Israel's high-stakes election

Israel’s high-stakes election

Australia and countries around the world have just marked 3 years since the Hamas terror attacks on 7 October in Israel. This anniversary comes just weeks before Israel holds its next national election, which has been described as one of the most consequential votes in its history. So in this Squiz Shortcut, we’ll get you across:

• How Israeli elections work

• How the Hamas attacks are shaping the upcoming vote

• And who the key contenders are

🙋🏻‍♀️ This newsletter was written by Anna Pykett

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Squiz the Shortcut

When do Israelis go to the polls?
On 27 October, so we can expect to hear more about the election as we get closer… But to set the scene, we’ll start by looking at how elections work in Israel, because it’s a bit different to what we’re used to in Australia. 

How do they differ?
Here in Oz, we elect local MPs who each represent a patch of the map, and the Prime Minister is whoever leads the party that wins the most seats in the House of Representatives… In the Senate, it’s more about each party’s share of the vote - and that determines how many of their candidates get a seat. The Senate is the closer comparison to Israel’s Parliament, which is called the Knesset.

How does the Knesset work?
It’s like the Senate but on a much bigger scale. The whole country is treated as one giant electorate. Voters don’t pick a person, they pick a party. There are 120 seats up for grabs, and the seats are divided up according to each party’s share of the vote.

Does one party usually win outright?
No… Governing Israel is all about coalitions. No single party has won the 61 seats required for a Knesset majority since Israel’s first election in 1949. The bar to get into the Knesset is pretty low - about 3.25% of the vote, which works out to roughly 4 seats. That means lots of small parties make it in, and a bunch of them need to team up to form government.

What does that look like in practice?
It means small parties end up having a lot of sway over who becomes the prime minister and how long they stay there. The PM ends up being the leader of the party with the best chance at building a coalition of 61 seats. So it means that Israeli parliaments are frequently cut short because when lots of small parties hold the balance of power, if one walks out over a single issue, the government can lose its majority.

Is this year any different?
This year is unusual because the current 25th Knesset is the first Israeli Parliament to serve its full term without early dissolution since 1988. 

Is voting compulsory?
No - that’s another way the Israeli system differs from ours, and it has almost no postal or overseas voting.

So why is there so much interest in this election?
It’ll be the first general election since the terrorist group Hamas launched a surprise offensive on Southern Israel, killing 1,200 people - mostly civilians - and taking 251 hostages on 7 October, 2023. It was the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust, and it led to the Israeli military starting a war targeting Hamas in Gaza. 

Just remind me what’s happened since…
The war has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, including 21,000 children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It’s been run by Hamas for years, and Israel disputes the figures it provides, but the United Nations says they are generally reliable, which is why they’re widely reported. The war is technically in a ceasefire, though there’s ongoing violence in the region. Since the ceasefire took effect, all of the remaining hostages - living and dead - have been returned.

How is 7 October shaping the vote?
The war, the ceasefire and the attack that sparked it are the main issues of the upcoming election, which analysts say will be a referendum on how PM Benjamin Netanyahu has handled it all. A report in the Jerusalem Post said 62% of Israelis listed the Hamas attacks as either very or fairly central to how they'll vote.

What has Netanyahu said?
He refuses to accept blame and has repeatedly argued that security officials failed to warn him of the assault, saying if they had woken him earlier on 7 October “everything would have been different”. He’s spent much of the last few weeks defending himself against reports that he was warned about an attack coming from Gaza and didn’t tell his intelligence chiefs, along with accusations that his government was slow to respond.

Has there been an inquiry?
There have been multiple demands for an independent inquiry from Israelis as well as Netanyahu’s political rivals - but he has repeatedly refused, saying it’s a political witch hunt out to undermine him. But for many Israelis, his reputation for being strong on security has been tarnished.

