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Bibi Victorious
Despite long odds, brutal attacks from the press in Israel and around the globe, and a meddling U.S. President, Bibi Netanyahu appears to have come out on top in today’s election. Here’s a quick round-up of coverage.
TV exit polls Tuesday night showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud set to retain the Israeli leadership at the end of a bitter election campaign. Netanyahu claimed victory early Wednesday morning, though his rival Isaac Herzog did not concede defeat.
Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. on Tuesday and Israeli citizens headed for the ballots to vote for Israel’s 20th Knesset. Polls from the end of last week had left options open for a tight race. The TV exit polls were published at 10 p.m., as polling stations closed, after which official results began to roll in. The official final results won’t be publicized until Thursday.
…Unlike years past, analysts had said the race between Likud and Zionist Union, the two leading factions, was too close to call with confidence, but the exit polls showed Netanyahu clearly better placed to build the next coalition. At 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning, he delivered a celebratory speech in which he hailed a “victory against the odds… a victory for our people.”
A triumphant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Likud supporters in his victory speech early Wednesday that he would aim to form “a strong, stable government” that would tackle “security and socioeconomic challenges.”
Netanyahu told a jubilant crowd of Likud supporters early Wednesday morning that “against all odds, we have scored a major victory for the Likud.”
“Hail, hail, Bibi,” Likud adherents chanted as Netanyahu took to the podium on Wednesday.
“We have scored a major victory for the nationalist camp headed by Likud,” Netanyahu said.
“I’m proud of the Israeli people because at the moment of truth they knew to differentiate between challenge and nonsense and they took up the challenge,” the prime minister said.
TEL AVIV — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu overcame a strong challenge in Israel’s parliamentary elections Tuesday to finish in a virtual tie with his main opponent, Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog, according to exit poll results reported by Israel’s three largest television news stations.
After the initial exit poll results were announced, Netanyahu declared victory on Twitter. He said he has already begun to call potential coalition partners about forming a new government.
“Against all odds, we achieved a great victory,” Netanyahu later told his supporters in a packed hall in Tel Aviv at around 1 a.m. Wednesday. “Now we have to form a strong and stable government.”
The crowd chanted, “No unity government!”
Netanyahu called the results “a miracle” and said his fellow Likud members were “magicians.”
But Herzog said Netanyahu’s victory declaration was premature. “This result enables us to return to power,” he told his supporters. “We’re going to wait for the true results. Every result right now is an exit poll. Everything is still open.”
Meanwhile, some “Dewey Defeats Truman” coverage from earlier today:
Published in Foreign PolicyBibi Netanyahu Shoots Himself in the Foot (Huffington Post)
Bye bye, Bibi: Why today will be different for Israel’s left-leaning coalition (Reuters)
Did Bibi’s speech hurt his chances? (Politico)
On the possibility of a center-left coalition, Gil Reich on his thread offers this response:
L’chaim!
This calls for a foot-stompin’ hoe-down. Charlie Daniels rules!
Mr. Obama is right, even if he may be somewhat deluded. It does matter who will govern–this is not about declaring this way or that, this is about a man’s daring & his prudence, which will decide far more in Israel’s foreign affairs in the next few years than the political consensus or the popular sentiment concerning national security.
If you want to see clearly, look at an extreme example: The gov’t led by Churchill in ’40. Everyone was for war & he could sometimes count more on Atlee’s Labour than on Chamberlain’s Tories. But the gov’t that included everyone in British politics would have made no sense without Churchill–Chamberlain had even declared & began the war, but that hardly mattered.
Consider that good gov’t & democratic gov’t are not the same thing–the consensus opinion or popular sentiment are the effect & the cause of latter, but not the former. I am not sure whether Mr. Obama expected that a Herzog coalition would be too weak to say no to him or too eager to repudiate PM Netanyahu’s harsh rhetoric around the world, but surely the expectation was that the leaders would have a significant effect, in their daring or pusillanimity…
An Israeli-Arab commentator said last night that Kahlon wants to be PM someday and knows he will never get there via the left. Therefore despite all his posturing, he will join the Netanyahu government.
I think he is correct.
He also said the he expects that some months from now, Netanyahu will offer Herzog to join the government, but at a way lower price than now. This also sounds right to me.
Give them a few weeks and they will break up as a bloc. They squabble incessantly amongst themselves. Worse than the Jews.
Very interesting, Israel P. Thanks for #35 & 36.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Report-Senate-panel-probing-Obama-administration-ties-to-effort-to-unseat-Netanyahu-393905
http://www.westernjournalism.com/netanyahu-himself-says-foreign-powers-are-trying-to-defeat-him-as-obamas-meddling-is-probed/
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/matthew-vadum/obama-funding-the-anti-bibi-campaign/
Etc etc etc….
