FM: John Whitbeck
With more than 85% of votes having been counted, the distribution of the 120 Knesset seats is shaping up as follows: 53 seats for the five parties of the current government, 48 seats for the four anti-Bibi "Zionist" parties and 19 seats for the two anti-Bibi "Arab" parties.
While there may be slight changes when the final apportionment of seats is announced on Friday, the fundamental electoral landscape has been set for the coalition building negotiations that follows all Israeli elections.
The basics:
1. A majority of Jewish Israeli voters support the current government.
2. A majority of all Israeli voters oppose the current government.
3. A stable "Change" government could be formed by the four anti-Bibi "Zionist" parties and the two anti-Bibi "Arab" parties.
4. If the anti-Bibi "Zionist" parties spurn the opportunity to form a democratic, non-racist coalition with the anti-Bibi "Arab" parties, which have made clear their desire to join forces to oust Bibi from power, it will constitute incontrovertible proof that, for "Zionists", racism is a value that trumps all other values and even the common political lust for power.
Unfortunately, two other scenarios are far more likely that the formation of a democratic, non-racist coalition of the six anti-Bibi parties:
1. The "Zionist" parties live up to their pledges to treat the "Arab" parties as untouchables, no "Zionist" coalition can be formed and the current government stays in power as a "caretaker" government until a new election roughly six months from now.
2. The three extreme-right anti-Bibi "Zionist" parties (Yashar, B'Yachad and Yisrael Beytenu), which have no significant ideological or policy differences (only personal differences) with Bibi, form a four-party coalition with Bibi's Likud Party (with or, more likely, without Bibi, who, at 77 and in less than robust health, might agree to retire from active politics on a relative high in return for a presidential pardon in his corruption trials). While such a coalition, excluding the two lunatic-right parties of Ben Gvir and Smotrich and the two ultra-Orthodox parties, could produce significant changes in some purely domestic matters, it would change nothing in Israel's behavior outside its internationally recognized borders. New or intensified wars would probably enhance the chances for the realization of this scenario.