What’s his pitch to voters?
He says he’s successfully weakened Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, and he also brought all the hostages home. But there’s a lot more going on in the region… The war in Gaza has been followed by a conflict involving Iran and Lebanon, Netanyahu is also embroiled in a long-running corruption trial in Israel, as well as being the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant over alleged war crimes in Gaza, which Israel rejects. On top of that, last week’s alleged attempted hijacking of a flydubai plane headed to Tel Aviv has again put security and the safety of Israelis back in the spotlight. 

Let’s walk it back a bit… How long has Netanyahu been around?
He was first elected back in 1996, making him the longest-serving Prime Minister in Israel’s history - he’s now seeking his seventh term in office. He leads the right-wing Likud party, which has been the biggest party in the Knesset for most of the past few decades, but several analysts have pointed out he’s under pressure going into this election.

Why is that?
Some experts reckon Israel has never been more isolated on the international stage than it is now, and for many, Netanyahu has become the face of that. He’s also been managing shifting diplomatic ties with the US (Israel’s most important ally), and he’s had a fiery relationship at times with US President Donald Trump. He’s also facing a string of legal and domestic political battles - one is over the fact that some ultra-Orthodox Jews are exempt from military conscription. 

Who is his main opponent?
Former army Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, whose son died in the war in Gaza. He leads the Yashar party (it’s Hebrew for ‘honest’ or ‘straight’), which has been leading Netanyahu’s Likud in the polls by a small margin. He’s one of the politicians who’s been calling for an independent inquiry into October 7, and military service for everyone, including ultra-Orthodox men. But analysts say it might be hard for Eisenkot’s bloc to form a coalition because it’s made up of a mishmash of right, left and centre-aligned parties, with little common ground except their goal of ousting Netanyahu.

Anyone else in the running?
The other contender is former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett - the leader of the Beyachad (Together) alliance. Until recently, the polls were consistently pointing to a change of government being likely, but things have tightened up. Netanyahu has a loyal voter base, and Likud has always relied on religious and right-wing parties, and sometimes centrist ones, to get the required 61-plus Members of the Knesset (also referred to as MKs) needed to govern.

What else could move the dial?
Another big factor is the role Arab parties could play. Arabs make up about a fifth of Israel's population, and Arab parties are polling at around 14 seats. This has been in the news because last week, Israel's Supreme Court overturned a ban on several of these parties running in the election. Analysts say it could have a big impact on who ends up forming government.

To bring it back home, what does all of this mean for Australia?
Diplomatic ties have become increasingly strained between Oz and Israel over the last few years. The Albanese Government went from backing Israel after the October 7 attacks to imposing sanctions on Israeli Government ministers and recognising a Palestinian state last September.

What impact did that have?
Some analysts reckon it marked the lowest point in relations between Australia and Israel in decades. It prompted Netanyahu to label PM Albanese a "weak politician" last year, and things got worse again after the Bondi terror attack on a Chanukah celebration last December, when 15 people were killed, and Netanyahu publicly blamed the Albanese Government’s policies.

And more recently?
Things soured again when the Federal Government made it clear that it wasn’t impressed with Israel's decision not to pursue criminal proceedings over the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom in Gaza. But reports suggest that with Netanyahu's coalition trailing in the polls, there’s the chance of a reset between the 2 countries if a new government is elected.

What would a change of government in Israel mean for its ongoing conflicts?
On the big security questions, analysts say not that much - all 3 major candidates for PM are against a Palestinian state, for now at least. They all want Israel to keep a security buffer inside Gaza, and they’ve all said they’ll keep the pressure on Iran to prevent it from having a nuclear weapon. But there’s also a lot to happen between now and then - it’s going to depend on who’s in the coalition that forms the government. 

When will we know the result?
We’ll find out more on 28 October Aussie time when the polls close, but the process of forming government - and the haggling that comes with it - could take weeks.

Onto our Recommendations

Listening: This podcast episode which covers why the Israeli elections never produce a clear winner.  

Reading: This piece from AP News on how the 7 October terror attack is influencing voters in Israel ahead of the election.

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