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The Israeli Elections: David Horovitz · In These Times with Rabbi Ammi Hirsch

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I'm Rabbi Ami Hirsch of the Stephen
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Weiss Free Synagogue in New York, and this is in these times.
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and the final results just came in complicated as usual.
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Israelis went to the polls last Tuesday,
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Joining me today to unpack the elections is David
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Horovitz, the founding editor of The Times of Israel.
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Whenever there are dramatic events in Israel,
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I like to turn to David to help make sense of them.
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David Horovitz, welcome back to In These Times.
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Thank you.
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Pleasure to be here.
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I really appreciate you taking the time.
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I know it's hectic in Israel and whenever something complicated
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is going on in Israel, I always my first instinct is to call you
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and get the lowdown, see what's really going on.
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Well, I appreciate that.
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It is certainly complicated.
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So we had an election last week.
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That's what I want to talk to you about.
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I want to want to get your analysis about what happened.
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What's going on now?
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What in your assessment is likely to happen
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at least what are the possible scenarios?
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And then I'd like you to address how all of this affects the American Israel
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relationship and the relationship between Israel and American Jews.
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So first of all, what happened, David?
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The polls were off again.
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And how do you see it?
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How do you see what's going on now?
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The polls being off really should be no surprise to anybody.
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We we cautioned against relying on the polls, I certainly did.
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You can't poll effectively when you've got 30
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something parties competing, when you've got a threshold that can,
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you know, somebody falls below it changes basically everything
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when you're not allowed to poll for the last three days.
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I think what's more surprising is that the exit polls were off.
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But again, it doesn't take much to make a big difference.
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So even after the various methods that the pollsters used to hear
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from people who had actually voted, who
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they had voted for, they still got it wrong.
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And what what happened was really a celebration of democracy.
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We should say that
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first, Israel does not like to be the only democracy in the Middle East.
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It would be very happy if there were some others,
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but it is the only democracy in the Middle East,
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and this was a tremendous celebration exercise in democracy.
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There have been allegations,
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pumped by Prime Minister Netanyahu of fraud and foreign interference.
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There is an ongoing investigation into the foreign interference.
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There does not seem to be anything
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terribly significant in terms of internal fraud.
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There were four arrests, to the best of my knowledge,
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There were four arrests, to the best of my knowledge,
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and no clear case that's emerging and nothing significant in any case.
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And even the foreign interference investigation, the deputy Supreme
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Court president who chaired the Election Central Election Committee, has said
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there is nothing that is even being investigated as a suspicion
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that could impact the results.
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And therefore,
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you had an incredibly high turnout for much of voting day, election day.
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It was above all previous recorded levels.
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It was very high by the end and marked perhaps most of all,
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I think the most relevant aspect as regards turnout, a
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hugely significant rise in Arab-Israeli participation in this election.
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I think in the last election, the turnout in the Arab sector
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was something like 53%, and in this election it was around 80%.
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And that makes a big difference.
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So first of all, it means that a part of the Israeli demographic,
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was much more invested in these elections than in the past.
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And of course, that had a real impact on the allocation of seats.
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Can I just ask you about about the mood, like on the on Election Day,
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you say it was a celebration of democracy.
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Did people feel good about going to the polls or are they uplifted?
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Did they really feel like they were
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impacting on Israel's future?
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So it was a celebration of democracy.
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I don't think people voted in a celebratory spirit.
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And I'm talking about the pro Netanyahu bloc, if you like,
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and the anti Netanyahu Zionist parties and the Arab voters.
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I think people felt
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this was, as has been said many times, a consequential election,
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maybe even the most consequential election that Israel has ever had.
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People were passionate, people were highly motivated.
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And that's the way we should look at it.
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It's a national holiday in Israel.
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In other words, people get the day off
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because of this privilege that you have to vote.
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So there should be nothing preventing people from voting.
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And people made, you know, real efforts.
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People flew in, as you know, maybe several tens of thousands.
