Israeli Election: More Parties, Same Landscape

Shmuel Rosen gives an overview of the configuration of political parties in Israel with only a few days to go till the election:

Four days before Election Day in Israel and the race seems to be tightening up (see here and many other places). But what really puzzles those observers isn’t the rise of Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu party, or the decline of Labor. It is the fact that Israel, traditionally a country of 2 major parties (Likud and Labor), and in recent years of three major parties (Likud, Labor and Kadima), is turning into a land of 4 or 5 “major” parties - Likud, Kadima, Israel Beiteinu, Labor, and maybe Shas (Shas is a little behind in the polls, but it often performs better on election day than polling reflects).

This means that an unstable political system may become even more so. This develop raises the possibility that no two parties will be able to claim a clear majority, thus making a “unity” government much harder to define. On the other hand, the additional parties haven’t changed the ideological landscape all that much.

After a dose of Kadima, the unity of Israelis behind the IDF is not translating into a similar unity behind their political leaders. 

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