Will Israel's Religious Zionists finally get smart?

(posted in Israel Saturday night, app 100 minutes after end of Shabbat)

As many of you already know, Israel today faces the prospect of a third national election in one 12-month period, April 2019-March 2020. It's a historic first for Israel, so many attempts to create a coalition government. 

One culprit for this three-elections-in-one-year dilemma is, in my opinion, the very nature of Israel's election system. It's not a system that pits two or perhaps three rivals against one another, as in the USA, Canada or the UK. It's messier than that. 

Israel's election system seems designed to encourage 20-40 Parties to join in. It's a system that requires not just politicking to get elected--but, for the winner, even more politicking to create a ruling coalition after the election, where a coalition of Members of the Knesset commit to 'bind' (in a loose way) together to create a minimum 61-seat majority for the winner. In Israel's system, getting to 61 seats is not guaranteed by simply winning an election. That's why this second set of politicking after the election is so necessary.

A winner might not be able to get those 61 seats because the political compromises he needs to make to get those seats may be more than he can ideologically bear. Or, no one wants to join his side. 

This means that Israel has an election system that always has the seed for what we've got now--a stalemate or, perhaps more accurately, a mess, with neither of the two top rivals able to cobble together 61 Members of Knesset to create that ruling coalition. It's a system that actually opens the door to great election uncertainty, when instead an election should, by definition, put an end to political uncertainty.

Israel's election system is unwieldy. Most here in Israel can't even explain how it works. Read here, here and here. After you've read these three articles, try to explain to someone how Israel's election system works. 

Israel's election system seems to attract political fragmentation the way a magnet attracts metal filings. For example. a modern Israeli national election doesn't present Israel's voters with 2-4 Parties. It presents somewhere between 30-50 political Parties, all seeking to get voted into the Knesset. But, typically, less than 15 get enough votes to get into the  Knesset. In the September 2019 election (our most recent election), only 10 Parties got into the Knesset. The votes of the remaining, failed 21 Parties got split up and redistributed according to a complex pre-established formula (see those three articles, above). In the end, the 20+ smallest Parties disappeared--and their votes got divided among the bigger Parties. Some of these redistributed votes actually went to Parties the voters for these tiny Parties abhor. 

This 'lost vote' issue is especially important to Israel's Religious Zionists. During an election season, this political segment typically forms 5-7 Parties, most of which  don't get enough votes to qualify to enter the Knesset; some of these Parties actually fail and pull out of running just before the election, a failure-to-compete that might encourage supporters to skip voting altogether (why vote when my favorite Party just 'died'?).

Religious Zionism isn't a huge segment of Israel's population. Yes, it's larger than Israel's true Left. But the committed Religious Zionist base still only represents perhaps 20% (at most) of the total voter base (my estimate). Failing to unite means that much of this base isn't proportionally represented in the Knesset.

For example, in the September 2019 election, only two of some five Religious Zionist Parties qualified to get into the Knesset. If all Religious Parties had run as one Party, Religious Zionists could have gotten at least another 4 seats in the Knesset (see the articles above to understand the need to 'pass the threshold test'). But because the Religious Zionist vote was split between all those 5 Parties (above), the votes of the three failed Parties didn't go to this 'bloc'. They were redistributed among non-Religious Zionist Parties.Those Religious Zionist votes, therefore, were indeed 'lost'--or, as some would say, wasted.

By contrast, in that same September 2019 election, the Haredi (ultra-religious) were united into just two Parties. The Ultra-Religious in Israel represent perhaps 11-15% of Israel's population. But because they have united, this 'bloc' is truly proportionally represented in the Knesset: it won a total of 16 seats in the Knesset, which is approximately equal to its population size--13% of the total Knesset vs 11-15% of total Israeli population). The Ultra-Religious are, therefore, fairly and 'proportionally' represented in the Knesset.

The same isn't true for the Religious Zionists. The population of Religious Zionists isn't proportionally represented in the Knesset, as are Haredi: while Religious Zionists may represent some 15-20% of Israel's population, they secured only 7 seats (equal to 5.8%) in the Knesset. Those 'lost' 4 seats (from the failed Parties, above) would have given the Religious Zionists perhaps 11 seats, or some 9.2% of the Knesset--still not as proportionate as the Haredi vote/population numbers (above).

That means Religious Zionists are under-represented in the Knesset. Of course, there's another complication for these Zionists: some Religious Zionists will vote not for a Religious Zionist Party, but for a larger Party (typically Likud or, this year, Blue-and-White). This year's potential 9-10% representation in the Knesset is, possibly, the best that Religious Zionists could hope for--a situation that leaves the Religious Zionist population severely under-represented in the Knesset. 

Nevertheless, in political terms, if all the failed Religious Zionist Parties had been united with the successful Religious Parties (which won seats in the Knesset), the four votes that  got 'lost' (see above) would have gone to the Religious Zionists, to give these Zionists 11 seats, not the 7 they currently hold.

How important would that 11 seats have been? Very important. The current 7 seats makes the Religious Zionist the 7th largest Party in the Knesset (of 10 Parties that won seats). But 11 seats would have made Religious Zionists the 4th largest Party, after Blue-and-White, Likud and the Arab Joint List. 

The point of Israel's election isn't just to win; it's to corner control of as many seats in the Knesset as one can. Seats equal power. Put another way, for an Israeli election, the mantra shouldn't be 'me first' but instead, 'united, we'll stand strong; divided, we'll be ignored'.

Of ten Parties, it's relatively easy to ignore the 7th of that 10. It's much harder to ignore the 4th largest Party. 

Clearly, Religious Zionists haven't learned that lesson. 

The longer Religious Zionists refuse to unify, and the longer they spread their votes over too many Parties that fail, the longer the entire Religious Zionist bloc remains, essentially, partially disenfranchised. 

But now, there may be a change. A group of Religious Zionists has had enough. It's created a petition. It's demanding that all Religious Zionist Parties run as one Party (here)--including primaries to choose the new Party slate.

The petitioners claim that, if rebuffed, they'll vote for no Religious Zionist Party at all, but instead for one of the larger Parties, presumably Likud or Blue-and-White. They sound serious.

Personally, I believe that if Religious Zionists really want power, they should not join together among themselves to form a new, united Party. Instead, they should join Likud.

If they'd done that in the first-of-two-so-far national elections (back in April, 2019), the lost seats might have been 5 or 6 (from Zehut, Otzma Yehudit and Naftali Bennet's failed Party), not four. Even with an additional 5 seats, back in that April election, Netanyahu would have been able to form a coalition with at least 62 seats--enough to form a government. 

If all Religious Zionists had united under Likud, we wouldn't have the  mess we've got now, stalemated, with no one able to attract the needed 61 seats. If the Religious Zionists had joined Likud back in April, Netanyahu would now be Prime Minister: game over. 

As it is, Religious Zionists haven't united. They won't join Likud. And Israel suffers an insufferable mess.

Will Religious Zionists finally get smart--or will they stay fragmented? Will they unite in some way to win? Will they join Likud to win?

Stay tuned. Just don't hold your breathe while you wait.