Welcome And The Election Numbers

Neri 0:04

Shalom and welcome to the Israel Policy Pod. I'm Neri Zilber, a journalist based in Tel Aviv and a policy advisor to Israel Policy Forum. We've never done this before, I don't think, but I've brought back our two favorite regulars, again, this week, to help us, but mostly me, but to help us figure out what just happened in the Israeli election and where things may be headed. Spoiler alert, things are extremely complicated, but you already knew that. Michael Koplow is, of course, Israel Policy Forum's very own chief policy officer, and Shera Efron is our dear friend and former colleague and a senior fellow at the Iran Corporation and their distinguished Israel policy chair. There's no reporter's notebook segment this week as I get into my own experiences covering this madcap election with Michael and Sheera during the course of our conversation, but it was a terrific episode, so let's get into it. Hi Michael, hi Shera. Welcome back to the podcast.

SPEAKER_07 1:05

Hi, guys.

Neri 1:06

Hi Mary. Hi, Sheera. It's very nice to see you both uh so soon after the last episode, two weeks ago, our pre-election uh preview. I don't think I've ever brought back a guest or guests so quickly for back-to-back episodes, but I think it's for a worthy cause. We're gonna figure out completely what's gonna happen now uh in our post-election reality here in Israel. But uh, you know, to kind of start things off, I joke with a friend of mine over the weekend. Uh I compared Israeli politics, especially this election, to modern art. So it's all in the eye of the beholder. It's inscrutable, complex, open to different interpretations. And then someone else walks up, takes a look at the modern art, and has a completely different take, looking at the exact same piece of art and results that we got last week uh here in Israel and literally a week ago. So we're recording this Tuesday afternoon Tel Aviv time. It's uh Tuesday morning in DC. Um happy midterms day, Michael. Thank you. I'm I'm excited to celebrate.

SPEAKER_07 2:07

Well, did you vote, Mary?

Neri 2:09

Did I vote in the US midterms? No, I'm registered in a state that doesn't really matter, or well, it didn't matter for decades and decades. So I have I have my own issues. You know, I'm dealing with one election at a time, Shira. One war at a time, one election at a time.

Michael 2:26

But you feel like did you vote, Shira?

SPEAKER_07 2:29

Um, so I was planning on voting, but my brother who received my ballot and it was here to vote for the Israeli elections, forgot my ballot at home. So I had planned to, and I always do. Um, I didn't for technical reasons. But it's also a lame I apologize for my um my voice's foresight under the weather, but I I had planned to exercise my democratic right.

Michael 2:51

So you are not one of the 20,000 California voters that the Justice Department claims are not citizens and have voted illegally?

SPEAKER_07 2:57

Not that I know of, but maybe a letter of such is waiting also in my brother's news.

Neri 3:05

You dodged that bullet. Uh you know, who knows? There's disinformation campaigns uh all over the place with regard to democratic elections, uh, but we'll get into that in just a second.

SPEAKER_07 3:15

All the same playbook.

Neri 3:16

It's all the same playbook. Um but let's start here, uh Michael, with you uh analyzing this piece of modern art that we call the 2026 Israeli election. Uh the results, as I'm sure we all know, are these the Netanyahu block got 53 seats. The Jewish opposition, led by Ghadi Isencott, got 48 seats. Uh, and then you have 19 additional seats in the opposition side for the two Arab Israeli parties, Ram and the joint list, uh, which is a record for Arab Israelis in terms of turnout and also results. Uh so, Michael, your first thoughts, reflections um about these results that we got last week. Uh when they became clear, really uh what was it, Wednesday evening into Thursday? What do you think?

Michael 4:02

What's the mood now a week after? My mood is about the same a week after as it was then. And the the Shinbet and the Iranians may have access to our to our WhatsApp chats, but presumably our listeners do not. So I'm just gonna, you know, for everybody's benefit, say that when we were texting on Wednesday, I was more optimistic, certainly than Shera, uh maybe, maybe than Neri. And that's still where I am. Uh so we all know that Netanyahu has the largest party and that his quote-unquote block is larger than the quote-unquote quote unquote opposition block. But of course, this is what what remains the salient fact to me is that Netanyahu is at 53 and that's where he's stuck with nowhere to go. Whereas Gadi Asenkot and his four partners, uh, Benet Lapid Lieberman and Golan, are at 48 and they have some running room, and they now have a number of options in front of them. They may not take those options, they may not form a minority government, either with Ra'am and jointless abstentions or even with UTJ or Kharedi abstentions. They may end up deadlocked. You know, I think it's too early to say, but they at least have the options and the balls in their court, whereas Netanyahu has to sit and do what he can to try and break them apart and pick off the Shar members. And I don't discount any of that. It very well may work because he's good at it. But it does seem as if the one scenario that I think would be an unmitigated disaster, which would be a unity government with Netanyahu. At the moment, that seems to be the least likely option, not just because they're all publicly ruling it out, whereas they are kind of keeping the other options at least open or semi-open, because the hurdles to it are just going to be too large, in my opinion. They would have to let him be prime minister first. They would have to not pass an October 7th Commission for inquiry, all these things that are gonna make it very difficult. So given all of that, I'm I'm not predicting there will be a government, but I'm on the more

Optimism Versus Doom One Week Later

Michael 6:10

optimistic side.

Neri 6:11

So we're gonna get into all those scenarios uh later on, and we're gonna kind of run through all of them, including some that you just mentioned, Michael. Uh, just for our listeners, uh UTJ is United Torah Judaism, it's the Ashkenazi uh Ultra Orthodox party. They got, what was it, seven seats? And then Yishar is Gady Iisenkot's party, it got 21 seats. And then Likud, uh, Bibi Netanyahu's party, um, did quite well uh on its own, got 27 seats. So the largest party in the new Knesset. Um, Shira, how's your mood one week after? You texted me early Wednesday morning after election night with uh rather doom and gloom, doom and gloom vibes. Uh has it have they improved?

SPEAKER_07 6:51

I think I'm physically still uh not well because of the elections. And again, I apologize for my voice. I listen, I I understand uh the arithmetic. And it's very clear to me that Netanyahu's bloc lost many seats from 68 where they are today, elected 64 to 53 after the elections. And I understand this means that the vast the majority of Israeli public is not happy with this government. And I'm also, I think it's incredible that Israeli democracy, at least in terms of voters' turnout, is um is really uh vibrant, right? And high voter turnout, it's it's it's encouraging. So I can see all these signs. And I agree with Michael. Maybe I'm a little more optimistic because I agree that at least what we're seeing, and again, we're recording now on Tuesday, and who knows, things could change um before this comes out, but we are seeing a genuine attempt by the sort of opposition bloc to form a government. Whether it succeeds, I don't know. So this is on the positive, but on the negative, and I think this is this is where my doom and gloom is still where I am since last Tuesday. First of all, it's not about being sort of political or not political, but I think the fact that there is a narrative among apparently bigger part of the population that we thought that there is no replacement for Netanyahu, and that no matter what, and in places where Nehru visited Sterot and Kiryach Mona, in places that arguably are much more vulnerable to the situation than we are in Tel Aviv, right? Uh still at the end of the day went and voted for a party that that has not delivered for them. This, I think it requires sort of their shemi, right? Like what was what was wrong? What did the opposition do wrong? It's true that Gandhi Eisencourt had this appeal to others, um, but he wasn't good, he wasn't enough, I guess, to draw uh votes from one side to the other, right? At least they didn't like humiliate him and put a kafia on him and said he was a traitor. But yet, let's see what's gonna happen. So I think the failure to create uh a viable alternative to Netanyahu, who's been for the most part prime minister since 1996, three decades, like this this is something that I think uh for me uh is something that I think is a is a little bit upsetting. The second thing, uh obviously, is I think as I as much as I admire the Israeli vibrancy of democracy with voter turnout, I think these elections and what we're seeing uh shows you how fragile Israeli democracy is. And this goes to, and maybe we can get into this, but um this accusations and half-assed interrogations and investigations into supposedly an election fraud. And this goes also personal. I can give you some examples on some of the people who were arrested. So I think this is this is where has this gone too far, you know, with the Shin Bet, with the police, you know, when you put the the heads of institutions and political appointees and you weaken the civil service, uh, this has a real price. And I think this is something that to me took me by surprise. I think we all here expected some Israeli version of January 6th, right? With not accepting the results, but I think I didn't expect it that much. And I didn't expect the Israeli mainstream media to just take it as fetically and just be like, just reported without questioning these allegations. So that's the third one why I'm I'm still not as um optimistic as Michael. And I think the third one, which we discussed many, many times leading up to this election, the delegitimacy of the Arab population in Israel, 21% of the Arabs who are citizens, and the fact that it's so easy not only to blame them for stealing the elections, but also, and you know, we look at the reports coming, it may be some sort of euphemism for not going to sit with the Arabs or not sitting with the Arabs, but at least I'm seeing around me that, like, you know what, yeah, we're really upset. We said we're not gonna sit with the Haredim, not because they don't refuse to serve in in the IDF, uh, and we're not gonna sit with the Arabs, but actually, uh, we can digest better the Haredim. They're Jewish, so that's fine.

