TO APRIL 9
This time, every vote really does count.
Six weeks ago, when Benjamin Netanyahu succeeded in pressuring Jewish Home to agree to include representatives of the far-right Jewish Power on its list of candidates, many observers in Israel and abroad were shocked.
He had broken a taboo of Israeli politics by not keeping the racist-supremacist party beyond the pale.
“I don’t hate what Bibi did any less now,” a senior strategist in one of the opposition parties said this week. “But it may end up being what won the election for him.”
Veteran Israeli pollsters are calling this the most difficult election to predict in a generation — perhaps since 1996, when Israel was undergoing its short-lived experiment in direct elections for prime minister, and a sliver of a percentage point divided Shimon Peres and Mr Netanyahu.
The reason for their distress is the unprecedented division of the electoral map. There are only two factions currently polling on double digits, Likud and Blue & White, and they are in a dead heat.
But half of Israeli voters are now predicted to vote for parties that are polling, in nearly all the polls, at between four to nine seats.
This means that half of the 13 parties currently expected to cross the electoral threshold are within the statistical margin of error of electoral wipeout.
This level of fragmentation means that if the pollsters have got even a few seats wrong, the coalition arithmetic, which is currently in Mr Netanyahu’s favour, could drastically change, either way.
Bringing Jewish Power in to the fold ensured that at least one small right-wing party will survive, and add its seats to the next Likud government. It could mean the difference between victory and a hung parliament.
But while ahead, Mr Netanyahu still remains vulnerable, as he could end up losing two or three of his potential allies. The joker in the pack is now Zehut (Identity), a party which until a few weeks ago was not expected to come even close to the threshold.
The libertarian and pro-cannabis party, led by hard-right former Likud MK Moshe Feiglin, is proving surprisingly popular not only among first-time voters but also those who would normally have gone for a centrist or even left-wing party.
At the main event held by Zehut on Tuesday night at a trendy venue in the old Tel Aviv Port, you could see an unorthodox mix of hundreds of secular, religious and Charedi men and women.
“I like the combination of free-market policies and legalisation,” said Omer Tirosh, a secular computer-sciences student from Tel Aviv. “I don’t mind Feiglin’s far-right policies. We’re going to have a right-wing government whatever happens anyway.”
Zehut is taking votes away from all the parties, but one most at risk of Mr Feiglin’s dark charms is Education Minister Naftali Bennett’s New Right party.
Two months ago, when Mr Bennett and his political running-mate Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked broke with Jewish Home, they believed their party would be the main alternative for right-wing voters tired with Mr Netanyahu and were looking for a change.
On Wednesday afternoon, appearing at a religious college in Jerusalem, Mr Bennett asked students for a show of who they were planning to vote for. A similar number put their hand up for Zehut as for New Right.
“I don’t want to say what minister-of-what I’m going to be if this continues,” he admitted wryly. “I wanted to be defence minister in the next election, but that’s not going to happen now.”
For weeks, the polls gave Benny Gantz’s Blue & White a small lead over Likud, but over the past week the margin has closed and Likud has opened a lead in some.
Mr Netanyahu and other Likud ministers warned their supporters against complacency, but in other parties, some were beginning to admit defeat.
“Blue & White have raised a white flag,” said a senior Labour member on Tuesday. He blamed Mr Gantz of running a lack-lustre campaign which allowed Likud to paint him as a weak leader, unprepared to be prime minister.
Labour is already accusing Mr Gantz of planning to enter Mr Netanyahu’s next government — though Blue & White have repeatedly ruled that out.
One indication that Mr Netanyahu is beginning to feel confident is that he is not calling upon the right-wingers to all vote Likud, as he did in 2015, when he was worried the Zionist Union (Labour) could overtake them.
“This time, Bibi isn’t calling in the settler leaders to tell them the right-wing government is in danger and we all need to vote for him. He realises that this time, to have a coalition, he must make sure the smaller right-wing parties get enough votes.
“It’s a delicate balancing act, but if anyone can do it, Bibi can.”
