.

A Teleseker/Maariv poll has the right at 64 Knesset seats and the left (or, more properly, the center-left) at 56. Interestingly, the same poll then asks about likely voting based on whether Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni form a new party. Under these conditions, the right wins only 62 mandates while the left gets 58, making the election much closer. It also puts the left in contention for forming the government, though it would require some tricky coalition bargaining with the religious parties.

It is what’s going on in these parties that is interesting. Although today there are three main religious parties/tickets (Shas, United Torah Judaism, and a new-ish National Religious Party), they are internally divided along ideological and personal lines. There are also intense differences over religious identity and norms, and it is a constant effort for each party to remain united.

For a long time there were four or five religious parties: a religious Zionist, a socialist-religious Zionist, a haredi, a socialist haredi, and often a minor breakaway from one of these four. By the mid-1950s these parties were consolidating: both religious Zionist parties became the National Religious Party (Mafdal), while the haredi parties were merging into Agudat Israel—though that didn’t become permanent until 1981, and by the beginning of the 1990s had merged more or less permanently with another haredi party to become United Torah Judaism (UTJ). In 1984 Shas entered the political scene, a breakaway from Agudat Israel that sought to represent haredi Sephardic Jews.

In the current Knesset, Shas holds 11 seats, UTJ has 5, and Mafdal—reincarnated as Jewish Home—has 3.

Shas is divided along personality and individual lines. Though it is still guided by the very old Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the party’s daily business is governed by several managers. The party was initially led by Aryeh Deri, considered a brilliant strategist. He was later convicted of corruption and replaced by Eli Yishai. Where Deri was open to working with others, Yishai is bombastic and has offended many with his seemingly uncompromising positions. Yet since Deri announced his return to politics, speculation has been focused on whether he will form his own party, while there are rumors
he might rejoin Shas. Either way he is a threat to Yishai. We can anticipate friction between them, especially if the secular parties start playing them off one another.

But both Deri and Yishai had joined coalition governments led by left and center-left parties. Given the right amount of incentives, Shas under either leader (or both) could support a Likud-led coalition or a center-left coalition. It remains, as it has since the early 1990s, in the role of kingmaker.

United Torah Judaism is composed of Agudat Israel, a party of Ashkenazi haredim and hasidim, and Degel HaTorah, a party of Ashkenazi haredim but that has problems with hasidism. In 1988, Chabad (a hasidic group) under the direction of its leader Rabbi Menachem Schneerson became involved in Israeli elections to help Agudat. Many groups and rabbinical leaders within Agudat do not think hasidism is an appropriate movement; the involvement of one of the major hasidic sects exacerbated these tensions, highlighting the different spiritual practices and theological ideas. One of Agudat’s long time leaders, Rabbi Eliezer Shach, had long had tense relations with Rabbi Schneerson and his followers. The intervention of Chabad in the election made a break political, and Rabbi Shach created Degel HaTorah as a new party out of Agudat.

Degel HaTorah and Agudat Israel have an on-again, off-again relationship. They combined in time for the 1992 elections, and have struggled to maintain unity since then. Currently at five seats, polls have UTJ staying at five or winning one more, but reports are circulating again about internal differences. The party likely won’t be a significant player in coalition politics, though it’s also likely to be in almost any government that is formed.

Jewish Home is a shadow of its former National Religious Party self. The most prominent religious Zionist party, it served in almost all governments since the establishment of the state. It began to break down in the 1970s, with the emergence of Gush Emunim and a post-1967 commitment to settling the newly-conquered West Bank, Gaza, and Sinai that put the radicalized younger generation at odds with the older one.

By the 2000s most of the party shared an increasingly hardline commitment to settlement in the territories. But the 2005 Gaza disengagement brought internal differences over tactics to the fore, and the party split over the best way to influence Israeli policy. Though it ran on a joint ticket with some smaller secular far right parties in the 2006 election, talks to officially merge into a new party fell apart and the party split again over personalities and tactics: Jewish Home, basically a new version of Mafdal, and National Union, which contains more members from the now-defunct far right secular parties.

Despite internal disputes within Jewish Home, efforts to merge with National Union continue as they had from 2006. Naftali Bennett, a newcomer to party politics, has sought to unite the two parties under his leadership. Bennett is well-connected among the settlers and the rightwing in Israel, and could prove an important force on the political right should he win Jewish Home’s leadership on November 6.

But polls show Jewish Home and National Union together still only getting seven seats, and Bennett is being challenged within Jewish Home by its current chair Daniel Hershkowitz as well as Zevulun Orlev, both of whom are at odds with National Union leader Yaakov Katz. Katz has proclaimed on more than one occasion that Israel would return to Gaza, and though Hershkowitz and Orlev are no softies when it comes to settlements, both are concerned about losing their leadership positions in a party under Naftali and which the larger National Union will probably dominate. At the same time, Katz himself doesn’t have the full support of his party; Arieh Eldad has expressed discontent with both Katz and Bennett. Finally, National Union takes a less compromising position on how to move the settlement enterprise forward than Jewish Home members have.

It’s likely that these three parties will continue on the divided path they’ve been on since the 2000s. Whether they can have an effect on coalition bargaining remains to be seen, but because the possibility exists it’s worth watching to see what they do.