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So Israel had its fifth(!) election in four years a few days ago. I wanted to wait until we got 100% of the votes counted before commenting. The big story is that Netanyahu (henceforth called 'Bibi', which is his nickname) is almost certainly going to be back as prime minister. He has already beaten Ben-Gurion - arguably the most important founding father of Israel - in being longest-serving PM and looks set to extend that lead.
Israel had all these elections because the country is very divided without any faction seemingly being able to take the lead. The previous PM ruled in an uneasy Arab-Leftist-Centrist coalition with even right-wingers like Lieberman supporting them. Lieberman used to be Bibi's defence minister and has very hawkish views, yet he is also a secularist and couldn't stand both Bibi personally nor his religious support parties.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a coalition which has nothing in common except "everyone hates Bibi" didn't last long.
Bibi is often accused of being corrupt and perhaps he is, but more coverage has been dedicated to the surge of the far-right in the wake of this election. The far-left Meretz party (mostly supported by secular Ashkenazi urban liberals) didn't make the cut to be voted into the Knesset. An Arab hardline party also just missed the threshold. As a consequence, Bibi's coalition will notch up 64 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
The mainstream narrative is that this represents a "dark turn" in Israel's chapter. The reality, more likely, is that the far-right notched up wins after a surge of riots and terrorist attacks. A very long twitter thread from an Israeli politics watcher makes a convincing case. In other words, it isn't a sign of a sudden religious fanaticism so much as a response to crime and terrorist attacks.
Besides, if the far-left Meretz party would have combined with other left-wing parties like Labour then they would have both made it to the Knesset (parties can combine on so-called "electoral lists"), denting Bibi's margin of victory. If the Arab parties had united, Bibi's coalition would have gotten even fewer seats, likely sub-60. Thereby, Israel's deadlock would have continued. Napoleon used to say that luck was a quality in of its own and some of his generals had it and some didn't. Bibi has proven himself lucky, but counting on this kind of luck going forward is probably unwise. If the opposition learn from its mistakes next election and unites into more electoral lists, it will be very hard for him to repeat such a victory.
I do think Israel has a long-term RW trend but this election probably is a bad case to make for it. A more salient conflict is the religious/secular divide. It cuts across the left-right spectrum, as the example of Lieberman shows. But even secular voters can support far-right religious parties in times of increased tension, and this election proves it.
Going forward, the price for Bibi will be to give the religious parties what they ask for, namely continued lavish funding of their educational institutions without much secular knowledge imparted. This equation sits at ill ease given Israel's high-tech economy, which is supported largely by secular or "modern Orthodox" workers. Such a giveaway with no strings attached is deeply impopular in the secular strongholds like Tel-Aviv. I suspect balancing the electoral compulsions with the preferences of the those who actually run Israel's economy will be more difficult for him than dealing with any outside pressure "expressing concern" over perceived democratic deficits. The ADL is already warning Bibi it won't keep quiet.
I can imagine that this religious/secular divide will only continue to get worse. The ultra-orthodox are projected to be 25% of the population by 2050, apparently.
How will the body politic handle 25% of the population being exempt from military service and essentially living off of the productive capacity of the other 75%? Especially with Muslim birth rates outpacing the secular Jews?
The secular Jews of Israel will probably experience a massive leftward shift and true coalition with the Muslim population once the ultra-orthodox drag on GDP and military becomes too big to ignore.
Just my two cents, but I think this rightward shift won’t last beyond a decade at most.
How accurate are those predictions necessarily? I feel like they'd be hard to make as the very religious have tons of babies, but then a very sizeable portion of those babies grow up to be much less religious than their parents.
TBH there's a strong case to be made that the later half of the 20th century simply had extremely high apostasy rates and most religious organizations will revert to historical norms of large majorities of their kids staying religious. It's not exactly a law of nature that religious kids are extremely likely to leave the faith of their childhood for secular modernity.
I think this also possibly understates the magnitude of the fertility gap- the ultra-orthodox have a fertility rate 3x replacement. Even at 1/3 apostasy rates, apostasy won't stop the replacement so much as slow it down.
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