SPEAKER_06 11:01

Right.

SPEAKER_07 11:02

But the Arabs, this this is too much, and we can't do this. And I think these are like really core fundamental issues that go beyond the the the numbers and the arithmetic and the knesset.

Neri 11:12

So you alluded to um an ongoing campaign by Netanyahu and the government and really the entire right-wing media ecosystem and social media ecosystem to delegitimize the election. Uh, we're gonna touch on that in just a second. Look, I'll uh I'm gonna side more with uh Shera than with Michael. Sorry, Michael. Uh look, it in terms of there are positives, we can't lose sight of that. Election day itself, like the actual election day, went went smoothly, and that wasn't a given beforehand. There were various scenarios. I think that we even talked about uh violence and kind of agents provocateur at you know, Arab polling stations and uh you know North Tel Aviv. Uh that didn't happen, everything went smoothly, record turnout. So officially it was 77%, uh highest since 1999. Uh a pollster told me that 77% isn't actually accurate because you have 800,000 Israelis who live outside the country. And as we all know, you know, 60, 70,000 came back. But a lot of Israelis who have uh in theory the right to vote didn't come back. So for the actual Israelis uh in the country, I think uh the turnout rate was more close to 85%, which is which is remarkable. I mean, higher than than most countries out there, even with mandatory voting uh laws. Uh so a lot of turnout, people understood the stakes. And yes, uh Netanyahu's coalition lost uh a whole bunch of support or you know, cratered. And uh again, if this was a halfway normal country, 67 would be a bigger number than 53. But uh 19 of that 67 is uh you know Arab Israeli uh parties. Um now again we're gonna get into the uh the various scenarios in just a second. So that's you know, positive. Uh there are positives to take from it. The negatives are look, all the polls at least the mainstream polls, uh not only uh in the weeks and months leading up to election day, but but really for the past four years, ever since the real beginning of this uh far right Netanyahu's disastrous term in office, showed us that the quote Zionist opposition, even without the Arabs, was uh far and away more or or would get more in any election than the Yahoo bloc. Right. So even you know, on election eve, it was okay, you know, it was gonna be a uh a few seats gap. We talked about it two weeks ago, um, at least a a majority for quote uh the Jews in the opposition, the Zionist Jewish opposition. And even that didn't happen. And I can tell you that uh I was at uh Gaudi Eisencott's uh election night HQ in North Tel Aviv, and uh when the exit polls came out and they showed that gap, right? I think I forget what the numbers were, it may have been you know 54 to 50, 53 to 51, but in favor of just the the Zionist uh Jewish opposition, people there thought they won based on the exit polls. And talking to uh to various uh Eisencott uh officials and advisors, they were already kind of measuring the drapes in their proverbial minority government uh office. And it was just a question of, you know, kept pressing them. Do you think Lieberman will let you go to a minority government option? They're like, hey, you know, we have a Zionist majority and we're going to push it forward. They thought they won. And then, as we all know, um, after Eisencott gave up gave his essentially a victory speech and his uh convoy left left the arena, the sports arena, the election polls tightened and then switched. Right? The exit the exit polls switched, and then by the following morning the results were already becoming clear. Netanyahu's block had uh um had an advantage. So I I don't know how I can be happy if the bare minimum, which which is what we expected, was going to be at least a minority government option with the Arab parties abstaining and that being a more clear-cut and easier path towards forming a government. Now we're in this very, very complicated situation, which I I keep telling people. I've never I mean, we've all covered and been involved in Israel elections going back many, many years, uh if not decades, right? At least observers. This is the most complicated thing I've ever seen. And going back to our conversation two weeks ago, it shouldn't have even been this close. We shouldn't be in the position we are we are in right now.

Michael 15:23

Okay, but but here's the thing, and I can't believe that I'm for like once in my life in the position of being the optimist here who's gonna push back on the doom and gloom. I gave a I gave a talk last night uh in in Philadelphia, and literally at the end of the Q ⁇ A, the person who was moderating said, All right, well, that's a that's a pessimistic way to end. So I had to, you know, that that's my that's my usual, right? I'm depressing people. But even with even with my usual MO, we talked about this two weeks ago, and we expected that there was going to be a deadlock between these two blocks. We were not optimistic that the four Jewish Zionist opposition parties plus Ra'am would get to 61, right? We thought there was a we thought there was a very good chance that a minority government would still need something, you know, jointless abstention, or now people are talking about a UTJ abstention. So even though like the the numbers themselves between the Eisencoat four parties and the BB five parties are flipped from what those last polls said, the actual results, the situation we're dealing with, this is what we expected. And furthermore, even when those first exit polls came out on Tuesday night, you know, the Channel 12 one initially had uh the Isencoat parties at 52 and the BB block at 50, you know, and then I think channel 13 was was maybe 53 to 50 or 53 to 51, those initial exit polls, the optimistic ones, also didn't show that you got to 61 with four opposition parties plus bombs.

Neri 17:01

61 was in the cards.

Michael 17:04

Right. So my my point is that even earlier in the night, I I get I get the enthusiasm at Isencoat headquarters and and why people were happy because it looked like they had vested BB. But even in that optimistic scenario, the the fundamentals were still going to be the same. It was still going to be a government that was going to require some sort of reliance on the joint list or the Kharedim. So I again, like I'm not, I don't, I'm not sitting here No, or Rahm. No, but I'm saying even even with Rahm, they were still going to need something else, right?

SPEAKER_07 17:37

Like the not according to all polls. I mean, there were polls that showed that only Rahm or maybe just a faction from Ram. I've seen optimistic numbers, optimistic for them, right? I don't think that including the Arabs is not optimistic.

Michael 17:49

The bottom line for me is that we're we're in this situation that that the three of us actually expected a couple of weeks ago. So yes, I get it. Like, is this the best version of that? No, it's not. And as I said, I'm not uh I'm not necessarily optimistic there will be a government. But like, you know, people had a little bit of uh of what we call hopium here, uh, I think on Tuesday night. And ultimately what we thought on Monday is sort of what ended up happening.