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That may have been somewhat overstated, but still a significant number of people
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who have Israeli citizenship, we don't really have absentee
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ballots here of any significant number.
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And therefore, if you want to vote and you're still
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on the electoral roll, well, you have to come in and vote.
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There was a tremendous sense of faithfulness when people went to vote.
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This was the highest percentage of Arab voters and the highest percentage
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of Knesset representatives in Israel's history.
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Is that right. For the Arab parties? For sure.
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They won 19 seats between them, that the parliament is 120 seats.
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And that, you know, is a big factor in, in, in understanding who won.
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So first of all, let's just tell people the specifics of the blocks, if you like.
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The largest party was Likud.
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That's Netanyahu's party.
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The second largest party was Yashar.
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That's the opposition, as in his party.
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But the most significant figures relate to the blocks, the alliances.
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So the alliance that was Netanyahu's outgoing coalition is the largest bloc.
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They won 53 seats between them, the Antinous and the
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Who Zionist bloc, which is also known as the Change bloc
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because they want to change things for parties
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running the breadth of the political spectrum.
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In other words,
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you have a Victor Lieberman on the right and you have the Golan on the left.
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So this four party bloc eyes and court,
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Naftali Bennett of Lieberman, Golan, they won 48 seats.
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And if my arithmetic is correct, that leaves the other 19
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with two Arab parties, one of which, Raam, sat in government
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with Naftali Bennett and Lapid between 2021 and 2022.
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And the other is the Joint List, a mix of three other Arab parties
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that has never been in government and that it is hard to envisage
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being in government in any foreseeable future, given that its positions are,
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I would say, broadly speaking, hostile to the fact of Israel's existence
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as a Jewish state.
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Nobody would include them in a coalition government.
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So, yes, let me just recap one crucial point.
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When you look at that arithmetic,
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no obvious alliance won a majority in the clear set
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and indeed the Joint List, who potentially,
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I suppose if you wanted to
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and you wanted to bring them into a coalition along with Raam,
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that changes the arithmetic and changes the path to a majority.
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But the bottom line is where the Joint List is concerned.
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It is very, very hard to believe that any of the Zionist parties would actually
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bring the joint list into government, have their support from the outside.
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That might be something else.
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But Raam, the smaller of the Arab parties, did sit in government
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and is less of an anathema, I would say to some of the parties.
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So there were 64
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members of Knesset in the previous coalition.
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Because of some intra party splits in the,
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in some of the right wing parties,
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really, 68 members of Knesset supported
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the previous government and now the numbers are 53.
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So that was a dramatic decline in
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in support for Prime Minister Netanyahu.
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And yet
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you could credibly argue that if he didn't win
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the election, he's in a stronger position than any other alternative constellation.
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Is that right?
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Yeah, I think I would argue exactly that.
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You know, we're talking a lot about numbers
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here, and it's worth just empathizing
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with the audience because you'd think that this would be fairly clear cut.
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There are 120 seats in the Knesset.
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The party's got A, B and C and therefore DNF.
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It just it just isn't like that.
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There are so many permutations.
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So I'm just kind of warning people already we've bombarded people with numbers.
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There may be some more.
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You could argue that, reducing the coalition from 68
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to 53 is a great success for the opposition.
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You could also argue that this was a coalition that was in power
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on October the 7th when Hamas invaded and when,
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anybody
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who had a modicum of common sense, you would think would have been more wary
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about the danger of an invasion, given that so many of the signs were there.
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So this was a terrible political military intelligence failure.
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And Netanyahu was the prime minister didn't take responsibility,
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didn't step down.
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You could argue that this government
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acted against the will
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of the majority of Israelis, because it didn't set up a commission
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of inquiry into what went wrong, and therefore, has not provided
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Israel with the best means of ensuring that there is no repetition.
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When it took office at the very end of 2022, it immediately
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began legislating or trying to for an overhaul of the Israeli judiciary,
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which would limit its independence and broadly speaking, if it was completed,
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would place almost all power in the hands of the elected political leadership.
