When Israelis vote next month, a new centre-right party, this time called New Hope, will try to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Unless there is a major change in the election landscape in the next weeks, Mr Netanyahu looks likely to extend his decade-long rule once again. He has outplayed a variety of challenges who have tried over the last half dozen elections to cobble together a centrist coalition. While Israel has remained largely at peace and economically successful, the trend of a fading left wing and eroding center may not bode well.
An Israeli poll released on February 10 showed that Israel’s left-wing Meretz party may not enter the Knesset, a dismal fall from grace for a party that once played a key role on the left. Similarly Israel’s Labour Party has declined to only seven seats. The party that ruled Israel for its first thirty years is barely able to make the electoral threshold and could get seven seats in the 120-member Knesset.
The real story of Israel’s electoral politics is that the country is endlessly seeking a centrist to unseat Mr Netanyahu but it has been let down by the parties that are put forward.
Benny Gantz, who ran in three elections against Mr Netanyahu in 2019 and 2020, even received more votes, securing 32 seats to Likud’s 32 in September 2019, but he couldn’t form a government. His colleagues have now almost all deserted him and his Blue and White party may not make it into the next Knesset. It will join a series of fat centrist parties that beached themselves like whales over the years. Kadima, a breakaway from Likud, beat Mr Netanyahu in 2009 but also failed to form a government under then leader Tzipi Livni. The Shinui party of Yosef Lapid once had 15 seats in 2003 and has disappeared.
