- In Israel, politics is very tribal.
Parties keep popping up, splitting,
and merging in every election.
And lately, Israel's had a lot of elections.
But you can usually guess which party someone is voting for.
Or at least narrow it down to two or three options.
Are they Jewish or Arab?
Right-wing or left-wing?
Are they Haredi, also known as ultra-Orthodox?
Religious or Secular?
Are they Ashkenazi or Mizrahi?
Do they live in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem,
a Kibbutz or a small working class town?
Answer just one or two of these questions
and you're halfway to guessing who they'll vote for.
Here's a breakdown.
The tribes of modern Israel,
the parties that represent them,
and how Benjamin Netanyahu fits into all of this.
Israel was founded in 1948
as a Jewish and democratic state.
Jewish, the nation-state of the Jewish people
who returned and immigrated from all over the world,
and democratic, a state where every citizen could vote
regardless of religion or ethnicity
and where minority rights would be respected.
The Knesset was created with 120 seats,
that's a throwback to the 120 member ruling
Great Assembly of the ancient Israelites.
Each party runs with a list of candidates,
and they're elected proportionally.
If a party gets 10% of the vote,
it gets 10% of the seats,
and the first 12 candidates on its list
become members of Knesset.
Israel was born as an ethnically, religiously,
and socially diverse mosaic,
and Israel's founders wanted everyone
to have a stake in the democratic game,
so it was important to make sure
every group's voice was heard.
That means Israel has one of the most representative systems
in the world, where even small groups are represented,
unlike countries where votes for the runner up
in each constituency simply go in the bin.
And in such a diverse country,
that means lots of different parties.
No party has ever reached a majority of seats,
61, by itself,
so anyone who wants to be prime minister needs
to strike deals with smaller parties.
This is called a coalition government.
The prime minister is from one party,
but the foreign minister, defense minister,
and finance minister can all be from different parties.
While Americans tend to think of their party affiliation
as part of who they are.
Israelis are much more likely to vote
for brand new parties founded by charismatic leaders.
So politicians with a personal following have an interest
in running as the leaders of their own parties,
and then, they negotiate for a top job at the cabinet table.
There are huge, existential issues on the table.
But sometimes, it's difficult to tell the difference
between rival parties
because so much boils down to personality.
That's why the parties keep changing
from one election to the next,
and why some of the most influential parties nowadays
didn't even exist a year or two ago.
In order to break things down,
let's imagine the country like one big pie.
The most obvious split would be between
the Jewish and Arab population,
with Arabs representing around 20% of Israeli citizens.
There are two Arab parties.
The first is The Joint List,
an alliance between Arab nationalists,
and Arab and Jewish communists.
The Arab parties have never been a part
of the governing coalition,
and they don't really want to be.
Their goal -
to promote the interests of Israel's Arab minority,
which includes reducing crime rates in Arab communities,
and pushing for an end of Israel's military control
of the West Bank, either as part of a formation
of a Palestinian state or a single binational state.
But by remaining ideologically opposed to Zionism,
openly identifying with the Palestinian cause
and explicitly rejecting Israel's character
as a Jewish and democratic state.
The Joint List effectively dooms itself
to remaining in opposition forever.
The second Arab party is Ra'am, the Islamist party,
which is more socially and religiously conservative,
and draws a lot of its support
from Bedouins in the Negev Desert.
One of the reasons it split off from the Joint List
was a dispute over gay conversion therapy,
which it didn't want to ban.
Its goals are very similar to the Joint List,
but it's much more pragmatic,
open to collaborating with whoever is in power.
The Jewish vote divides along several lines.
Now, we can split the Jewish population part of the pie
between Haredi Jews,
who make up about 10% of the population,
and everyone else,
and even the Haredi population is divided.
There's Shas, which represents
the mostly religious Mizrahi Jews.
Traditional, working class, and very socially conservative,
the party has never had a woman member of Knesset.
But when it comes to government spending,
it's in favor of big welfare payments
to support large families.
Israel's religious Jewish character is a priority for Shas.
And then there's United Torah Judaism,
which represents religious Jews from Ashkenazi backgrounds.
They also oppose any changes
to the status quo of religion and state,
which gives the rabbinate a monopoly over marriage,
and which means there's almost
no public transport on Shabbat.