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Remember, we have no constitution here.
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We generally don't have an independently effective legislature
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because a strong coalition controls the Knesset, and therefore
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the courts are the only defense or the only protection of anybody's rights.
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And this was a very divisive legislative effort that began
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and it tore the country apart. You had huge demonstrations.
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And Netanyahu's own defense minister warned that the argument over
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this was tearing Israel apart and becoming a tangible security threat.
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And nonetheless, this proceeded.
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And Hamas invaded, of course, on October the 7th.
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And one last thing.
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I mean, you could argue that this government, as it did,
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made strenuous efforts to maintain the undemocratic and illegal,
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exclusion from military service, exemption
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from military service of almost all young ultra-Orthodox males.
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When the army especially, was crying out for manpower.
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And there are tens of thousands
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of young ultra-Orthodox males who are eligible for military service,
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and the government essentially ensured that they not be drafted.
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And therefore it was such a controversial
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would be one word unpopular in many areas.
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And yet, while you might say that the opposition reduced the coalition
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from 68 to 53 after four of the most difficult years
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in Israeli history highlighted low lighted by that blackest
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of all days, the opposition did not manage to definitively beat
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Netanyahu and his coalition.
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So that's really quite
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sobering, and I would imagine, quite demoralizing
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on the part of those who wanted to see a change
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in the Israeli government after all of this,
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after a year of the judicial reform stuff, and then October 7th,
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the enormous pain of the hostages, the draft.
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I don't think Israelis really think about this as much as we do here.
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But the dramatic decline in Israel standing in the West
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after all of this and and the polls
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indicated that the change parties would be
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in a stronger position than they ultimately ended up in.
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Are they demoralized? What's the mood on the other side?
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I think they're pretty unhappy.
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I don't think they've given up.
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Again, the arithmetic is really crucial here.
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It's it's very frustrating, but it's crucial.
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Netanyahu doesn't have a path to a government either.
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We should say we should stress Netanyahu's supporters.
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I don't think they are blind
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to some of the things that I listed and that you've mentioned.
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By the way, I do think Israelis are,
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you know, aware of the the standing of the country.
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I think Israel as a whole, however, is very wary of this region
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hasn't recovered from October the 7th.
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Netanyahu is asserting strength, determined to bring down
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the Iranian regime.
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Determined to finish off Hamas.
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There are counterarguments. Even to those comments.
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I would note Israel and the US have not managed to oust this
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regime in Tehran, and Hamas is in control of most of Gazans,
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not most of Gaza, not most of the territory,
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but the territory it holds is where most of Gazans live.
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But there are reasons that you can understand why people voted for Netanyahu.
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Nonetheless, in terms of morale among the opposition,
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they know that Netanyahu does not have an easy path to government.
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Unless he can peel people away from the opposition block,
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and they themselves are still seeking a way to build a coalition
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to build a majority or a minority coalition.
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We're in the early days, you know, I think people may in some countries
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at least, I don't know that America qualifies completely in this evaluation.
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But in some countries, the polling booths close, exit
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polls are published and you kind of know who won the election right away.
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That is certainly not the case here.
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And we are in potentially for not just weeks, but months of coalition
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haggling, of threats and ultimatums and who knows what presidential consultations.
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That's the first part of the process.
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I don't think either side.
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In fact, I'm sure neither side has given up hope of being able
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to build a majority government or a stable government if they fail.
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You know, we have precedent in Israel.
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We had five elections in less than four years, not so many years ago.
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The president, Isaac Herzog,
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is kind of desperate to avoid putting us through all of that again.
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Here you had all these people,
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incredibly high turnout, voting with their hearts and their souls.
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Can we not serve them and give them a government?
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That's kind of the Herzog mindset.
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The problem is the country is incredibly divided.
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Okay, so tell us what's happening now.
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You mentioned that we're likely to be in for weeks
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of political haggling.