SPEAKER_07 18:12

But I think that's the issue, right? The gap between your your your optimism or whatever the couple version of optimism that you're uh preparing myself is the smaller gap between your realism and the outcomes. Whereas I think maybe being on the ground, um, and maybe it's the it's it's the the biases we're all affected by by our echo chambers, by the people we know who flew in, right, to vote. Uh by I had sat with people who work in different NGOs that prepare the new uh guiding lines for the new government. And I can tell you I sat with someone on Sunday night, previous Sunday night, and there were like staffing roles. I had sent like lists of people that I thought being should be in senior roles, not political appointees, but like for leading roles in that will deal with the Palestinian file. So I just think that maybe you are right that we had this um we didn't have the courage to see what we see, okay? And we were hoping we see other things between them. And I remember, Neri, you were at the Eisencott. I had spoken with one of your colleagues from NPR. Remember, and I saw you there. And my first question was like, Are they happy? And you're all like, Yes, they're very happy. And and to me, already then it looked like it's too premature to be happy, um, as Eisencott uh did with his uh early uh victory speech. Natanyao knows better, so he only went to the Likud headquarters at what like quarter to four a.m.

Neri 19:38

Yeah, he always does that.

SPEAKER_07 19:41

He's more experienced, but anyway, we are optimistic or pessimistic, depending on I think what we what we uh had hoped for.

Neri 19:49

I think it's just a matter of degree. I th I thought it wasn't a hope. I thought that okay, nobody is talking about some unexpected landslide for the opposition, right? For all the reasons that that we know and um just my reporting trips and whatnot. But I thought the path to a minority government would be a lot easier than what we're looking at right now. That's the issue of degree, and um I don't want to admit how many times I have been in uh election night HQ of some opposition leader uh in the past, and they get up there and give a victory speech, I guess, Bibi Netanyahu, which turns out to be premature. I literally it's a rerun every time. You're in this like doom loop. It's like uh Groundhog Day, the worst version. Okay. Um enough looking back. Let's deal with the present and then

Fraud Claims And Arab Voter Targeting

Neri 20:34

the future. Uh as she alluded to, further complicating an already very, very complicated situation. We're now in the midst of a full-blown disinformation, delegitimization campaign by Bibitanyao himself, uh, by his Likud party uh and most of his government uh against the result of the election uh and against Arab Israeli voters, uh, and they're claiming that there was electoral fraud and vote buying in Arab Israeli communities. Uh to be clear, this was and is a pre-planned and really kind of wide-scale uh disinformation campaign that started uh on election day, with Bibi himself saying, you know, the quote Arabs uh were quote stealing the election. Uh and then the Likud in the days after Election Day kind of seized on these two uh separate cases that are being investigated by the police in Shinbet. Uh I'll spare the audience the details, uh suffice to say that there isn't much behind either one of these uh separate uh incidents and separate cases. Uh and also uh as was mentioned, the the conduct of the police and the Shinbet uh was very curious, or let's put it that way last week. Was very curious. Uh we again we can talk about that maybe in future. But thankfully on Sunday evening, the head of the Central Elections Committee, uh Noam Solberg, he's a deputy chief justice of the Supreme Court acting as the elections commissioner, uh put out a video and he was flanked by the Attorney General and Shinbet Chief David Zini. Uh and they all said that despite certain suspicions and ongoing investigations. There was nothing major in any of it. The election last week was conducted properly, and the will of the voters has been reflected honestly and correctly. Bibi and Likud uh obviously disagreed. They say uh a black cloud still hangs over the election. Literally, I can't stress this enough for people who are not here or not following. In the right-wing media ecosystem, this is a kind of an hourly, if not half-hourly, issue. They're posting, they're talking about the election was stolen, the election was stolen, the Arabs stole the election, they want to avoid the entire election, and an extremist maybe even simply refuse to recognize the results. So, uh, Shira, let's start with you first, because you brought this up earlier. This has never happened before in Israeli political history. I don't think it's ever come close to happening before in Israeli political history. How worried are you? How worried should we be that they may simply kind of refuse to recognize the results? And then, I don't know, constitutional crisis, et cetera, et cetera.

SPEAKER_07 22:55

I mean, I think this is extremely concerning and worrisome. We have to remember that um this idea of delegitimizing the Arabs is not new. It's something that Likud has done for several campaigns, right? The Arabs are rushing to the poll. This is this is something we've seen over the past decade. And if I remember correctly, I think in the even in one of the previous rounds before Likud won, there was started with a trial balloon of there have been some election fraud, but when the numbers rearranged in favor of the Likud, then this trial balloon was uh dropped back in 2022. Yeah.

Neri 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 23:31

So um I think there are a few things here that are very concerning. For first of all, if you look at like sophisticated operation campaigns, but different regimes in the world, different institutions, right? The sophisticated political ones, what you do is you throw in this trial balloon or you see like a very crazy idea out there, and then you pull it back just halfway. I mean, what's what this this video that you said of the election committee saying that everything's right, it's it's too little too late.

SPEAKER_06 23:57

True.

SPEAKER_07 23:57

And some of the people involved and the the Supreme Court justice, and you know, some you you just look at this like, why did the notification of this suspicion of election fraud was leaked from Atania's office? And how come this judge is even involved in this notification, you know, in this announcement to the public? I I don't suspect him of any wrongdoing, but could he be used for this when it's actually the attorney general that's supposed to? I mean, we we don't have to go to the nuances, but there seems to be like an abuse of the system, especially as we've all heard multiple times during the voting day and the days leading up to it, that the Israeli uh voting system is almost bulletproof, right, against any election fraud and then everything is ordinary. So this came out of the blue. So that's the one thing that I'm really concerned about. I'm sure you'll expand on the details. The second thing is that the ease, as I said before, it's not just the announcements and the leaks and is the fact that people were arrested. And when I sense personal, not personal, someone I know, but I can tell you that one of those arrested in Rahat, a Bedouin city in the south near Beersheba, all released, by the way, since then, right? Yeah. So um, but one of those um is a physician who um built six medical clinics in Rahat in a Bedouin town where there are no many medical facilities. And he's a graduate of the gifted program in the Kfaya Lok, which where my kids go to school, they're also in the same gifted program.

Neri 25:22

And you know, my children, they're probably not gonna be physicians, unfortunately, but uh but they're but they want you're breaking you're breaking news uh to your family on this podcast.

SPEAKER_07 25:34

I mean, I'm still.

Michael 25:36

So, Shira, Shera, could you Shera, could you be more of a Jewish mother bemoting the fact that your kids aren't going to become doctors?

SPEAKER_07 25:44

Have my kids be physicians, but no.

Neri 25:46

Don't worry, they're gonna be they're gonna be lawyers.

SPEAKER_07 25:49

We'll talk about my children, but um, you know, but but as I looked at this, and my husband and I were just shocked because we look at this and we're saying, you know, our kids are on the same path, but they're probably not gonna be, I hope, not gonna be arrested for election fraud, who knows, because they're Jewish. And the guy said in his and I said, I shared this with you, uh Neri, this specific person who I'm I don't know personally, but he said, I was just trying to encourage coexistence and encourage uh high void and turnout. I mean, there could be something. He could have got money. I don't know what actually went there, but this this narrative that those people are trying to tilt elections, steal the elections, is just something that I think for Israelis is really, really concerning about our future. And the final thing, you said, you know, it's social media and the right-wing media, but it's very much the mainstream media in Israel. Uh, this is also something that I'm concerned about. So, yes, concern.

