Israeli Legislative Election Crisis

Rachel Brown

             On March 2, 2020, Israel held Legislative Elections- and on September 17, 2019- and on April 9, 2019. It is not necessary to have elections this frequently, under the constitution they are only required every four years. However, Israel’s unique legislative system has been unable to form a coalition of parties large enough to get a majority of the seats. The following article will give a brief summary of Israel’s legislative system, why the parties function the way they do, and why Israel has needed to hold three elections in one year.

How the Legislative System Works (and why it Matters)

               Israel’s legislative body is called the Knesset. It is unicameral, meaning that it is the only legislative chamber. The Knesset has a lot of power- it passes laws, elects the President and Prime Minister, and supervises the government. Israel is not divided into electoral districts, which means all members of Parliament represent the whole country, rather than representing a group of citizens in a region.

               Voters in Israel vote for parties, rather than candidates. It is up to the individual parties to produce a list of candidates that will fill the seats earned in the national elections. Each party has a different system. For example, the largest party, called Likud, holds primary elections where the first 18 seats are open for everyone to vote on, some seats are held for regional representatives, and some seats are directly chosen by Party Leader and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the Blue and White Party, the leader Benny Gantz chooses the party list members. The more religious groups’ party lists are chosen by a rabbi or panel of rabbis.

               The political implications of each party list selection method are significant. Certain methods have been criticized for not being particularly democratic in a country that is typically regarded as being a democracy. So why doesn’t Israel see more democratic nomination systems?

 A 2001 paper by Gideon Rahat and Reuven Y. Hazan may shed some light on the topic. They explain that when parties have less control over who gets nominated, the candidates feel less pressure to be completely loyal to the party. If a member of the Shah party stopped voting with the other members of the party, it would be very easy to remove them from their position in the next election, because their position on the party list is up to a very limited number of people. But if a member of the Likud did the same thing, their position on in the Knesset is more stable, as it is up to every voting member of the party if they deserve to stay. This could decrease the ability for the Likud to function cohesively, and in a country where it is so easy for parties to fracture, cohesiveness and stability in party positions is important.

There is no set number of parties in Israel, any group can have a spot on the Knesset as long as they receive 3.25% of the total vote. This makes it difficult for any single party to win the number of seats required for a 51% majority- which would be 61 seats. This is where the problem arises, and why Israel has seen three elections in the past year. No party has been able to form a majority.

Problems with Forming a Majority

               Below are the eight parties that currently hold a seat in the Knesset as of the March 2020 elections, and a brief summary of the issues they stand for.

To form a government, the different parties must group together to form a coalition- an alliance of parties that typically vote together on issues. Coalition forming is a part of many political systems, not just Israel’s.  A paper by Political Scientists Kathleen Bawn, Martin Cohen, David Karol, Seth Masket, Hans Noel, and John Zaller, discuss the importance of coalition forming specifically in American Politics, but it can be expanded to help explain Israel as well.

The paper explains coalition forming using teachers, shepherds, clergy, and coffee growers. These groups all have individual interests, and don’t really care about the interest of the other groups. Teachers want school improvements- they don’t care very much about the shepherd’s high wool tariffs. However, to affect policy, they need to get a lot of votes, so the teachers and shepherds team up, promising support for the other’s policies if they get support in return. This is coalition forming.

This happens on two levels in Israeli politics. Smaller political parties team up to form larger parties. For example, the Blue and White party is made of the Israeli Resistance, Yesh Atid, and Telem parties. Though these parties may not stand for the exact same things (hence, the need for different parties), they have decided they could work together well enough to accomplish a common goal. In the case of the Blue and White party, this goal is to challenge the Likud, which is currently the party with the most seats.

Once elections happen and parties earn a certain number of seats, they must form a government in a second round of coalition forming. Below are the results of the March 2020 election. The parties must find a way to work together to form a coalition of at least 61 seats.

From Times of Israel

The proposed blocks that could form together are shown below. The right wing bloc includes the Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism, and Yamina. The Center-Left bloc includes Blue and White and Labor-Gesher-Meretz.

From Times of Israel

As it stands, neither the majority (Likud) or minority (Blue and White) will be able to form a government. This begs the question- why don’t the Joint List or Yisrael Beytenu join a coalition to help form the majority government? The Joint List party is the Arab party, which has a great deal of animosity towards the Jewish population and the state of Israel in general. This feeling is reciprocated by much of Israel. Yisrael Beytenu is a far-right party, which should put it with the right-wing bloc. However, it is also a secularist party, and does not want to work with the ultra-orthodox Shas or United Torah Judaism party.

The parties in Israel seem to be at an impasse. The possibility of a fourth election has already been proposed by Likud leader and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but people wonder how another election will solve anything. The future of Israel’s government seems uncertain at the moment. A significant change or concession will likely be required to solve this deadlock, but only time will tell how it will ultimately play out.