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Netanyahu himself is I think he's 77 years old
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now and rumored not to be in the greatest of health,
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and under certain scenarios, has a window of opportunity
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to attend to the Iran issue, which is paramount in his mind.
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Is it right that he might be amenable to some kind of resolution
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of this Gordian knot, that that is not apparent to most people?
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And so explain to us what what's happening this week
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and what's going to happen in the weeks to come.
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We had the elections on October the 27th.
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The final results became clear towards the end of last week.
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They will be certified and presented to the president,
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in just a couple of days.
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And Herzog will start consultations
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with representatives of all the parties that made it into the Knesset.
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And he will ask them, who do you recommend?
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I give the job of trying to build a coalition.
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Remember, Israel has never had a single party government.
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It's always coalitions. Them's the facts.
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Again, coming back to that democracy thing, it means every vote
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counts here because we have pure proportional representation nationwide.
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So a wide,
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mix of
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parties by our standards, actually, you know, not that many made it into the.
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At this time, Herzog will meet with the leaders of all of them.
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It is likely, from what we can discern at the moment, that more parties
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representing more Knesset members will recommend
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guardians and court to be given the chance to form a coalition.
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In other words,
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when Herzog has met with the leaderships and representatives of all the parties
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and he he adds up, well, how many of them are recommending
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Eisenhower, Netanyahu, somebody else?
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It's pretty clear that will be the most recommended.
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That does not mean that Herzog is obliged to task Eisenhower
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with the job of building a coalition.
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If he genuinely thinks that somebody else say Netanyahu
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actually has a better chance,
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because for whatever calculations he makes, he can charge Netanyahu,
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he might be utterly convinced it would have to be really credible.
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I think that somebody who wasn't being widely recommended could do that.
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We've been hearing in the last day, 2 or 3 hour confirmations
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of what we thought about who which parties would recommend.
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So the most well, one of the more interesting ones is today
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are Victor Lieberman,
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who is the right wing Zionist leader in the anti Netanyahu block
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and who certainly has prime ministerial ambitions.
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He said today he's going to recommend Eisenhower.
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That kind of solves the last mini mystery.
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If it was even that.
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First of all, that shows that 48, those 48 people in the change bloc will recommend
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First of all, that shows that 48, those 48 people in the change bloc will recommend
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First of all, that shows that 48, those 48 people in the change bloc will recommend
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Eisenhower unless something changes, it's very likely that the two Arab parties
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will either recommend nobody or, I think more probably will recommend eyes and two
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and therefore the eyes and cock camp, if you like, will get 67 recommendations.
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Whereas the Netanyahu camp, as far as we can tell,
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we'll get probably 41.
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It's not impossible that United Torah Judaism,
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one of the ultra orthodox parties, won't recommend anybody will see.
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Again, I'm just taking you into the to the murky, complicated waters.
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But the fact is, I think we can reasonably expect
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that will be the most recommended.
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And I think we can even inclined to to expect that Herzog will indeed
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give eyes and the first chance to form a coalition.
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But I suppose the main I guess the cardinal point is
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that 48 and 19 does not really add up to 67.
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In other words, the four Zionist parties opposed to Netanyahu
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plus the two Arab parties is not an easy mix.
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And boy am I understating for a governing coalition.
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Just to explain that briefly, Rahm, indeed, as I said,
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sat in a previous coalition.
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That was before October the 7th.
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Does that mean that the party leaders, three of them
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in the change bloc, who said we won't sit with any of the Arab parties
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in a coalition or indicated as much, they might change their minds a little bit.
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So maybe Rahm becomes part of a coalition or supports it from the outside.
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That brings you to 56.
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How do you get from 56 to a majority?
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You even need one of the ultra orthodox parties breaking ranks.
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That's not going to happen.
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Or you're taking the Joint list, the other Arab party, that's not going to happen.
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Well, how about a minority coalition where you get to your 56
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or you even stick to your 48, and you have lots of support
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from outside the coalition voting to support your 48 strong coalition
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when you put it up for Knesset approval, even that seems wildly unlikely.