Neri 26:40

Some elements in the mainstream media. We should say that large parts of the more responsible mainstream media pushed back fairly quickly at all these these two allegations, these two cases. Uh and to your point, Shera, yes, there was uh the appearance of uh a lot of dirty pool last week when this came out. Um I know for a fact I reported it yesterday. The first person to tip off the police uh as to the various Bedouin gentlemen down south on election morning, even before the ballot the polls opened, was Netanyahu's acting chief of staff. He called in a tip uh to the police. Uh the police, apparently without a search warrant, reportedly, went and arrested three individuals, uh huh. And that uh served as enough justification for BB to go up uh that day on election day and say, you know, this case shows that the election was stolen. By the way, the police uh put out a press release election day morning about it. I mean, uh that's that's bad enough. And then the conduct of the Shinbet uh again, we don't have to get into the details, but uh they they waited a long time on Thursday when the second uh case uh became public, the second investigation, they waited about six hours to put out a clarification. And in those six hours it was a uh wildfire amongst the pro Netanyahu media. Again, he maybe repaired some of the damage sitting next to uh Noam Solberg, the election commissioner on Sunday. That was um important that he was there, but it remains to be seen how the Shinbet and the police conduct themselves uh moving forward. Michael, how worried are you about the effort by the ruling party, potentially uh the outgoing ruling party to delegitimize, maybe even avoid last week's election?

Michael 28:21

The stuff on election day was pretty bad. And you know, you read reports now about people who were arrested, and the police said to them, you know, what what what's your why why don't you like Itamar Benvier? What's your what's your problem with him? We should be clear, this is uh all due to the reporting of our good friends at Hartz. Right. So obviously that's concerning, and I'm not surprised by by that. I'm sure you guys aren't either, given uh what we've seen that Benvir has done with the police over the past four years. So the stuff on election day is certainly bad and it's and it's worrisome. The thing that has me more worried, and I say this as somebody living in Washington, DC, who's been living here for the last decade, more than the last decade, but you know, for the purposes of this, I've been here for the last 10 years to watch. Once you introduce into the ether this idea that elections are rigged and can't be trusted, and that there's some sort of deep state conspiracy, no matter how absurd or ridiculous or evidence-free it is, there is always going to be a disturbingly large percentage of people who believe it and will believe anything and will just go down the rabbit hole forever. There's literally no bottom. And this is now the path that Israel is going down. It doesn't, I I hate to say it, but it doesn't matter if there is a different government come six weeks or eight weeks from now. This has now been introduced into the bloodstream. And the fact that it wasn't just Channel 14, the fact that there was not everybody obviously, but the fact that there were, you know, there were mainstream journalists who took this at face value, the fact that it it did look as if there was something fishy going on with the letter from Solberg that was leaked. And then, you know, you have Zini sitting next to Solberg in what almost looks like a hostage video, which is only gonna fuel, which is yeah, which is only gonna fuel the conspiracy theories, right? Because you're of course gonna have people who say, well, there of course, of course, there was fraud, and then they got to Zini, right? That's exactly it.

Neri 30:27

There's no bottom to it where they the the right wing here, the pro-Nanyahu right, is already unhappy with David David Zini, the hand-picked loyal Nanyao loyalist that was parachuted into the head of the Shinbet a few months ago, and that they, you know, they've already the deep state has already gotten to him, right? The the civil servants in the Shinbet have already gotten to Zidi.

Michael 30:47

That's the narrative. Right. And listen, I like I said, I've seen this now here over 10 years constantly, right? It's it's it's never you can never be too loyal for for the true hardcore regime loyalists, right? They're really, there's no end to it. Uh, and there's nothing that will disprove people's conspiracy theories, right? The the more evidence that comes out against them, the more it says to them, oh, look, look, look at how powerful the deep state is, that they can manufacture all of this counter evidence in the face of what we know to be true. So, you know, I'm sorry to say uh to to my Israeli friends, you know, uh buckle up because it's gonna be a pretty bumpy ride going forward.

Boycotts And Constitutional Crisis Fears

Neri 31:28

I agree. Uh, I'm taking this very seriously, and I keep trying to tell, well, not just my editors, but any anybody who who will listen, this is quite serious and not business as usual, and that Netanyahu is liable to push this as far as he can. And again, uh just in terms of what's happening or set to happen in the coming days, um, like I said, we're recording this Tuesday afternoon. Uh tomorrow on Wednesday, President Isaac Herzog will start consultations with uh all the parties in the Knesset over who they want to recommend to be prime minister and who will get the first crack or as it's called here, the mandate, the first bandate to form a government. Those consultations are supposed to happen on, I suppose, Wednesday and Thursday, and then Bougie, Isaac Herzog will make his decision on Friday. What if the Likud and his bloc just don't show up to the consultations because they don't recognize the results? What if they just boycott it, right? That's I mean, again, that's never happened. And so what what is Bougie supposed to do in that case? I mean, he's expected to give the mandate anyway to Isencot, right? Because Isencott has more recommenders, but that's going to be a major Rubicon across. And then next week, the new Knesset is supposed to convene for the first time on Tuesday, November 10th. What if they don't show up? Or what if they refuse to vacate their posts? What if the old Knesset members just show up? The opposition has made it very clear they want to replace the current speaker, Amir Okana, from the Likud party. What if he refuses to vacate his his position? Doesn't recognize the results, doesn't recognize the vote, you know, it'll go to the Supreme Court, they won't recognize Supreme Court decision. Again, this is not like uh science fiction, I don't think. They've been preparing this campaign for a long time. Um so I'm I'm very concerned that we're kind of potentially uh creating into a constitutional crisis. Um yet again, echoes of 2023 with the judicial overhaul. So um I think we all need to take it very, very seriously and uh and hope that uh both the institutions of state, whether the elections committee, the courts, and especially the security services and the police follow the law and follow the certified election results and don't uh give a hand to these shenanigans. And we also have to hope that the current prime minister, the still prime minister, or caretaker prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, doesn't really push this country off the cliff. Okay, with that, that's I think an important caveat uh before we now get into the various scenarios. Because again, these scenarios assume that all of this will go according to the past 80 years of precedent here in Israeli political history, uh, and not something different and some whatever January 6th style insurrect insurrection or or constitutional crisis, right?

Disputed Territory Podcast Spotlight

Shanie 34:07

Talking about Israel has gotten so hard. People are angry and dug into their positions, and most of the time it feels like the conversation is over before it even begins. But what if we kept talking? I'm Shady Reichmann from Israel Policy Forum, and this is Disputed Territory, a podcast for real talk about Israel.

SPEAKER_05 34:24

I don't find that shaming people works very well and getting them to listen to you. What I try to do is at least open up a space that people can listen. I also try to ask people questions to like push them to ask themselves to evaluate their own ideologies.

Shanie 34:40

We can believe that there needs to be an is a Jewish state and also work every day to make it better. And I see my work as really digging in there, trying to fix the hardest and most challenging parts of Israel. And it doesn't take away from loving it.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

You can call these things wrong, you can call these things unacceptable, one, two, et cetera, but you should not dehumanize an entire society.

Shanie 35:03

We're going to talk about Zionism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jewish identity, the relationship between American Jews and Israel, and the questions that don't always have easy answers. You'll hear from people with different perspectives. Sometimes I'll agree with them and other times they won't. But that's the point.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

When I criticize Nathaniel and Beginfear and the settlements, and when I speak about a two-state solution, all of this is because of my love for the Jewish people.

SPEAKER_03 35:27

I feel like my responsibility is to be a diaspora Jew and to stay compassionate and to stay nuanced. Why that is so incredibly difficult in this moment, I don't know.