Other comments highlight why the swing parties would or would not form a coalition with labor.
They have other options, including forcing new elections. However, they have to ask themselves whether they stand to gain or lose by forcing new elections. IMHO, Likud’s win is a deterrent to those parties forcing new elections.
Had Likud gotten perhaps 8 fewer seats than it did and other center-right parties gotten those seats, they might be smelling Likud blood. In a new election, Likud would either be running with a damaged goods Bibi at the top or would have sacked him causing yet more internal division. Other parties might be looking to knock Likud down into the low teens and themselves assume leadership of a center-right block. Now, however, their best reasonable prospects might be to knock Likud down into the mid-twenties which is little different from the bird in the hand they currently have.
Ironically, Likud may have done too well.
It has to form a coalition with 2 religious and three secular parties.
There may not be enough cabinet posts to go around.
There are three top tier ministries: Defense; Justice; Finance; and Foreign. Which of the other parties get such positions? It would be easy to justify giving one to a party that was in the teens, but only Kulanu just hit 10.
Netanyahu can’t shut out his own party by giving away more than one or two of the top tier ministries.
Kulanu will likely want at least three ministries: a first tier ministry and two second tier ministries. This will set off a chain reaction of demands from the lesser parties that they would not be in a position to make if kulanu had 15 seats.
Mike,
This will work too. A little of good ole Mr. Cash.
Regards,
Jim
With only hours before Israelis goes to the polls, Benjamin Netanyahu has proclaimed there will be no Palestinian state as long as he is Prime Minister.
Amazing really! A last minute Jewish version of a “hail mary” and he pulls it out. 75 years of failed efforts for a 2 state solution, and this straight forward, simple statement expresses the will of the majority of Israelis. Will the left get this message? No, but maybe for a time, while they lick there wounds before returning to this foolishness, we’ll catch a break.
I do not see Netanyahu as Churchillian nor Herzog as Chamberlain. Obama cannot push Herzog any more than Netanyahu because the center of Israeli politics has changed. Obama might not end up disliking Herzog as much as he personally seems to dislike Netanyahu but from a geopolitical perspective the result would be the same and just as disappointing to the Administration. I agree with this assessment.
May I venture a reason why, despite only gaining 10 seats, Kulanu can play an outsize role in the cabinet and be granted more concessions than the other coalition members? Its 10 seats are enough to complete a winning Likud-led majority coalition–unlike any of the lesser parties. Without Kulanu, the right and religious parties would altogether muster only 57 seats. See graph below. That puts it in a better position than the other parties to bargain with Likud for cabinet posts.
I think that article is pretty good. But it does not look at all at the things I have in mind 1 Changing PM Netanyahu itself sends a message & that message is that Israel is not immovable. Having a guy then do work to correct that opinion is a waste, if not a danger.
2. The PM now has a reputation & there is a crisis coming. The other man has no reputation & no one would respect him, which is likely a reasonable atittude.
3. I think it’s hilarious to talk about where politics is in Israel. That’s talk for normal times, & at that, for people who think character is not really important, in politics. Talk about structures or situations always implies that the man does not matter, or will not make the decisive difference. Are you sure you believe that? The guy in the article uses the phrase ‘boxed in’, but he never considers how the man faced with the crisis might see himself or think he should act. That perspective, however, is what matters, not the moralism we get instead…
The basic political fact of this election is that a change would have given everyone concerned with the ugly stuff reasons to doubt Israel’s resolve, friends & enemies alike. That’s bad policy. As to Mr. Obama–I do agree that he would have learned he cannot get what he wants, but he would have won something, given the previous observations… Look at it this way: If the man at the top matters, there is no reason to believe the new man compares with the one now ruling. If it doesn’t matter, it matters not to change the man precisely so that the structure remains what it’s been…
You make some good points about the importance of the specific leader regardless of policy and the broader path of political direction though I think the channels (on security issues) are pretty well defined in Israel. I admit to having a reflexive reaction to Churchill analogies. I am a great admirer of his but he was a man of great flaws as well as great gifts. With Churchill, timing was everything. He was the essential man in 1940-1 when England stood alone but his erratic judgement and strategic limitations made him increasingly irrelevant once the U.S. entered the war. Let us hope Netanyahu chooses wisely.
I think your basic insight is correct: The times call for someone like PM Netanyahu. Would that they did not… The thing with Churchill was, you could bet he’d stand & fight, & with all the canniness & skill of a man of empire. Lots of people had to bet their lives on that. There is nothing without that…
UTJ never has a minister as a matter of principle.