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Even if the United Torah Judaism people abstained
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and the Joint List abstained or even backed such a vote,
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Lieberman has made it clear he wouldn't support it.
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But the bottom line is there's no credible, easy path,
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even with all the elements that I've described by which Gadi
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can build a majority coalition or even a minority coalition.
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Can't you credibly argue that Israelis actually did vote
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for a solid center Zionist majority?
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There's a very large majority there
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that under certain circumstances, would not be
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that complicated to form a broad based government.
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And you can argue that's what Israelis voted for.
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They voted for a broad based unity kind of government,
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except it's Prime Minister Netanyahu that's that's leading the right wing.
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If it was somebody else, you could argue that you could set
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this government up relatively easily.
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Do you buy that?
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Yeah, it's a partially correct argument.
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The first part for sure is true.
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You could argue that there are
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enough seats there to very easily build a mainstream government, if you like.
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But do I think that's what the Israeli public voted for?
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They voted for something that gives you that arithmetic,
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but that's not what they voted for.
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The centrality of Netanyahu to the vote.
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You cannot underestimate it.
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Most especially the people who voted for anti Netanyahu parties.
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That's what they were voting for, right?
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What what unites that Zionist anti Netanyahu bloc of four parties.
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The fact that they think Netanyahu is terrible for this country.
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And what complicates the scenario you've described,
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if they stick to it, is they will not sit with Netanyahu.
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We heard Lieberman say it again today.
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Lieberman on election night, far from saying, hey, we didn't get majority.
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Maybe we need to ally with Netanyahu, called on Likud to rebel
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against Netanyahu.
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So you've got Lieberman, Bennett, both of whom worked very closely with Netanyahu.
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I mean, really closely when he was prime minister.
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You've got Golan of the Democrats who won't have anything to do with Netanyahu.
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You've got Eisenhower who says,
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I will not sit in a government with Netanyahu under any circumstances.
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Remember, Eisenhower lost his son and two nephews fighting in Gaza,
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the notion that he would partner with a prime minister
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who's refused to set up a state commission of inquiry.
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These things are unthinkable.
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That's why I think Netanyahu, essentially on the relative scale of victory
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and loss, is the winner of these elections because I don't see
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how he is easily ousted
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unless really crazy things happen in terms of the things people are prepared to do,
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I think he's the one who eventually will say after Eisenhower has failed,
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if you want to be in my coalition, if you want to be in government with me,
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these are my terms.
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Remember, he continues to lead Israel in the interim.
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And again, we're not talking weeks. We're talking potentially months.
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And then from his point of view, if all else fails,
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you know they'll be more elections.
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Does he really think he'll do worse next time?
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I think he does not.
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I think he believes he would do better next time.
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So on the relative scale, I think Netanyahu is feeling,
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you know, fairly I don't I don't get carried away.
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I don't think he's particularly happy.
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But I bet he didn't think he would do this well.
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And we should just add one other thing, because it's a thing.
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He's kind of contesting the election results to some extent.
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He, very energetically pushed
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the initial claims of fraud and foreign interference.
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He said, again, something about a dark cloud.
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Or he reposted a Likud, his own party or Likud statement
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about a dark cloud still hanging over the election results.
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And this is after yesterday.
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The justice, the Supreme Court justice who oversees the Central Elections
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Committee, had said essentially there is no dark cloud over these results.
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There is nothing that is being investigated that threatens
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to impact the results.
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If Netanyahu was out of the picture,
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there
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would likely be a broad based government
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between, say, the For change bloc.
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Maybe, and you would bring the Likud in.
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That would be a if not the likeliest scenario.
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That would at least be a realistic scenario of Prime Minister
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Netanyahu was not heading, the Likud party.
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Are there any prospects of dislodging him
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from the leadership of the Likud party, or are people talking about that?
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I remember reading that the president has pardon power
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and might dangle this pardon in front of Netanyahu.
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Does that have any credibility at all?
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Netanyahu is so solid in control of Likud.