Shanie 35:38

I believe the conversations about Israel don't have to drive us apart. They might actually be the only productive way forward. This is disputed territory, real talk about Israel. Follow along on Apple, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Neri 35:55

So I'm

Scenario One Defections To Netanyahu

Neri 35:56

gonna give you guys the four and a half scenarios of government formation, such as it is, that we may see in the coming weeks and months. All right. So the first scenario, which we kind of alluded to before, um, I deem it less the least likely one, but we never know, that BB somehow is able to draw defectors from the opposition to his bloc. Uh, so maybe you know, parts of Isaac and Kate Shar party, maybe Neftali Bennett, or at least his portion of his union with Yarlapid and the Biachat party. So Bennett kind of jumps ship, uh, or maybe even even a Vigdor Liberman, although he's made it very clear yesterday in a press conference that the the world, I'm paraphrasing, but the world can end, and I won't go sit with Bibi Netanyahu. So again, I think in that sense I'd take him at his word. But uh, the right-wing elements in the opposition may jump ship. What do we think of that scenario? Michael, do you want to start us off?

Michael 36:50

I agree, that seems pretty unlikely. You you can't rule it out absolutely. You know, we we've seen defections in the pretty recent past. Uh Michael Shikli. He's done before repeatedly.

Neri 37:02

Uh Gidon Sar.

Michael 37:04

Right.

Neri 37:04

He's the most infamous.

Michael 37:05

Yes, Gidon Sar. Um although, sure. Uh although, you know, that was that was a little that wasn't immediately post-election. That wasn't government formation. But but yes, he's good at this. That's the point. He's very good at this. Uh and you know, uh, I think uh Shera, Shira spoke on the on the pod a couple of uh, I don't remember if it was the last episode or even before that. I think it was the one before that, uh, about the how the Shar list may not be entirely under Isaacot's control. Uh so there there are probably potential defectors out there um in some scenarios, but especially if the change block seems to put together a united front, and we'll see how long they can keep that up, uh then I do think that this scenario is not likely. Also, he's got a he's got a lot to make up, right? It's not like he's at 59, he's at 53. So it's a lot of defectors, right? If he gets Natali Bennett and his his seven other uh members of of that 12-person faction, right? So that's eight people, but I think the breakdown is isn't the breakdown eight for Bennett, four for Lapid? Seven, five in favor of Bennett. Ah, so in that case, he even even that doesn't get it, right? Even if he could somehow convince Natali Bennett and all his folks, he's still one short. So, you know, the the math will be very difficult for him, but I I don't I don't rule out for a second his ability to pick people off. This is this is just a uh much steeper uphill climb than he's used to.

Neri 38:35

I agree with that. And uh, I mean worth saying that in Netanyahu's pseudo-victory speech uh late, late Tuesday night. I mean, well, early Wednesday morning, uh, that was a direction of travel, it seemed, for him, that he was kind of inviting the right-wing parties and the opposition to to join him naturally, has the has yet to materialize. Shira, what do you think of BB poaching?

SPEAKER_07 38:57

I agree with Michael. I mean, we can dismiss this option, but it's too high of a hill to climb this time. And especially as the Haredi parties who will go. I'm not saying that they will ditch Natanao, but so far they're playing hard to get, and um, so he can't count them automatically in his block. Uh, things can change. And I think they can change also the longer negotiate coalition-building negotiations uh take place uh with the with the opposition. And as we are approaching yes, no Iran war, right? The conditions can change uh in Netanyahu's favor that it makes that it increases the likelihood of this option. This goes to the same to this uh so-called unity government under his rule, but I I agree with Michael 100%. Um, not as likely.

Neri 39:44

Not as likely. Um, we'll touch on potentially Iran war, a minor minor issue that may be materializing in in just a second when we talk about the unity government option. But the

Minority Government Math And Red Lines

Neri 39:53

the second scenario I have for you, the minority government option, and there are various complicated permutations for it. Um as I mentioned earlier, this should have been uh more straightforward if uh the Jewish opposition bloc had just won more seats than Netanyahu's block outright. Then you just need everyone to kind of abstain. The two Arab parties just need to go for a cup of coffee, and then you have a simple majority, that's enough to seat a government, but that is not the case. Uh uh Eisencott is again at 48, his block is at 48, uh BB's block is at 53. So they need uh more votes and they need more active votes, uh, in theory. Uh potentially with Rom. Rom has eight seats, so that'll get you to uh fifty-six versus fifty-three. But that's uh well, uh not the favorite option of Evig Doliboman, as he keeps saying, uh and saying and saying. Our our Mr. Mr. Nyit, Mr. No, uh says no to everything. Um and maybe we don't really know where Nafali Bennett is either, uh, in terms of the Arab option. Um and as Michael alluded to earlier, uh United Torah Judaism is now potentially playing ball or at least pretending like it's willing to play ball. And then maybe if UTJ abstain, then Netanyahu only has uh well 56 seats, or and then Eisencott's uh Jewish bloc uh has 40. 46 seats. Yeah, 46 seats. And then 48 uh for Eisencott, so that's 48 versus 46. If UTJ just again goes for a cup of coffee, very, very complicated for uh these parties and people like Lieberman, Bennett, and LeP to do business with the hierarchies, but never say never, at least that's in the ether. Shera, what do you think of minority government possibilities, potential?

SPEAKER_07 41:31

I think it's gonna be very, very difficult to pull off, but that seems to be the direction of things at the moment. They would have to violate not only one election promise, right? Not just sit with the Arabs or whatever these conditions they have, but also to this this uh this idea of the Haredi parties and not Haredi per se, but just having a draft bill that is different and that is uh um equal, uh, and all this mass exemption of the whole sector uh of society.

Neri 42:02

This was a major a major plank of the opposition's campaign. I mean, drafting the ultra-orthodox was pretty much the one thing that all of them agreed on. I mean, that in the State Commission of Inquiry.

SPEAKER_07 42:13

Oh, 100%. I agree with you. And I think both for Bennett and for Lieberman who are playing uh the hardest ball when it comes to the Arabs, but we have to remember they went the hardest on the Haredi draft issue. Lieberman himself, I mean, he's he's been a Israeli politician for so many years and no longer, you know, representing uh immigrants from the former Soviet Union. But arguably his penetration to the Israeli mainstream also came from his opposition to this uh mass exemption. Um, and sort of for both of them, they call it the Brita Meshartin, right? The serving alliance. That was this idea. This was this coalition. So there seems to be, and again, in the latest statement they just came out, and some leaks that came out from the recent meeting in Herzelih today, uh, there seems to be uh no to Arabs, not ruling out Haredi. I assume that this means that probably we will maybe begin with talks with the UTJ, you know, with Haredi parties, but leave the door open to Ram and trying to avoid leaning on the joint list, which is you know a harder, I think it's it's it's for many Israelis that poses a real issue. Uh whether they can do it and open the door for defectors, which they can draw from other parties, you know, that's that's to me a more likely option uh than the first one you presented, but it's but it's a major, major, major undertaking.

Neri 43:44

And Michael, I mean, according to the statement that the five opposition leaders who met in Ertalya uh earlier today said, they're still hewing to Eisencott's four conditions for entry into what they call a Zionist. Government, right? The values of the Declaration of Independence. Israel is a Jewish state. Jewish, Jewish and democratic. Jewish and democratic state, yes. Jewish democratic state, important. Declaration of independence. And then you have um essentially a service platform for all, whether military or civil and the like, uh, for all, by the way, Arabs and Herodis, and then um kind of basically saying the words Hamas is a terrorist organization. So those are the four conditions that they came out and said, okay, um, I think Rom has a better chance and an easier path to accept those conditions than a hieriti party like UTJ. Agreed. So what do you think the the options are of a of a minority government? But again, no Arabs in in whatever form.

