DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis March 16, 2015, 8:56 PM (GMT+02:00)
Rivals or would-be partners?
Monday night, in the final hours before Israel’s fiercely contested general election Tuesday, March 17, the four-seat margin the polls had awarded Yitzhak Herzog’s opposition left-of-center Zionist Union against Binyamin Netanyahu’s right-of-center Likud was shrinking fast.
debkafile’s sources, which tapped into some of the inside estimates, found these two frontrunners frantically crunching numbers in a race that might well turn out to be too close to call.
Whaever happens, neither of the two biggest parties can expect to form a government without coalition partners. According to last-minute estimates, the Zionist Union expected 26 (out of 120) Knesset seats compared with Likud’s 23, while Likud confirmed its rival’s 26 seats, but awarded itself 24.
The gap had closed from four to two seats between them.
Barring surprise upsets – to which Israeli elections are often prone – the figures had enhanced the Likud leader’s chances of forming the next government compared with Herzog.
The latter would have to depend on Yair Lapid’s centrist Future party, a partnership that would automatically cut the religious parties out of the equation.
Herzog in recent days fought against this calculus with an intense last-ditch effort to peel voters away from Future so as to leave open the alternative option of inviting two or three of the religious factions to eke out his administration.
The second hurdle in Herzog’s path to the prime minister’s office was the falling fortunes of the far-left Meretz, headed by Zahava Galon, which faces the danger of not making it past the new threshold limit. This would leave the Zionist Union bereft of its safest partner.
It was this potential setback which brought the Zionist Union’s co-leader Tzipi Livni rushing into the breach. The deal for the merger of her party with the Zionist Union entailed a promise to rotate the premiership between Herzog and herself – two years each – if the party was able to form a government.
In the past week, Zionist Union strategists estimated that this deal would cost the party valuable votes. Ceding her turn at the premiership on behald of the party of which she is co-leader, would be worth another two or three Knesset seats – enough for a game-changer.
Netanyahu is saddled with his own problems. Two factions which he counted on to eke out his coalition, Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu and Ellie Yishai’s Yahad (breakaway from the ultra-religious Shas), may like Mertz fall at the threshold barrier.
Livni’s eve-of-election gesture made it easier for Herzog either to form a cabinet or more likely join Netanyahu in a unity government with Likud, an option that would depend on the way the electorate votes Tuesday.
Balloting stations open at 7 am Tuesday. The first exit polls are promised seconds after 2200.
Judgement day.
Arabs and leftists out to destroy Israel.
“Netanyahu: right wing in danger, Arabs flocking to polls – Israel’s Arabs vote en masse to end Netanyahu era”
Wouldn’t happen if elite power groups didn’t have control of the media propaganda media system convincing Jewish Israelis to commit suicide.
With enough power the rich can have any kind of ‘democracy’ they want.
Same problem in Canada with Trudeau, CBC and Globe and Mail dominated by Islamic business interests and economic fueled antisemitism.
…
Judgement Days ahead for all of us it’s down to live or Die for the West.
Will the enemy be annihilated or subdued under control or will it be us?
@ Dandaman:
DDMAN:
Thanks for the tip about !24 for exit polls after voting places close. That’s exactly the way I like to get useful information; brief, correct, and focused.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ ArnoldHarris:
Google I24
I understand voting hours today in Israel end at 10pm local time, and that exit polling data will be released 30 minutes later. That will be 3:30 pm central standard time here in Wisconsin, USA.
Is there a website URL that can be logged onto in order to read the exit poll results? Also, how long after the election are the count vote results released? Please, no misleading guesswork. Answer me only if you know for certain.
In any case, thank you all for supporting an undivided Jerusalem, Shomron, and Yehuda; and to work for the independence of the Jewish nation from the Obamas, Kerrys, and Clintons of the USA; and from the European Union and from the UNO; and to guard the Jewish state and Jewish nation.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
sabashimon Said:
What’s really sad is that we have non-Jewish non-Israelis who seem to care more about Israel not committing suicide than does a large chunk of the Israeli Jewish electorate.
However, this does beg the question of why Bibi didn’t go for the 1-2 punch and get the Clint Eastwood endorsement as well.
A sad day indeed when we have come to the point where a Chuck Norris endorsment might have an affect on the Israeli electorate.
The whole spectacle makes me sick.
I also remember when 70% turnout (at least) was the norm.
Anybody care to wager we won’t get above 55%.? I will be happy to be wrong.
Go vote!
If the so-called Zionist union should form the next government, it will probably be the first time in history that a winning party won because one of their leaders promised to fade into the background and not screw up things herself.
@ Eric R.:
ERIC:
Thanks for bringing Chuck Norris and his pro-Netanyahu television advertisement to our attention. I happen to admire Mr Norris, who, I think represents the traditional America that I was born and raised to be a member of, and which I served in our country’s armed forces so long ago.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a lot of people in Israel also consider Mr Norris the kind of here they would like to be, and probably are just that; Israel’s wars are for real, and many a young Israeli has fought for, and sometimes gave their lives for, their Jewish homeland. They too — the living as well as the dead of Zahal past and present — are also my heroes, and I want them not to have served and have died in vain, because of an election that could empower a pack of leftists to break up Eretz Yisrael, for the sake of a false smile and equally false promises of an American president who is endangering our country as well as Israel.
With any luck, Chuck Norris may well bring enough votes to add one more Likud seat in the next Knesset.
May HaShem bring victory in tomorrow’s election, to the coalition that will guard and protect Eretz Yisrael from dismemberment.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
OK, the Obama robots of the left are finished, for Bibi has saved his best for last, and has played his ultimate hand:
The Chuck Norris endorsement.
http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2015/03/chuck-norris-does-bibi-commercial.html
If you think this is something to laugh at, I suggest you google “Chuck Norris jokes.”
Then I dare you to laugh in Mr. Norris’ face.