Benjamin Netanyahu dodged a bit of a bullet today when a former Likud MK, Gideon Sa’ar, announced that he would not run against Netanyahu for leadership of the party in its December 31 primary. Sa’ar was being pushed by Likud’s far right to challenge Netanyahu, who is somehow too moderate for them. But a potential intra-party challenge from the right is only one of the potential obstacles in Netanyahu’s path toward extending his term as prime minister, and maybe not the biggest one. Over the last few days, an electoral climate has emerged in Israel that could make it very difficult for the incumbent, who was confident enough in his position last week to dissolve the Knesset and call for early elections (scheduled for March 17), to keep his job.
Netanyahu broke up his governing coalition by sacking two of its more centrist members, former Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and former Finance Minister Yair Lapid, ostensibly over their opposition to a proposed law enshrining Israel as a “Jewish state,” possibly to the detriment of the rights of its Arab citizens and its democracy. But in reality Netanyahu’s coalition has been unstable almost from the outset (in January 2013), a mash of parties with conflicting ideologies, like the right-wing but secularist Likud, the further right Yisrael Beiteinu, the religious right Jewish Home, the centrist but largely Lapid-focused Yesh Atid, and Livni’s center or center-left HaTnuah. Netanyahu is probably the only figure in Israeli politics right now who could have held this mess of a coalition together even this long.
In calling for early elections, Netanyahu hoped to cobble together a more ideologically cohesive, though presumably further right, coalition that would at least chart a consistent ideological direction for the country. He also undoubtedly hoped to deal a harsh blow to Lapid and Livni, whose parties are both ripe for an electoral drubbing. Lapid is in particular danger, as around three-quarters of the Israeli public disapproves of his job performance, and Yesh Atid doesn’t have much of a platform beyond “Gee isn’t Yair Lapid great and don’t you think he would make a great prime minister?” Netanyahu would also probably like to form the next government without Yisrael Beiteinu, whose leader, current Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, desperately wants to trade up to Netanyahu’s gig and hasn’t been shy about criticizing his boss from the right.
This is where it all gets interesting, because while Netanyahu is the most recognizable figure in Israeli politics by a country mile, he’s not popular. Somewhere around 50% of the Israeli public believes that it lost the Gaza War, an astonishing figure considering the how absurdly lopsided the war was from both a human and physical perspective. But unrest in the West Bank continues and Israel’s relationship with the rest of the world is deteriorating, something that also seems to be of deep concern to the electorate (72% of whom think the sour relationship between Netanyahu and Barack Obama is hurting Israel). Also, while from a distance we tend to reduce Israeli politics to a single issue — “the peace process” — politics in Israel is as driven by the economy, stupid, as it is anywhere else. In that area, Netanyahu is on the defensive, as the cost of living in Israel reaches unaffordable levels. The weakness of the Israeli economy propelled the political neophyte Lapid, who campaigned on a mostly economy-focused message, to 19 seats in the Knesset last January, and things haven’t really improved since then. Netanyahu is promising tax cuts on basic necessities and blaming Lapid for the crummy economy, slamming him for backing a Value Added Tax exemption that Netanyahu says would only benefit wealthy Israelis.
So Netanyahu is showing some weakness. Joshua Keating points to a Haaretz poll that recently found Netanyahu’s approval rating has plummeted from 77% during the Gaza War to 38% now; that’s almost a 40% drop in a matter of three or four months. There are two movements now coalescing around an “Anybody But Bibi” message, one from the left and one a continuation of the muddled center-right parts of the current coalition. From the left, Livni and opposition Labor Party leader Isaac Hertzog announced yesterday that they are joining forces in advance of the election, under an agreement that would have Hertzog serving the first two years of the four year PM term and Livni serving as PM for the following two. Note that this arrangement would give Hertzog the option of screwing Livni over by dissolving the Knesset again before she has a chance to take over. But I digress. From the center and right, there are reports that Lieberman, Lapid, and former Likud MK Moshe Kahlon, at the head of his newly formed Kulanu Party, have been talking about forming their own coalition.
Either one of these coalitions could get first crack at forming a government if they can either outpoll Likud or get close enough to convince Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who more or less hates Netanyahu’s guts (and the feeling is mutual), that he should give them that first crack. But they would have to have a clear path to cobbling together a majority coalition (61 Knesset seats or more), because Israeli politics is so fractured that no single party or alliance of 2-3 parties can hope to win a majority at this point. Polls released this week shows that the HaTnuah-Labor alliance would win 22-23 seats to Likud’s 20-21, but the Israeli left and center-left is so depleted that it’s tough to imagine who they could bring into a coalition (Yesh Atid might be convinced, but that will probably only be another 10 seats, and maybe Kahlon, but that’s still probably not enough). A Lieberman-Lapid-Kahlon alliance could win something like 34 seats, and has a broad (if bizarre) ideological base from which it could appeal to parties on the right or even left (Kahlon does not seem to be as hawkish on the peace process as Netanyahu). But these vote counts ignore the fact that Likud goes into the election in an alliance with Jewish Home, which is expected to pull in around 15 seats; that alliance outpolls either of the other two, and could easily reach out to smaller, really fringe right wing parties to get close to a majority. The only thing really keeping religious parties like Shas and United Torah Judaism (both of which poll at 7 seats each) out of an alliance with Likud is a dispute over Israel’s mandatory military service requirement as it pertains to ultra-orthodox Jews (Netanyahu’s proposed VAT cuts for basic needs would also be popular with the ultra-orthodox Haredim, who tend to be on the poorer rungs of society). Heck, if Likud-Jewish Home alliance gets close enough to a majority, you could see a chastened Lieberman come crawling back to participate as well.
So I think Josh Marshall is mostly on the money here when he says he’ll believe that Netanyahu won’t be the next PM when he sees it. There are permutations of an “Anybody But Bibi” coalition that could form and could put together a majority in the Knesset, but ideological differences will make that really difficult, and will have to contend with the fact that the Likud-Jewish Home alliance will likely come out of the elections with a plurality, though obviously anything can happen on Election Day. The real wild-card, as Mitchell Plitnick suggests, is Kahlon. New high-profile “centrist” (which seems to be what Kulanu is casting itself as) parties tend to do very well in their first go-round in Israeli politics before cratering, as the examples of Yesh Atid and earlier Kadima would show. Kahlon is popular and right now seems to be sort of a chimera, particularly as it relates to the peace process (he’s not a dove, but he may be more amenable to talking to the Palestinians than Netanyahu has been). He could join a far right coalition and serve, I guess, on its left fringe, or he could go the Yesh Atid-Yisrael Beiteinu route and hope for the best, or he could just go into the elections on his own and cut the best deal once the dust settles. Whatever happens, the next few months of Israeli politics promise to be pretty interesting.
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