Michael 44:45

I agree with Sheera. I think that their their first move here, and it may be you know Lieberman and Bennett directed, is to try and see if they can make this work with UTJ abstaining. And I am skeptical that that's going to actually work for them. You know, even just yesterday, you have the the new head of UTJ coming out and saying we won't accept any quotas for national service and we won't accept any sanctions if you know we don't serve. And you know, that's a hardline position, and UTJ is not exactly a party that in the past has taken hard line positions to then walk them back for a compromise. Like they're hardline positions because they are hardline. And not only that, you know, I would argue that UTJ over the course of this election campaign got more hardline, not less hard line, right? There's a reason you kind of had that like midnight massacre where Ravlando, the spiritual head, uh fired Moshe Gafni without without a word, right? Because you have this, you have this gap between the rabbis and the politicians, where the politicians were seen as being too compromising. So I think that Ghadi Asinkot and company are gonna end up wasting a whole lot of time trying to get UTJ on their side so that they can say that they have a Jewish majority. I don't think it's going to work. And I think that when we get to, you know, day 40 or day 41 of the 42-day period that Gadi Asinkut presumably will have, they're gonna then face a choice. It's either a minority government that relies on Arabs or hand the ball to Netanyahu, and uh, and that point everything's out of their hands. So I again I don't know they're gonna actually get there successfully, but I do think that a minority government with the Arabs is going to be their option. And uh I just I see that as more likely than one with the Kharidim, that whether either of those is likely, way too early to say.

Neri 46:48

And there's uh whatever number, third or fourth variation to that, which is that this is just a ruse by the Haredi to kind of show that they're negotiating with even the opposition, even the kind of liberal secular opposition, even they're willing to give us uh compromises on their lofty declarations with regard to conscription for all, and then take that again into a repeat election, kind of demoralize the the other side, liberal Israel, uh, or even you know, uh cut a deal with um with the opposition and say that they're say uh abstaining with regard to any vote to see the government in contestant, and then just reneg, right? Just reneg. Right. And then what do you do if uh you don't have the votes ultimately, right? Even if you think you got came to a deal with the Haridas. I don't I don't believe it. I think it's a ruse, but people in the opposition think that it's you know a possible path forward. Um again, to do everything uh I guess they think possible to to avoid having to rely quote unquote on the Arabs. Um, as one person in the opposition told me, I think was it yesterday, uh Eisencott is just a series of uh bad options and unpopular positions that he may have to take. Right. So as Shera said, what what uh election promise is he going to violate? And more importantly, what election promise is he going to be allowed to violate by his other partners, namely Vigdur Lieberman, Mr. Nit.

Michael 48:10

Yeah, and I I I just have to say that this this effort to try and get UTJ on board and and shunt the Arabs to the side, it's distasteful for a lot of reasons. But you know, you said Neri earlier, and I agree with you, that arguably Raam comes closer to meeting Eisencoat's four conditions than UTJ does, but it's not just on like one of them, right? So, right, does UTJ actually accept the principles in the Declaration of Independence? They certainly don't accept national service. Do they even accept the notion of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state? Like they're they're willing, they're willing to serve in a government that does, but they also think that the state itself is inherently illegitimate. So it's not just like on you know one condition. Uh on on all of these, uh it's possible that Raham, except for Hamas, which UTJ clearly believes Hamas is a terrorist group and has no problem destroying them, right? On the other three, I think that Raham certainly Ram accepts the other three. And I don't know that UTJ actually accepts the other three. So it's not like just on one of these.

Neri 49:22

No, it's not. And uh, you know, talking about kind of election nights and going to cover them. Uh, you go to the coup de election nights, which I've um there have been a lot of elections here in recent years. So I've been been all over. What do you see both outside the hall and inside the hall? You see young Haredi kids going and chanting in favor of Bibi, right? These aren't exactly uh people enamored with Yergolad and uh Lieberman and Yar Lapid, who for years their leaders and rabbis have said, you know, they're they're kind of worse than Amman. They're you know worse than any any enemy of the Jewish people, right? This is how they they they write and talk about uh these opposition leaders. So the notion that you can do business with them, I think is fanciful. But again, you talk to the opposition and they're like, well, it's it's a negotiation, it's all a question of of the price, and we may be able to meet their price. Depends. With regard to the minority government option, I'm gonna give you the half scenario. So I

Using The Knesset To Gain Leverage

Neri 50:16

talked about four and a half scenarios post-election. Uh the half scenario is basically focused on the Knesset. So parliamentary procedure. There's an interesting kind of debate what may happen in Knesset as opposed to actually forming a government. The opposition, you know, they may not have they may not have a clear path to form a government, whether minority, majority, or whatever, but they are very clear they want to take over parliamentary procedure in the Knesset. As we said, they want to switch and um take over the position of Knesset speaker, uh, maybe even pass some laws, maybe even cancel some laws. Uh, and you could do a lot with a new Knesset when you have a majority, absent even uh failing to form a government. Um so this is really important to uh to keep in mind, although it's never, again, never been done before in Israeli history. This is a common refrain. Uh and even Isencott has said correctly, I think it was uh two days ago, the Knesset gives its kind of trust and investiture of a government, right? And not the other way around. Right. And we've all, again, uh based on Israeli political history, we've all been accustomed to a government sitting up there and controlling the Knesset through a governing coalition. What if what if that's not the case? What if that's not the case? So again, something to to keep in mind. And uh Michael, we'll start with you this time. There is this idea that okay, you may not have an actual government in hand, but maybe you can get a vote through with a simple majority where you kind of seat a government, even just uh Eisencotia Shar party with 21 seats. This is kind of the the super minority option, right? Where you okay, you do everything possible, nobody has to kind of join this government, nobody, nobody breaks any promises, but you just have to kind of show up and vote uh in one vote in Knesset. So, what do you think about the the parliamentary path to whatever we're gonna see post-election?

Michael 52:01

So they're certainly going to take over the Knesset and appoint a new speaker, right? They they said that they said that today in their statement. Uh the opposition block said that today in their statement they issued after meeting. You know, it seems there's gonna be squabbling over who gets appointed speaker, uh, but they they seem determined to at least do that, assuming, again, that there isn't uh, God forbid, a January 6th type situation next week when the new Knesset uh is supposed to get seated. That seems certain. The notion that they will then, after they do that, just put up a government of, you know, Yashar or even just all, you know, all 48 in the change block, and it's a game of chicken, right? You you basically count on count on the folks who don't want to see BB remain in power to just abstain, even though you haven't promised them anything and you've come to no agreements. Um that seems more far-fetched to me. It seems a little too clever by half.

Neri 52:59

Um the idea, I think, is basically that you get you get Rom to vote in favor, and then Lieberman and Bennett are still outside the government.

Michael 53:06

And you know, yeah, yeah, I uh but I understand. You're basically counting on them hating BB more than wanting to insist on their own priorities, so which is why it's a game of chicken, right? Um it seems a little far-fetched to me. Uh, and that really would be a big deal. Listen, what we're about to see next week, with the opposition very clearly taking over the Knesset and operating effectively as a as a hostile entity against the sitting transitional government, it's not only something that we haven't seen in Israel before, it's it's something that isn't really contemplated by Israel's parliamentary system. Like it's it's not really contemplated by the way the government is structured. Because, like, yes, in theory, the government and the knesset are different things, but when the government comes from the Knesset, it's not a natural situation to have the Knesset controlled by one faction and the government controlled by a different faction. Like we, you know, we as Americans are used to this between president and Congress and between House and Senate. But it's the sort of thing that like has the potential to really break Israel. I don't I don't say I'm I don't I don't say that lightly. Uh, and especially if it's coming in the face of massive street protests by uh by the BB, the BB coalition, and his supporters are out in the streets and they're saying that this entire thing is illegitimate. You know, as you guys know, I'm I'm I'm headed over to you at the end of this week. And uh for weeks there's been concern about uh about war with Iran. I gotta be honest, the the way the signs are pointing, the the violence that I'm more worried about while I'm there is is inside of Israel. Uh why can't it be given all of this?