They're also against conscripting Haredi men into the army,
so that they can study at yeshivas.
Both parties are eager to promote issues important
to the Haredi community,
maintaining the Orthodox Rabbinate's control
of religion-and-state issues,
and securing funds for their growing communities.
But what about the rest of the Jewish population?
Well, we can still divide them between Orthodox,
but not ultra-Orthodox Jews,
and secular and traditionalist Jews,
but here, the lines are much blurrier.
On the religious right-wing end of the spectrum,
there's a shifting mix of religious nationalist parties
which keep running under different names.
They support hawkish stances on security issues,
expanding Israel's settlements,
and rolling back the power
of what they consider an overactive judiciary.
On the secular right, Yisrael Beytenu,
a party which appeals mainly to immigrants
from the former Soviet Union
and Israelis who are right-wing on security,
but want to take a tougher stance against Haredi control
of religion and state.
On the left, Meretz and the Labor Party.
They care about strengthening the welfare state
and protecting the courts,
which they see as the ultimate guarantor
of Israel's liberal democratic character.
But pummeled by the violent implosion of the peace process
and changing demographics,
the left has shrunk dramatically since the years
when Labor ran the state.
Meretz and Labor do really well in Tel Aviv
and the kibbutzim, but in the rest of the country,
most Israeli Jews now lean to the right.
And then we have Israel's biggest parties.
The giant is the right-wing Likud,
led by Benjamin Netanyahu,
who's been prime minister for a total of 15 years,
12 of them since 2009.
Though he could claims that only Netanyahu
can keep Israel safe from existential threats like Iran,
make it economically strong,
and stand up to what it calls
a "left-wing media and judiciary."
The biggest party opposing the Likud is Yesh Atid,
a centrist liberal party led by Yair Lapid
that mostly appeals to Israel's secular middle class.
They're liberal on social issues,
including religion-and-state,
such as allowing public transport on Shabbat
and legalizing civil marriage.
Other parties constantly split,
merge and reinvent themselves for every election.
Take Blue and White.
Founded for the April 2019 election
as a merger between Former IDF Chief of Staff
Benny Gantz's Israel Resilience Party and Yesh Atid.
It was the biggest party in the September 2019 election
with 35 seats, but by March 2021,
it had collapsed to just eight.
There's no shortage of issues for Israeli politicians
to argue about, but in Israel, left and right
don't always mean what you think.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict used to be
what gave meaning to "left" and "right".
Left-wing: divide the land
and maybe create a Palestinian state.
Right-wing: build more settlements
and maybe annex parts or all of the West Bank.
But after several peace attempts failed
and the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005
blew up in Israel's face,
most Israelis lost hope that there was a partner for peace
and became convinced a withdrawal from the territories
would increase terror
and possibly put their country in mortal danger.
The Palestinian conflict is always there in the background,
but no one expects much to change anytime soon.
So what do left and right mean anymore?
The truth is, it's difficult to say.
In Israel, you can be pro-gay rights
and for stricter environmental protections
and still identify as right wing.
You can also be pro-free market
and still identify as left wing.
Because these labels were historically defined
by where you stand on the Palestinian conflict
even if it's not the top electoral issue anymore.
And the last few election cycles
were largely about one thing.
This man.
He is now on trial facing three separate corruption charges.
The center, left, and even some of Netanyahu's former allies
on the right say it's unthinkable
for a criminal defendant to run the country.
Many of Netanyahu's rivals
from across the political spectrum
say no one should be prime minister for this long anyway,
even though there are currently no term limits.
But Netanyahu's supporters believe
he's the only man who can lead Israel,
keep it safe from its enemies,
and make peace with the Arab world.
And frankly, he's been prime minister for so long
that many Israelis have forgotten what it's like
to have anyone else in charge.
Nowadays, it's become more about pro-Netanyahu
and anti-Netanyahu blocs and less about left and right.
And when the results last came in on election night,
that's how the news channels broke down the results.
Netanyahu, in an alliance with the Haredim
and the right-wing religious nationalists
versus the opposition,
a divided bunch of centrists, social democrats,
Arab parties, secular nationalists,
and even some right-wing parties hoping to replace him.
Each with their own candidate.
Everyone wants to be king.
But things really were much easier
when Israel had just 12 tribes.