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You mentioned how the coalition grew from 64 to 68.
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In the course of the last term of the set.
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It grew because Gideon SA, Netanyahu's former cabinet
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secretary minister, lots of things returned to the Likud fold.
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This is Gideon Star, who in previous elections said things like
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do not vote for me if you want Netanyahu to be elected prime minister.
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I mean, he could not have been more
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definitive in saying I am an anti Netanyahu politician.
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And he arrived back in Likud.
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Netanyahu had a lot of control over Likud, Knesset, slate.
23:41
He used it, among other things, to move down,
23:44
some very loyal politicians who did not have
23:47
a realistic chance by the time he was done, of getting into the
23:50
with very few exceptions, they didn't revolt against him.
23:54
In other words, his control of Likud is iron control
23:58
over this party, a post Netanyahu, Likud.
24:02
Anybody's guess what becomes of that?
24:03
Anybody's guess about who would lead it?
24:06
And there are no signs that Netanyahu is prepared to give up that control.
24:10
There are some speculative arguments being made.
24:13
Some of them are ridiculous.
24:14
There's one that has it that Netanyahu agrees to
24:17
some kind of a deal with maybe eyes and court.
24:21
And, the nature of the question of who becomes prime minister first is,
24:25
well, it's not entirely clear
24:26
in some of these scenarios, but he does what he wants to do.
24:30
And after two years, Trump is no longer president and Netanyahu
24:33
has has achieved success against Iran, for example,
24:36
and then runs for president because Herzog's term ends in 2028.
24:41
And that's how you solve the problem now, because Netanyahu will agree
24:45
to something along that basis.
24:46
And how does he get to run for president?
24:48
Because Herzog also pardons him in his ongoing criminal trial.
24:51
These things are they reflect, really, that there is no logical way out of this,
24:56
and therefore people are trying to find less logical ones.
25:00
There are people who argue
25:01
that the the opposition camp indeed did not win this election,
25:05
but they also argue that Netanyahu didn't win it either.
25:08
It seems to me the opposition camp, they cost Netanyahu
25:12
his majority, but essentially it is Netanyahu one,
25:16
because they can't get rid of him, and that as time goes by,
25:20
it will become clearer that Netanyahu is still in pole position.
25:24
I say this very loosely and not to hold you to it because nobody knows.
25:29
I'm not even sure the politicians themselves know.
25:32
But if I understand you correctly, the likeliest scenario is new elections.
25:38
Sometime in the next 4 to 6 months.
25:42
I guess.
25:43
I do think
25:43
that although I think there's
25:44
also a possibility that people will realign themselves
25:47
in such a way
25:48
that Netanyahu can swear in a government, I think that is the less likely of the
25:52
two scenarios.
25:53
I think the more likely one is that we will have new elections,
25:56
and then I think it will be a more helpful environment for Netanyahu.
26:00
But that is all of these things are are not just weeks, but probably months away.
26:05
And in the meantime, Prime Minister Netanyahu is the prime minister,
26:08
and he has the full authority that he would otherwise have.
26:13
Even that is complicated on the in terms of what a caretaker administration can do,
26:18
we may find that there is a lot of controversy about the rights thereof.
26:22
Okay.
26:23
I think in theory, a caretaker administration has all the rights,
26:28
but there have been indications, maybe some relevant rulings.
26:33
I don't think that's 100% certain.
26:35
This may turn out to be a thoroughly unfamiliar
26:37
and unprecedented reality, and we may see some dispute about that.
26:41
But another point worth making is that for all that I have said,
26:46
the 67 anti Netanyahu seats do not add up to a coalition that anyone can foresee.
26:53
Those 67 seats do add up to a viable Knesset majority
26:58
and therefore just possibly in a significant way.
27:02
Really, for the first time in Israeli history,
27:04
we will have a situation of a legislature strongly opposed to a government.
27:10
Now, that means if the Eisenhower led anti Netanyahu parties,
27:15
plus the Arab parties work together, they can legislate stuff.