Neri 54:52

Come on. You have to you have to keep it a keep an open mind.

Michael 54:55

Sure, sure. Anything anything is possible. Exactly. Sorry. That's right. I should, I should have, I should have greater imagination. But yeah, um, I think this on its own, the the Knesset gambit, is going to cause such an uproar when push comes to shove that the idea that you would then double down on it and try to seat a government of 21 people and basically say to everybody else, like, I I dare you to stop this, uh again, can't rule anything out these days. But uh this this seems to be something that sounds better in theory and in newspaper columns than we'll actually go in practice.

Neri 55:26

Look, nothing is ideal and none of this is natural, but we are uh, well, we and everyone else are trying to kind of find a solution to avoid a repeat election, which we'll get to in in just a minute. Uh Shira, what do you think of this focus on parliamentary procedure, Knesset, in the context of maybe a minority government, maybe not, but just focusing on that for now in the coming weeks.

SPEAKER_07 55:50

Basically, I agree with Michael. I think there's no question that they're going to take advantage of their position in the Knesset, where also, you know, at least in the Knesset, right, Arab vote is Arab vote. And you can do a lot of things uh taking advantage of their majority. And I think this, whether it leads to some sort of like a wacky scenario like you described, if we're in, or even if we get to uh some sort of unity government, I think calling it unity is a problem because there's no really unity here on the main topics, but using sort of their uh whatever they can do in the Knesset, which is not just replacing the speaker of the Knesset, right? There's also what they call the Vandamasadera, just controlling the agenda of the Knesset. You can do the National Commission of Inquiry, right? Pushing their term limits, not personal roles. There can be a lot of things so that they come to any negotiations with Netanyahu from a position of uh coercement and pressure, or what do you would call uh peace through strength, okay? Immunity, um, a unity through strength, right? What we know is that this option of having a Zionist, a Jewish coalition or a unity government with Netanyahu, we've seen this before, right? But usually it's under the conditions that Netanyahu creates, right? We've seen it with COVID, and there's also October 7. There's some sort of an emergency, an objective emergency that makes, okay, we have to put our differences aside and prioritize the country now. And because, and this connects to this Iran thing that we might not be able to talk about, but because of uh time doesn't necessarily play in their favor in terms of not controlling the external agenda. What they can do is make sure to turn on the pressure from inside. And the Knesset is the tool to do this. It seems to be very obvious. If they don't take advantage of this, I'd be extremely surprised because all plans uh suggest this is where they are going.

Unity Government Arguments And Risks

Neri 57:40

Very well put. You need leverage over BB, which brings us to the third option, uh the Unity Government option, which um even before election day and and definitely after election day, this seems, you know, you talk to the kind of professionals and the chattering classes, they'll they'll tell you, well, this is the the more likely option. Um but as you mentioned, Shera, right? If Netanyahu and Eisencott join forces and maybe some elements of each block are also part of this grand bargain, there are at least three problems with such a unity government. I mean, there are definitely a lot more than three problems, but at least three problems that uh I can identify. Number one, uh, who goes first as prime minister? Right, right. BB has the bigger party, Eisencott has more seats behind him in Knesset. Number two, like you said, what's the agenda of this unity government? Right? So what Eisencott's gonna give up on his demand to form a state commission of inquiry uh about October 7th? Is he going to give up his demand for some kind of actual conscription law for the uh ultra-orthodox? Um, what happens to the fate of the judicial overhaul measures? I mean, is BB just gonna kind of uh jettison all of that or not? Um so what is what is this union government actually going to to do? Uh and then finally, uh maybe most critically, uh, can you even trust BB? Right? I mean, we've talked about this uh in past episodes. I mean, this has been tried before, right? And he's he's blown up every unity government he's been in, right? He stabbed his uh uh ostensible partner in the in the back. So how could you actually trust him in any kind of unity government setup? So again, people say, okay, well, eventually they'll get to that, right? Maybe not next week, but uh two or three months down the line, they'll actually get to a unity government uh place. Michael, you hate this idea.

Michael 59:23

I know. Hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it. So uh I also don't think it's likely for for all those things you just mentioned. Uh, you know, the idea that they're gonna let BB go as prime minister first and just trust that in two years he's gonna turn it over. Uh that that would be complete insanity. I think that even if they were to agree to that upfront, given what their voters want, you know, it would mean the the end of their political careers. Um, but yeah, the the issue, the the issue of what the agenda will be, that's not a small thing, right? In many ways, the last three years had been one giant effort by Netzanyao to avoid a commission of inquiry. That was the opposition's number one pledge. So they're they're now going to drop that, or BB's somehow gonna change his stripes. This notion, like, oh, well, you know, the the adults in the room are are gonna are are gonna are gonna make this happen. And, you know, this is this is the the smart thing. First of all, this reminds me of all of the talk here in the United States during Trump's first term, where it was always, oh, you know, he's he's about to change. He's gonna he's gonna become presidential. Netanyahu has has been who he is for a very long time. And this idea that now all of a sudden he's going to form a moderate centrist Mamlachti government and drop all of the things that he's been talking about and been doing, not only for the last four years, but you know, primarily doubling down on it over the last four years. I just don't know why anybody thinks Bibi, after you know, more than three decades in politics and what is he, 78 is gonna change his stripes. 77, gonna change his stripes all of a sudden, especially because he knows that if he just is able to keep these guys to a deadlock, he gets to remain prime minister and he goes to a second election where he has tons of advantages. The other thing that is just driving me craziest about this is people talk about this as a again, this centrist, pragmatic government. All you have to do is get rid of Ben Vir and Smotric and the Kharedim, right? They're the problem. As if BB has no agency, as if he wasn't prime minister here for four years, as if he didn't make Itamar Benvir national security minister, as if he didn't make Batsala Smotric governor of the West Bank, as if he didn't let the judicial overhaul proceed and double down on it in every turn, as if he didn't prevent a commission of inquiry. It's crazy. He has agency. He has been prime minister, right? He is he is the decider to quote George W. Bush. And the notion that if you just remove these people who are somehow only tangentially related to him, he didn't have responsibility for them and he didn't have any authority over them, that he will become Mr. Moderate. It's nonsensical. So I hate this more than almost any other idea that's out there. And maybe I'm biased because I hate it so much, which is why I think it's not going to happen. But I do think that the hurdles in front of this are immense.

