Reality of Israeli democracy is far more complex than Emily Thornberry seems to realise

Israel’s mainstream channels predicted deadlock, while the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 said he would win.

As the results came through, the picture was even more complex. Yet Thornberry’s post remained uncorrected days later.

The parliamentarian who ought to have one of the firmest grasps of foreign affairs in the Commons appeared to have little idea what was actually happening.

After a week traversing Israel, speaking to voters from Sderot in the south to Kiryat Shmona in the north, I have found a country whose political concerns bear little resemblance to those dominating debate in Britain, and one that is deeply engaged in a political process that few in the UK will take the time to understand as the outcome of this close vote changes by the minute.

Labour MP Emily Thornberry, chair of the foreign affairs select committee (Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)Getty Images

On election night, I was in a press centre full of diplomats, journalists and pollsters.

When the exit polls dropped at 10pm, the main TV channels were blaring and two pollsters began shouting at each other on stage; each thought a different bloc had won.

Foreign journalists grabbed Israelis to translate the Hebrew onscreen, then pulled out calculators to add up the seats.

That’s the reality of Israel’s PR system – something Andy Burnham should be sure to consider as he pledges electoral reform.

Israelis voted in their droves. With every vote counting in the delicate makeup of the coalition, tens of thousands flew in to cast their ballot, others sidled up by camel, as turnout reached 77.7 per cent, the highest since 1999.

Across the country, polling stations opened new booths to cope with the queues of voters.

Central Election Committee head of operations Rotem Kalero said the longest wait she was aware of was two and a half hours.

One 94-year-old voter was so keen to cast his vote that the moment he returned home he died.

For Kalero, the voting lines are a lesson that the committee will learn from at the next election, but it is a good problem to have.

She said: “We are not happy that people needed to wait.

“But for us it meant that people came out to vote, and we didn’t know to anticipate so many.”

The morning after the night before, at the Knesset’s election command centre, Kalero explained how her team had spent the day monitoring polling stations across the country, dealing with power cuts, missing ballots and flooding in the south, which meant some votes had to be airlifted to the Knesset by helicopter.

There were 10,000 complaints of electoral malpractice, and they were dismissed within minutes as Kalero's team spoke to officials at the polling stations (although subsequent allegations of fraud and ensuing investigations are ongoing).

Another challenge was the 600,000 “double-envelope” votes (one sealed envelope containing the ballot slip inside another to ensure secrecy and integrity), cast by soldiers, prisoners and others voting away from their registered polling stations.

Each had to be checked to ensure nobody had voted twice.

The number of soldiers voting indicates the primary concern of this election: security. And it is the dominance of this factor that is hardest for outsiders to grasp.

Everyone in Israel has been hit by the nation’s longest war, be that on the day of the massacre or the ensuing battles.

One former commander showed me Gaza from a distance as he explained some of the security failures that allowed Hamas to build up its strength.

He was relieved when the hostage deal arrived, but it saw the release of a terrorist who had killed a member of his family in a previous terror attack. Every security decision here is fraught.

But from Democrat-voting Ashkenazi kibbutzniks in the Golan Heights to Ben-Gvir-supporting Yemenite reservists from Rosh HaAyin, i found agreement on one thing: Hamas and Hezbollah must never again be in a position to attack them.

This helps explain Netanyahu’s enduring appeal.

Having governed Israel for a quarter of its history, he remains for many in Israel “Mr Security”.

Despite an ongoing corruption trial, mass protests over judicial reform before the war, the failures of October 7, fury over the Charedi draft law, questions over his advisers’ ties to Qatar and general fatigue over his premiership, his Likud party has the greatest number of seats in the Knesset.

Veteran Israeli political journalist Herb Keinon explained to me on election day that the old political loyalties dictated by family heritage are beginning to weaken, saying: “The grandparents passed the vote onto the sons,” but adding he doubted if it would be passed onto the grandsons.

The Charedi draft row has become a vote-loser for Likud. One former supporter of Netanyahu’s party told me he chose Lieberman this time because of the issue, another chose Bennett for the same reason.

But map the current vote into the judicial reform dispute which so consumed the country in the months running up to October 7, 2023 and it looks like it aligns.

Israeli society is divided along similar lines as that which dominated before the war - those old alliances are hard to shift.

The most striking feature of this election was the Arab vote, with its record high turnout translating into 19 seats for the minority’s two main parties, potentially deciding the balance of power in the formation of a new governing coalition.

Arab voters had their own reasons to turn out. Many wanted to remove Itamar Ben-Gvir from office, and a get-out-the-vote campaign even reached those communities where people have historically boycotted elections rather than "legitimise" the Israeli state.

A vote is a vote and Israel’s Declaration of Independence appealed to its Arab inhabitants to help build the state on the basis of “full and equal citizenship”.

Arab citizens have had the vote since Israel’s first election in 1949 and this election showed just how consequential those votes can be.

Following UK media, one might assume the Palestinian question was the central issue in this election.

While Palestinian nationalism will undoubtedly have played a part in some Joint List votes, for many Arab Israelis this election was about funding for schools, tackling crime in communities and having a seat at the table.

Security too was a key issue for Arab voters.

In Britain, discussion of Israel is dominated by Gaza and the two-state solution. On the fringes, the debate is over whether the Jewish state should exist at all.

These questions are far removed from the concerns driving most Israelis to the polls, or the calculations that will determine who forms the next government.

That is not to say the Palestinian question does not matter to Israelis. I have visited the swelling Jewish settlements in Hebron and seen the checkpoints Palestinian must face.

There are serious questions of fairness and equality in Israel and the West Bank, including about policing and banking, that demand attention.

This was pitched by foreign media as an existential election, the most consequential in Israel’s history.

Despite that framing, one former government adviser said he was surprised by how quiet this election had been. “Israelis are tired,” he said, referring to three years of war and the battle for the hostages.

Everywhere I went people were engaged, but protests and rallies were smaller than some predicted. Stickers of fallen soldiers and dead hostages dotted every wall, not pictures of politicians.

It may be that preserving energy over this election will have been the right strategy. Another election looks increasingly possible.

Kalero is prepared: “Speaking personally, it would not surprise me if we are back here in a few months.

“This is how our system works. And we’ll be here.”

Let’s just hope Emily Thornberry has managed to grasp how Israeli elections works before then.