By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM — Israel has many, too many, political parties. In anticipation of the April 9 general election, several appear to be trying to form alliances, some in order to win, others to survive.
According to opinion polls, at this stage neither Netanyahu’s Likud nor Gantz’s Israel Resilience Party can safely assume that it’ll get a plurality of mandates to make sure that their leader is invited by the president to form the next government. That’s why they’re seeking junior partners.
Likud might combine with right-wing parties like the one just formed by Education Minister Bennett and Justice Minister Shaked and/or Habayit Hayehudi, the party the two just left. Other right-wing parties may also be considered.
Likud has also an internal problem. Gideon Saar hopes to be placed high on his party’s list and thus challenge Netanyahu from within. With this in mind, the latter is expected to treat us to a variety of political tricks to discredit his opponent and to persuade us that he and he alone can save the country.
*The Israel Resilience Party, though the second largest in the polls, is still trailing Likud. To win, it must find partners, notably Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, which until Benny Gantz came on the scene was the second largest in the polls. Gantz, who has already formed an alliance with another former chief of staff (Moshe Yaalon) and hopes to draw into politics a third (Gabi Ashkenazi) needs Lapid, or rather his voters, if he’s to be the country’s next prime minister.
However, some observers report that Lapid is reluctant. He’s said to calculate that Gantz will soon lose the confidence of those who elected him, should he become prime minister, and Netanyahu may not last long because he’ll have to stand trial and probably be convicted on some or all of the offences he’s said to have committed. This might give Lapid a chance to form the next government. Alas.
There are several Israeli political parties that may not get the necessary minimum number of votes to get any representation in the Knesset. Their only chance is to combine with others. That includes the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi Shas, the leader of which (Arieh Deri) may have to serve another jail term. Several other parties are also in danger of not making it unless they join others.
On the centre-left, Labor may survive, but only just (how have the mighty fallen!). The consistently traditional left-wing Meretz has never had many mandates but has had faithful supporters through various elections. If the two would combine, each may do better, but we’re told that that’s not in the cards. After the way Labor’s leader Avi Gabbay treated Tzipi Livni, who was his coalition partner in the last government and who heads a relatively small centrist party, it’s most unlikely that the leader of Meretz (also a woman: Tamar Zandberg) will want to join him.
In all this jockeying, we learn virtually nothing from potential winners and losers alike about the ideology of the party they lead, and even less about how they’d deal with Israel’s biggest challenge: preventing war with Iran and its stooges, and how to make peace with the Palestinians.
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Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, Canada. Now a resident of Israel, he may be contacted via dow.marmur@sdjewishworld.com