Neri 1:02:26

I'm going to give you my thoughts in just a minute. I want to hear what Shira thinks of the unity government option, both as an option and also the prospects of it actually happening.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:34

I mean, I I think there's this something, and we see it in the sort of Israeli right mainstream and media, and the the people have voted, and this is what we're calling for unity. Uh, but you know, some sort of parity in the Jewish vote doesn't mean unity on the issues, right? And I think the fundamental differences are huge. And I assume that when Lieberman is not ruling out sitting with the heart redeem, but is ruling out Netanyahu, at least now public in statement, because they're also seeing probably internal polling that their voters do not want to see that. Um, I don't know if in the majority, big numbers or not, small numbers, but it's it's going to be very, very difficult. And I think all of us have been hopeful for many, many years because we're looking at Netanyahu and he's had so many opportunities, right? He's been prime minister, he's be he was prime minister first time three decades ago. So he's had all the opportunities in the world to pursue a different path with the Palestinians, to go for normalizations with Saudi Arabia and the Arab and Muslim world, uh, to bring the country to healing. I want to remind everyone that as he incited against the Arabs, he was the one who in 2015 ordered to transfer mass budgets to the Arabs because he said that we have to integrate them into society and the economy. So, I mean, like he's had all the opportunities that he wanted to take into Israel into a different direction that would get the support, at least policy-wise, or non-politics, of everyone. And this is not the path that his government chose uh so far. Would he be willing to go for a unity government under his conditions where he goes first as always? There's no national inquiry of commission, and where he has Icelcot and Lapida he can dispatch to Washington to speak with Democrats, right? Like, I don't think that would be a bad outcome for him, but he's I think their version of unity is just very, very different. Um, and that's why I it's hard for me to see that's happening, but I don't rule this out because of where we are, and because he controls the agenda, and because a national emergency could could could happen with or without without the initiative of the prime minister.

Neri 1:04:44

Yeah, I mean, we have to say also that um we may be looking at a renewed war with Iran in maybe the coming days. That's the the chatter, and not just because it was reported in the Financial Times and and other places. So again, you know, will will there be a renewed war? And then you know, there will be obviously kind of a a public plea for for unity, and we have to put our differences aside, and then once the war is over, Nanya will go back to to his old ways, as he has done in going, you know, after October 7th, even right, what he did to Benny Gantz and Guy DeIsencott when they went in and then really saved uh saved his stabilized his government and took COVID for to to Benny Gantz. And then, well, uh we all know where Benny Gantz is now. He's he's at home watching all of this from the side because his political career is is over. Um and by the way, it goes back even to 2012 and Shaul Mufaz, another former general who uh brokered a grand bargain with Bibi, and it lasted maybe for two months before Bibi blew it up. Um and that was also the end of Shaul Mufass's career. Uh and we should say, you know, in terms of poll numbers, again, we have to be very careful about polling these days, given what happened here last week. But according to poll numbers, um, the vast majority of opposition voters would much rather see. A minority government with Rom than a unity government with Bibi Detanyahu. So even, you know, even I think Lieberman voters, there's like a plurality, right? So we're not yet seeing that in the public statements of, well, Lieberman. And I'll preface everything I'm about to say by saying this. I would have much rather have a minority government option with Rom than a unity government with Bibi. But sadly, unless Lieberman himself moves and maybe even Bennett on that issue, then I think the likeliest option is a unity government with Netanyahu. Again, under certain conditions, it'll be a very tough negotiation. You have to kind of scare Bibi enough with the idea of a minority government in practice for him to actually agree to it. But I think a unity government that has negotiated much better, say, than Benny Gantz did in two previous instances, could actually give you some defense once inevitably Bibi tries to screw you over. And I'll go one step further, because of the numbers, the actual numbers in Knesset in Parliament, you always have the fallback option, in theory, of seating a different government. That BB, if he wants to blow up a unity government, it won't be very easy for him to either, well, replace the government because he doesn't have the numbers in Knesset, or call for a dispersal of Knesset and go to new elections, because again, he doesn't have the numbers. And in theory, you may have the numbers to actually seat a different government again if they're willing to let Arabs' votes actually count in parliament. So again, you may have a much bigger and wider safety net in Knesset than you did in previous manifestations of unity governments with Bibi. Michael, you're skeptical.

Michael 1:07:40

Well, I am skeptical, but one thing I'm not sure he actually needs the numbers to disperse the Knesset. I'm pretty sure that one of the methods of dispersing the Knesset is the prime minister says he wants to do it and the president signs off.

Neri 1:07:53

Well, yeah, but then you have that in a coalition agreement that it's like they did with Beddett and Lapide, where there's an automatic rotation. Again, we're getting into the weeds, but I think there is a way to negotiate it. I again, unfortunately, there is a way to negotiate it which may be a bit more um ironclad. I mean, again, nothing's ironclad in Israeli politics. Right, nothing, nothing's ironclad. Anyway, uh, and then bring this to the final scenario, which none of this works.

Repeat Elections And What Comes Next

Neri 1:08:17

BB just runs out the clock. He's not scared of a minority option, uh, minority option scenario because the opposition keeps kind of vetoing itself. Um, he doesn't agree to Unity government, and three months from now, after this entire process is over, uh, we go back to repeat elections, which again may be maybe more beneficial to Netanyahu than the opposition.

Michael 1:08:37

Yeah.

Neri 1:08:37

Final thoughts on on doing this all over again in early 2027.

Michael 1:08:42

I I think that's I think that's very likely, right? BB, if Isencotte goes first, BB sows enough chaos and prevents prevents anything from happening. And then he goes second, which is why I I would rather see Isencot go second. And once he goes, once BB goes second, then at that point he can just wait them out, right? Either say, all right, join a unity government on my terms, or we go to another election and I remain prime minister, and I have all the advantages the second time around that I didn't have the first time around, in terms of Arabs staying home and 67,000 people not flying back and not burning. Right, Amcha Israel and and and Hendel and Zaliha not burning not burning votes. So at that point, he is completely in the driver's seat. So that that certainly seems likely to me as an outcome. Shira, final thoughts of a repeat election scenario?

SPEAKER_07 1:09:30

I mean, it's what I think uh Nateo wouldn't mind happening, right? Um, but it doesn't play in favor of many others, at least according to what we're seeing at the moment. And because he's the prime minister and he controls the agenda, there are many ways to run the clock, right? It's easier for him to get to this option. And that's why the faster the opposition moves now in the Knesset, I think will make this scenario a little bit less likely, or at least coming to new elections with some some some achievements uh that position them well. But I think I would put this as uh not unlikely.

Neri 1:10:03

Okay. So we're gonna be doing a a pre- and post-election episodes in the coming months, God help us.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:10

Let's look at that.

Neri 1:10:12

I don't honestly uh final thought. If the opposition were in any way intelligent, they can't they have to do everything possible, literally everything possible, to avoid a repeat election, especially if BB remains caretaker prime minister. I mean, it would be professional malpractice. Yep. And again, there's time to to kind of become more flexible, but they have to at least replace this government in some way or fashion. And right now, like we said, it's complicated. All right, well, we figured it all out for all of our listeners and viewers. This is good. But Michael Shearer, thank you for coming back on so soon. And uh I promise I won't bring you on next week uh when we may or may not be in a constitutional crisis and we may or may not be in a renewed war with Iran, or neither. Maybe things will just be quieter and saner.

Michael 1:11:01

Let's hope so.

Neri 1:11:02

I yeah, well, I don't well, maybe. That that that does not inspire confidence, Shira. But I will see you both inshallah. I believe this weekend, God and BB and Trump willing. Thank you both. I'm into that. Bye.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:18

Bye, guys.

Neri 1:11:19

Bye. Okay, thanks again to Michael Koplau and Shira Efron for their generous time and insights. Also, special thanks to our producer, Jacob Gilman, and our editor, Tracy Levy, as always, and to all of you who support Israel Policy Forum's work. Do consider making a donation to Israel Policy Forum so you can keep being a credible source of analysis and ideas on issues such as these that we all care deeply about. And of course, we love hearing from you. So our email address is policypod at ipforum.org. That's policypod at ipforum.org. Send us any feedback or questions you may have. And most importantly, thank you for listening and please subscribe and spread the word.