On Tuesday, the many political parties in Israel’s parliament, and a few new ones, will seek election, with the contest broadly between those parties for and those against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remaining in power.
Although the election, Israel’s fourth in two years, is once again too close to call—many polls predict another deadlock—one thing seems certain under Israel’s multi-party system of proportional representation. After the votes are counted, whether Netanyahu ekes out a win, whether someone else takes the helm, or whether a caretaker government takes care of business pending a fifth election, Israelis will continue to enjoy the most right-wing government in the Western world.
Netanyahu and his Likud Party members are undisputedly right wing. These are the people who converted the Israel of old—a Labor-led welfare state that was an earnest member of the Socialist Internationale—into what is now dubbed a dynamic “Startup Nation.” Under Netanyahu, Israel privatized industries, cut red tape, lowered taxes, and oversaw one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.
But the anti-Netanyahu block includes right-wing parties, too, that generally endorse his policies, just not his person. One is led by Gideon Saar, a long-time former member of Likud who had been seen as Netanyahu’s heir apparent, and who some see as more right wing than Netanyahu. Another is led by Avigdor Lieberman, who models his party on the philosophy of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, an early free-market Zionist hero.
The only significant party that promotes neither Netanyahu nor the anyone-but-Netanyahu camp—the Yamina party led by Naftali Bennett—also champions the right. The only party of any size that isn’t right wing—Yesh Atid, which attracts about 15 percent of the vote—is moderately left of center, akin to mainstream parties that many might even consider conservative in Canada or the European Union.
Unlike the United States or Canada, unlike the countries of Europe, unlike Australia or New Zealand, Israel no longer has a major bona fide leftist party. The Labor Party that dominated Israel for decades collapsed, and is now supported by just 5 percent of voters. Meretz, a social democratic party that once had clout, has the support of maybe another 4 percent.
In Israel, policies related to Palestine define most political parties, not policies seen elsewhere. While most Western governments tout policies to reduce their use of fossil fuels, or at a minimum pay extensive lip-service to the need to curb it, Israel’s main political parties unabashedly back the development and use of fossil fuels.
Israel came to its shunning of left-wing orthodoxy out of necessity, and experience. Before it discovered large energy resources, it was vulnerable to boycotts and military blockades by the Middle East enemies that surrounded it, and before its right-wing policies fostered its technological, powerhouse economy, it had difficulty financing its immense defense needs. With money, technology, and energy, Israel not only became more secure, it also made friends of former adversaries who have become eager to trade with it, to acquire Israeli innovations, and to lessen their own energy dependence on other Middle Eastern suppliers.
Israel was founded as a socialist but it flourished as a capitalist. For this reason, in Israel’s election this week, the contest isn’t between left and right. It’s between a right-wing government led by Netanyahu and a right-wing government led by a rival. The right wing will win the Israeli election Tuesday, and so will Israel.
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