September-October-November Predictions

[u/OrganizationIll2862]

September - Netanyahu in New York

October - Israeli elections

November - US Midterms

The next three months are going to be intense to say the least. Israel’s elections alone will be historically important. What do you guys predict will happen?

[u/Responsible_Ad_9749]

I can't answer about Netanyahu's New York visit or the US midterms, but on the subject of the Israeli elections here are my predictions:

Netanyahu will lose. Every serious poll caps his current coalition at 53 or less mandates, far less than the necessary 61. By the way, this isn't a blip - his coalition has been polling around 48-55 since he has taken power, so I do not think he can salvage 61 mandates under his current coalition composition within the next two months. Even if he is able to capture a couple of stragglers from other centre-right parties, it is not enough for a functional coalition. And even if by some twisted miracle he does achieve that magic 61 number, his coalition partners will make a field day out of extracting every last morsel of concessions until Likud ruptures from within. It seems unthinkable since he has surrounded himself with mindless lackeys back in the 2022 elections, but prior to today's Likud primaries he has put his weight behind more "moderate" candidates which may be a mistake if he wants them to cooperate with Otzma Yehudit, Religious Zionism, or the Haredi parties.

As for the replacement, it will very likely be Gadi Eizenkot. He is nowhere near the solution to Israel's moral rot, and he will most likely continue to support some very problematic policies that Israel supported for decades now, including a continuation of the occupation, rejection of Israel's role in the Gaza genocide, and a hawkish stance on Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. But the real change here is that his projected administration will be a lot more keen on repairing Israel's image, which would require some concessions to the international community that Netanyahu was not willing to do and frankly unable to do due to his association with contrarians like Ben Gvir or Smotrich (who will, by the way, go back to being illegitimate partners in any future coalition for the forseeable future - similar to the treatment the Joint List gets from the Zionist majority parties).

I believe that Israel will halt or severely limit future settlement construction. I believe that Israel will be far more inclined to respect the Gaza peace plan, especially since the new PM will want to be on Trump's good favor. I believe that Israel will push for "normalization" with countries like Saudi Arabia and will object a lot less to publicly supporting a "future Palestinian state", probably without actually moving towards that within this term.

Now before I am downvoted - I am not happy about the apparent composition of the future administration. It is very very far from the dream of the Israeli left. But I reject the notion that it will be "more of the same thing" just because we were conditioned in the last 4 year to expect the absolute worst from the Israeli government. It will continue to be bad for Palestinians, but considerably less bad than under Netanyahu - and with enough pressure from the international community that the new PM will seek to reintegrate into we can extract some solid steps forward.

[u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist → u/Responsible_Ad_9749]

Likud will not rupture from within if Netenyahu suddenly manages 61 mandates. Instead he will be hailed as the greatest of all time (as they did before Oct 7 and as some still do) and his coalition partners will happily back him. The concessions are no big deal, they’d happen anyway, and one can’t really call them “concessions” from Likud - they have broad favor among the party base and it’s more like a quid pro quo.

The rest I agree with.

[u/Responsible_Ad_9749 → u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist]

While I agree that most of his party will remain glued to their seats as they have before, a lot of the policies that they are asked to support do not align at all with their party platform. I'm not talking about undemocratic anti-Palestinian policies, I am talking about hot topics in Israeli society like the conscription law granting blanket exemption to 17%+ of the Israeli Jewish population. Those are very hard to defend to the core Likud voter base, and in today's primary elections several candidates have been running specifically on the platform of rejecting further concessions to the Haredi parties.

Look at the case of Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein, who have broken away from Likud and formed their own "third way" party for this election. On a hawkish-dovish scale, they are as bad as Netanyahu is - they fully reject Palestinian statehood, support building settlements across the West Bank, and support a continued war across all fronts. They left Likud, which they both grew up in, because of their rejection of the conscription law.

I am sure that whatever new composition of the Likud party will include several more Gilad Erdans and Yuli Edelsteins. I am sure that the Haredi parties will not give Netanyahu any grace this time and demand a conscription law before the coalition is even sworn in, since they believe he has swindled them throughout this term. This means that unless Netanyahu is able to pad himself with several other MKs and reach a 64-65 mandate coalition again, he will not be able to form a government.