Netanyahu could lose vote, latest polls show
World watching closely as polls show Zionist Union poised to beat Netanyahu in Tuesday’s election
While White House officials have remained closemouthed on Israel’s election, there is no doubt they share the fatigue felt by many Israelis with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The latest polls indicate the centre-left Zionist Union Party of Isaac Herzog is poised to win enough seats in Tuesday’s election to edge out the coalition of right-wing parties that has kept Netanyahu in power for the past nine years.
Suggestions are the Zionist Union will end up with 26 seats, to 22 for Netanyahu’s Likud Party. Then, negotiators from the 11 parties will attempt to cobble together a government of disparate interests that reflects a political spectrum where orthodox religious parties often act as the kingmakers.
“There are no straight lines and that’s the real problem here,” said Aaron David Miller, a Mideast expert at the Wilson Center in Washington. “You are not going to know who the new prime minister of Israel is probably for four weeks. The last four elections — I averaged them out — it’s about four weeks.”
Should Netanyahu survive, relations with Washington likely will harden.
You are not going to know who the new prime minister of Israel is probably for four weeks.
After U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on the weekend a two-state solution to the IsraeliPalestinian standoff remains U.S. policy, Netanyahu widened the divide even more when he declared Monday if elected he would ensure there will be no Palestinian state.
Establishment of a Palestinian state would give “attack grounds to radical Islam against the state of Israel,” he said in an interview published on an Israeli website.
“Anyone who ignores this is sticking his head in the sand. The left does this time and time again. We are realistic and understand.”
Dore Gold, a former Netanyahu foreign policy analyst, told CNN despite the fractured personal relationship between Obama and Netanyahu, the U.S. and Israel “have a deep alliance.”
“I think we will overcome any glitches we have had in the past regardless of who’s elected,” he said. Others are not so sure. Should Herzog and his running mate Tzipi Livni succeed in uprooting Netanyahu, “the most significant thing that would conceivably happen is a fundamental improvement in the U.S.-Israeli relationship, full stop,” Miller said.
Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, a Mideast expert at the United States Institute of Peace, told National Public Radio the problem cannot be dismissed as “atmospherics.”
“It is certainly true that from this atmospherics perspective, if you were to elect a Herzog-led government, it would be much easier for the U.S. to pursue a proactive role in the peace process,” she said.
“That said, does that mean that a peace agreement is going to be able to be signed any time soon? No.”
Netanyahu’s poor stewardship of relations with the U.S. has gone well beyond the White House, raising fears that support for Israel could become a partisan issue. More than 50 Democrats boycotted his speech to Congress on March 3 and many of those who attended were not impressed.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called his condemnation of nuclear negotiations with Iran condescending and insulting to the intelligence of U.S. leaders. Others noted the U.S. gives Israel at least $3 billion US a year, only to have its leader come and lecture the U.S. government. Others claimed Netanyahu’s portrayal of the nuclear talks was alarmist.
In the past, the orthodox parties that hover outside the normal political spectrum have often decided Israeli elections. But signs are a new and more leftist hand may emerge to tip the scales of power.
The once-fractured Arab-Israeli parties united this year to form the Joint Arab List, which could win 13 to 15 seats.
“If the Arabs are able to pull together, which they have done, they could have an enormous parliamentary block that will give a built-in advantage to the left wing in Israel and Mr. Herzog in particular,” Gold said.
That would suit Obama just fine. But there is also the real possibility the parties will be so split, only a national coalition can be formed.