I don’t know a ton about it, but I really hope Gadi Eisenkot is the new prime minister. Supposedly he is more realistic about what the IDF can achieve in Gaza, and he feels Netanyahu is keeping this war going for political purposes. Netanyahu is keeping this war going to avoid going to prison.
Also hopefully (but doubtful) we can get legitimate investigations into the failings that led to 10/7 under Eisenkot.
Why is that doubtful? One of Eisenkot’s campaign promises is to launch a state commission of inquiry into how the intelligence and security apparatuses allowed October 7th to happen and to launch a criminal investigation to determine whether Netanyahu hid or falsified information about his activity on or before Oct 7 in order to cover his own ass.
Looks like for this election Ale Yarok has actually merged with a right-wing party called Israel First, whose most prominent supporter is Jonathan Pollard. I would ask what they’ve been smoking to think that was a good idea, but I guess it’s pretty obvious.
Not to mention that one of Netanyahu’s patsies is STILL asleep at the wheel and almost allowed another mass casualty event with that FlyDubai crap.
This is mostly from understanding their system and history a bit, and slightly a prediction.
After a couple hours, how many seats each party won in the 120 member parliament will be close to known, maybe to within plus or minus one seat. Totally complete results will take another day or two.
Then news reporters will look of the many pledges that parties made to NOT join in coalition with other parties, and conclude that making a coalition with the needed 61 seats is statistically impossible.
Then there will be a period of weeks during which the non-partisan president gives one leading party at a time a chance to form a coalition. In order to do so, at least one party will have to break the pledge not to form a coalition with another party. They will wait to do so until deadline to show their supporters they tried very hard to avoid forming a coalition with a party they pledged not to.
This time, the suspense will focus on the pledge of the Yisrael Beytenu party not to join in coalition with any non-zionist AKA Arab, or Jewish orthodox, party. If polling is even close to correct, that pledge needs to be broken to avoid new elections. And so it will be.
And if polling is correct, Netanyahu, and his ultra-Orthodox/racist allies, will then be out.
P.S. I know this is simplified, so no need to yell when correcting me 
P.P.S. Does the above imply that there will actually be a racist party in the coalition, Yisrael Beytenu? No, because they have Zionist Arabs supporters and at least one Arab who will be elected.
For something this massive, I assume any investigation will end up protecting the powerful and throwing the underlings under the bus.
Anything specific at stake for the Haredi Jews in this election on the ballot? I heard that the issue of whether to take their special unearned privileges away, or not, was a big topic for this election.
Speaking of which - remember the whole fiasco with Netanyahu trying to ban Joint List and Ra’am from running in this election as anti-Zionist parties (which is why they actually avoid terms like that and stick to non-Zionist)? Well, the reason that they are in this election anyways is that, as predicted, the Supreme Court unanimously threw that out.
Which is a reminder that before October 7th and the war in Iran, this election was going to be about one thing: Netanyahu’s attempts to destroy Israeli democracy by neutering the Supreme Court’s ability to review the Parliament’s decisions. This remains the most important issue on the ballot, which is why it is so critical that Netanyahu is defeated.
Isn’t it considered to be a realistic possibility that nobody breaks their pledges, no government can be formed, and there will have to be another election in the very near future?
Israel has a long history of throwing former prime ministers in jail; I don’t think you are correct. And in this case, Netanyahu is like a vampire. He has come back from political death many, many times. His political opponents would be stupid not to go after him as hard as they possibly can. If he loses but he’s not in jail, there’s always a chance he will be the Prime Minister of Israel’s 26th Knesset (this election is for the 25th).
Ah, so like Illinois and their ex-Governors.
From their perspective? Their very existence. They view conscription as an existential threat, because if their kids are forced to experience the secular world at 18, very few of them will come back to the cloistered world of Orthodox Judaism by choice.
From my perspective, drafting thousands of Orthodox kids and making accomodations for them is more likely to destroy the IDF than it is to destroy the Orthodox community.
I understand a lot of what has happened during his tenure…but I also fully understand the power of hate-voting, so I am very cautiously optimistic but ready for the worst.
Right, I know that, but what I meant was, for this year, has there been anything on the ballot, or any specific proposal, like “If I’m elected we’re going to make all Haredi men conscript, and also take away their welfare” or something like that.
Yes, as far as conscription:
Now, as @PhillyGuy noted, promises may have to be broken to build a coalition, and historically, both the left and right have promised to draft the Orthodox and then broke that promise.
As of 6 PM turnout is at almost 67%.
Apparently it is raining and been flooding in parts of the country, which is what has led to calls for extending the vote; people in impacted areas are having trouble reaching the polls.
One factor that the very high turnout has is that it raises the number of votes necessary to get past the limit for any representatives whatsoever. For smaller parties hovering right about that line (like Ben Gvir and Smotrich’s parties) high turnout could be difference between a couple of representatives and being shut out entirely.
Or as religious types call it, “election inferference.”
Anecdote, but neither of my Israeli cousins who reside in the USA mentioned going to Israel to vote this year. There are a LOT of possible reasons, and it may be too exhausting mentally as well - their mother, my aunt, passed earlier this year.
But they’re generally both big boosters for Trump here in the USA - almost entirely because of his “pro-Israel” stance. But they’ve been totally silent this time around. I find this… interesting.
There are two parts to your question: 1. how long to count the ballots, and 2: how long before we know who won the election.
The physical counting of the 7 million paper ballots which are cast in person will take about 1 day. But it will take 2 days before the final totals are announced ( because about 10% of the ballots are absentee, and take longer to verify and count.)
But the physical counting is only one tiny step in the process. The real question is who actually wins the election. (i.e. who can convince 61 out of the120 newly elected members of Parliament to join a coalition.) And that will take at least one month, and probably 2 months before we know the answer.
The process goes like this: The president of Israel is a strictly ceremonial position, with no political power, except for one very vital function. After an election, the president officially decides which party leader he will nominate for the top job of ( attempting to become) prime minister. That person then has one month to negotiate with all the other parties and convince them to support him as prime minister. If he succeeds in convincing 61 people of the 120, then he has won the election.
If he fails to gather 61 votes, then he returns to the President and officially announces that he has failed. Then the President nominates the other major party leader, who is then given one more month to gather 61 supporters. If he succeeds, he has won the election.
Right now, (4 hours before the polls close) it appears that neither of the two major leaders has the support of 61 members. But it looks like the first nomination by the President will go to Eisenekot. He is a nice , soft-spoken guy with very little experience in hard-ball politics, and it is quite possible that he will fail to cajole 61 supporters. So, a month from now, on November 27, the President will offer the job to Bibi Netanyahu. Bibi is a truly masterful politician, a hard-ball, conniving manipulator who may well succeed in winning 61 supporters. He will draw out the coalition negotiations for another full month, making last-minute promises, etc, until the deadline of December 27..
So–the answer to the original question “how long ?” is : either on November 27, or on December 27.
If after that both sides have failed to gather the necessary 61 supporters, new elections will be called , on March 27 (i .e. after a legally required 6 month break).
Thanks for the clarification. Isn’t it theoretically possible, though, that the President could offer the job to more than two candidates before deciding a new election is necessary? (It’s also possible, of course, that a nominee might admit defeat without taking the full month allowed to negotiate)