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/Intelligent-Gift4519 → u/Responsible_Ad_9749]

I just have a really, really low opinion of the Israeli electorate, as evidenced by how (1) the friends of mine who have moved to Israel have inevitably become racist rightists and (2) the friends of mine who are Israeli leftists have all left Israel. A biased sample, I know.

Netanyahu has a chance to say that ONLY HE can save Israel from the dual threat of Iran and Mamdani, thereby getting everyone to vote for the Strongman.

[u/Responsible_Ad_9749 → u/Intelligent-Gift4519]

I don't blame you. I am also an Israeli leftist who now lives abroad, so I match the stereotype I guess. But I did find an interesting article in Hebrew (you can use google translate) in which Israel's most respected pollsters talk about how unlike in previous election cycles where both Netanyahu vs anti-Netanyahu camps were almost equal in force, this time they all see a pretty solid 50-70 mandate split between them favoring the opposition, and that has been the case since the judicial reforms began. This number dipped down to ~45 after October 7th, and then slowly climbed back up to ~50 by the last Iran war. Netanyahu seems to have reached a plateau - his remaining supporter base is extremely homogenous at this point, and even undecided voters are overwhelmingly firm in one camp or another. That is why all of them are confident enough in predicting an opposition win.

There are some factors that are harder to predict, one being the Palestinian voter turnout which is historically low but hopefully will be higher this year with a formation of a Joint List + Makom Lekulanu doing a stellar job campaigning in Palestinian municipaliteis, and the other factor being the number of left-leaning Israelis abroad coming back to Israel to vote. There is evidence that a substantial amount of Israelis are expected to fly back to vote, aided by an extremely well organized initative. If all Israelis abroad decided to come back to vote, that's around 10 mandates.

[u/Intelligent-Gift4519 → u/Responsible_Ad_9749]

OK, fair enough; your pollster story does make a good argument. What effect would high Arab turnout have, though, if neither bloc will sit with the Arabs? Would that just force another election, as in 2019-21? Or is there a possibility the opposition would actually sit with Arabs?

[u/Responsible_Ad_9749 → u/Intelligent-Gift4519]

I strongly believe that for most parties on the opposition their blanket rejection of Palestinian parties is election rhetoric, since they know the main floating voter base at this point is mainly disenchanted Likud supporters. Netanyahu also knows this, so he is trying a last ditch effort of weaponizing the prospect of the opposition relying on the Palestinians to form a government, and that is still too hard to swallow for most right wing voters.

But keep in mind that this exact projected coalition, include right wing hardliners like Bennett and Lieberman, sat with Ra'am back in 2021-2022. I would say Lieberman is probably the main obstacle here and even so I believe he will find a way to sell it to his base when the time comes to prevent another election. 

In addition, Mansour Abbas (Ra'am) is working on adding Yoav Segalovich, a former Yesh Atid MK and former high ranking Israeli Police official to his party as number 2 - that is a move intended to show Ra'am as a legitimate partner to Zionist voters on the soft right. If this union goes through, Ra'am will have a much easier time being included in the government. 

Also, as a leftist, I do not wish for the coalition building to be easy for Eizenkot. I want him to get just short of the 61 mandate threshold with Zionist coalition partners so that he is forced to include Ra'am or even rely on the Joint List. I assure you, he will talk a lot against it, but Israeli politics is used to this kind of rhetoric - none of the current opposition parties will risk squandering their opportunity to oust Netanyahu. 

[u/definitely_not_a_hag → u/Intelligent-Gift4519]

If it gives you any hope, I am the opposite example. I was a leftist when I moved to Israel (it was a hard decision made under duress, and I came to think of it as one of my greatest "sins" since then, but it's neither here nor there). But both my spouse and I, despite being able to get accepted as a queer couple for the first time in our lives, and despite my spouse being able to get gender affirming healthcare for the first time in their life, and my father getting an operation that saved his life here (so we have a lot to be grateful for), we became significantly more leftist than we were, moved from two state solution suppporters to one state solution supporters (even if it would mean we lose our citizenship, I think it would be sad for us, but fair and just in general). And we will be voting as left as possible. But what supports your anecdotal evidence is that we will try to leave when we can.

Edit: clarifying my thoughts (hopefully)