By J. Zel Lurie
DELRAY BEACH, Florida — Readers of the New York Times, who, like myself, buy the paper chiefly for its extensive coverage of Israel, might be forgiven if they believed that the question of what to do about Iran’s nuclear ambitions played a major role in Israel’s recent elections.
Iran was hardly mentioned, although the tensions between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama on Israel attacking Iran may have been a factor in Netanyahu’s loss of one fourth of his seats in the 120-member Knesset.
The number of Likud/Beiteinu seats was reduced from 42 to 31. To me, this was the most significant result of the elections.
President Obama has also noted Neytanyahus loss and has decided that now is the best time for him to make his first visit as President to Israel.
For many others, the major story was the garnering of 19 seats for second place by a political novice. Yair Lapid, who until a year ago was a TV star and newspaper columnist like me. But at 49 he is half my age, and I was never a TV star.
Lapid’s strength was in the Tel Aviv area, where one fourth of the voters chose him. He represented the middle class who put up tents in Rothschild Boulevard in the summer of 2011 to protest the huge jump in housing prices and rents, which have gone up 48 percent during Netanyahu’s term.
This happened last month, and for readers of the Times the election is over. But the coalition government has not yet been formed. All we know is that Netanyahu will continue as prime minister but he will have tough choices in forming the government and tougher choices when the new coalition takes power.
Meanwhile the Times regales us with accounts of Israel’s second airstrike deep into Syrian territory. The first was five years ago when a nuclear facility being built by North Koreans was leveled.
Here the Times gave us a misleading headline. It said that the research facility for chemical and biological warfare had suffered slight damage.
But the story said that the building was not the Israeli target. The fighter bombers concentrated on the Russian-made SA17 anti-aircraft missiles that were parked outside on their transports, ready to be moved to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Any damage to the building was caused by exploding missiles, an American official told the Times.
Back to Israel and the new coalition government in formation.
The third largest party is Labor, which doubled its seats from 8 to 15. The three largest parties have a majority of 65 seats. They could form a government without a religious party for the first time in Israel’s history.
Bring in the remnants of Kadim and Meretz and you will have a solid majority of over 75 mandates.
Forget it. It won’t happen. Like Ben-Gurion 68 years ago, who preferred a coalition with religious to the pro-Soviet left, Netanyahu will make the same choice.
Choosing a religious party will be much harder.
Naftali Bennet, a veteran politician and former head of the settlers organization has put together a new party of settlers and their supporters, which came in fourth with 12 seats. His party favors drafting the Haredim, the ultra-Orthodox. This is a question that the old government has been wrestling with for more than a year.
That is a plus, but the minus is that all the other parties give lip service to two states for two peoples.
Bennet does not, so he will be vetoed. The new coalition, which I will call Netanyahu/Lapid, will fall back on Shas, which has served in all recent governments.
Once this choice has been made and a minimum of 61 seats has been cobbled together, then the new government will face many hard choices.
On top of the list is still Iran, but I doubt there will be much discussion until the new Secretary of State John Kerry will make his first tour of the Middle East.
What will occupy the new government’s attention is passing the budget. The old government proposed a budget for 2013 of 39 billion shekels ($105 billion) with a deficit of 3 percent of GDP. The 2012 budget finished the year with a 4 percent deficit, double the planned 2 percent.
The Bank of Israel has warned that repeating the 4 percent deficit will harm Israel’s credit rating.
Once the budget is adopted the new government can tackle other hard choices like obeying the Supreme Court’s year-old request for a law that will draft Haredi youth. Building middle class housing is another nightmare involving the Land Authority and numerous ministries.
There are 50 new faces in the new Knesset, almost half the members, and a bevy of new women. They have their work cut out for them.
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Lurie is a freelance writer based in Delray Beach, Florida. He may be contacted at jzel.lurie@sdjewishworld.com