Percentage of those who identify as right-wing has grown from 46% in 2019 to 62% now, with both center and left shrinking
By CARRIE KELLER-LYNN, TOI 29 August 2022,
Opposition and Likud party leader MK Benjamin Netanyahu casts his vote in Likud primaries, at a polling station in Tel Aviv on August 10, 2022,. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
Israel’s right-wing Jewish voter base has grown from 46 percent before the April 2019 election to 62% now, ahead of November’s vote, according to an analysis of self-reported political affiliation by the Israel Democracy Institute.
The growth has been mostly at the expense of the political center, although the left has also taken a dip.
From 2019 to 2022, with four elections having taken place and a fifth scheduled, the size of the political center dropped by nine percentage points and the number of left-identifying citizens by six points, to 24% and 11%, respectively.
nalyzed by Or Anabi, the IDI survey has for years asked Israelis of voting age where they place themselves on the political spectrum, based on a 1 to 7 scale from far left to far right. Answers of 1 to 3 are classified as left-wing, 4 as centrist, and 5 to 7 as right-wing.
In 1986, when the survey was first conducted, 39% of Israeli Jewish voters defined themselves as right-wing, 25% as centrist and 23% as left-wing. In the survey for 1995, the year in which prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, 36% defined themselves as left-wing, 29% as right-wing, and 28% as centrist. Anabi said the 1995 survey was taken shortly after the assassination, and marked the only year since 1986 when the left outscored the right.
The center has never outscored the right in the annual survey, but has consistently outscored the left since 2000, with the exception of 2011. In 2011, when socio-economic protests were at their height, self-defined right-wing voters were at 45%, self-defined left-wingers were at 28% and self-defined centrists were at 22%.
Political Affiliations of Jewish Israeli Citizens, data courtesy of the Israel Democracy Institute
The IDI said the data is based on responses from 3,855 interviews.
Despite having a growing right-wing ideological majority among Jewish citizens, Israeli politics have yet to stabilize around a solid four-year government. The right-religious bloc led by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is polling most strongly, but the November 1 Knesset race is still predicted to end up indecisive.
While the majority of Israelis — 74%, according to Central Bureau of Statistics 2020 figures — are Jewish, Israel’s Arab minority — standing at 22% — also plays a significant role in political outcomes.
A Sunday poll by the Kan public broadcaster found that, should Israel’s two Arab political factions remain in their current constellations, the opposition-committed Joint List would take six seats, while Ra’am would have four to bargain into a coalition. The Joint List has never sat in an Israeli coalition and can be considered a third bloc taking seats off the table in the contest for control between Netanyahu and the alliance led by Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
The same poll found that Arab voter turnout may drop to an all-time low of 39% in anticipation of November, as Arab voters join the general Israeli electorate in election fatigue and their parties experience factious splits.
If Arab turnout significantly drops, or if one of the Joint List’s constituent parties splits off and burns votes, the number of seats held by this neutral bloc, neither right nor left, would dwindle and amplify the effect of Jewish voters, who currently prefer Netanyahu’s bloc.
Another key reason that a Jewish ideological majority has not translated into a stable political one is ongoing divisions among the ideological right about who should lead the bloc.
Among the self-identified right-wing Jewish voters in the 62% majority are people who are ideologically right-wing but support candidates who will not ally with Netanyahu, citing his ongoing corruption trial. Among these are voters for Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party, now merged with Benny Gantz’s Blue and White into a center-right alliance, and voters for Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, which also forswears partnership with a prime minister Netanyahu.
A separate data set from IDI showed that 72% of Jewish voters for Yisrael Beytenu and 70% of New Hope voters in 2021 identified as right-wing, versus centrist or left-wing, which was a small minority — 3% and 2%, respectively.
Centrist parties Yesh Atid and Blue and White had the broadest range of voter voices, including many right-wing ones within them. The majority of Yesh Atid voters — 55% — identified as centrist, with the remaining 21% falling to the left and 24% to the right. Blue and White had a more right-leaning split, with the 49% bulk in the center, 18% to the left, and 33% to the right.
@Sebastien
Good point. It is a hallmark of the Left to co-opt and redefine terms so that they can gain support from people who would otherwise vehemently oppose them.
Also this:
Polls should refer to opinion polls on specific issues as they have with the Arabs and define their terms. What does right, left, and center mean to different people? I detect a lack of consensus. Nothing else explains these bizarre coalitions and political positions.
It is the most obvious mark of bias to suggest that Lapid and Gantz are the “centerist parties” as they are resurrecting the TSS and perpetrating the import of Arabs into Yesha while prevent Jews from even purchasing land in their ancestoral lands. If this is the Center, what is the Left? Gantz is the most extreme unhinged Leftist that has been in the govt in nearly a generation. With his moves to empower the PA, support the financing of their enterprises, and encourage exclusive illegal Arab squatters in Yesha, he is certainly making a mark which is both quite clear and quite distinct from the Leftists which have preceded him, and even those whom he currently serves.