27:20
Even that is complicated.
27:21
But potentially they could find a path to establish a state commission of inquiry.
27:26
Potentially they could do other things.
27:28
They could change the laws regarding ultra-Orthodox military service.
27:32
It's not simple.
27:33
There are all kinds of procedural steps and paths they would have to follow,
27:38
including ousting the current Knesset speaker, including taking
27:42
control of a very significant committee that sets the curse at the gender.
27:46
But even in this interim period with Netanyahu
27:50
the caretaker prime minister, the Knesset can act against him in significant ways.
27:56
And that's because, unlike in in the United States, which most people
28:00
understand as a separation of powers, in Israel, Parliament is sovereign
28:05
and the prime minister is not a separate branch of government.
28:09
He comes out of Parliament itself.
28:12
I'm not the legal expert who would give you an okay on that definition.
28:16
I would be wary of that definition.
28:18
It's because, generally speaking, the executive controls the cursor, right?
28:24
That's the reason if you have a 68 strong coalition, as Netanyahu had,
28:28
or even a 64 strong coalition as he had out of 120,
28:32
that means you run the clear sit right now, potentially you have an incumbent
28:37
prime minister
28:38
who will not control the Knesset that will be sworn in on November the 10th.
28:41
He will only have 53 seats.
28:44
There will be 67 members who oppose him.
28:46
They don't all want to sit in government together.
28:49
That's why they can't oust him in my mind.
28:51
But they could certainly control much of what goes on in the Knesset.
28:54
Just one more question on the coming weeks.
28:57
So in the assumption that Isaac is the first
29:02
to be asked to form a government, what is he going to try and do?
29:06
And what is Prime Minister Netanyahu going to try to do to blunt him?
29:10
Well, it's already happening in that Isaac,
29:13
first of all, has to get his own block in line
29:15
and make sure that they're all supporting him, which seems to be the case.
29:18
And then I think he will need to be speaking with the members of the Zionist
29:22
change bloc, his natural bloc, if you like, and he will try to work out
29:27
and he will have to find for himself what is a stance
29:31
he and they are comfortable with as regards Arab parties.
29:34
Now, if you look at what he said before the election,
29:37
including in an interview we had with him, he set terms under which he didn't say,
29:41
you can't be in my government if you were an Arab,
29:43
he said, you have to accept certain positions.
29:45
Probably the most,
29:46
I mean, recognizing is the Israel of the Declaration of Independence.
29:51
Israel as a Jewish state.
29:53
I don't remember the formulation he used.
29:55
Rahm would probably meet most of his criteria.
29:57
He added a fourth condition after the three he originally set out in
30:01
which he said, you have to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization
30:05
and support its military and governance being destroyed in Gaza.
30:10
I don't know whether Rahm would agree to that.
30:13
It's possible that they would.
30:15
There is no way on earth as we know it that the Joint List will meet
30:19
those conditions, that the leader of the Joint List
30:21
was asked on television just the other night, you know, to
30:24
why don't you designate Hamas a terrorist organization?
30:26
And he certainly didn't want to.
30:27
If you look at their platform, they accuse Israel of genocide.
30:31
This is an anti Zionist.
30:33
That's an understatement. Policy.
30:35
So I don't think there's any way that Gadi eyes and court
30:38
brings them into his coalition.
30:39
Really not relies on them from the outside to get a coalition sworn in.
30:43
I also doubt it.
30:44
He said if Netanyahu doesn't get a majority,
30:46
he would hope to swear in a minority government
30:50
if necessary, or a government if necessary, and an expected,
30:54
and hope that people from the Netanyahu bloc would support him.
30:59
So that's where, you know, I presumably will try and steer.
31:03
I don't know if that's possible.
31:04
And Netanyahu,
31:06
as I said, is, first of all, trying to delegitimize the election result.
31:10
I tend to think that's not going to go anywhere practically.
31:13
I hope it doesn't go anywhere in terms of public endorsement
31:13
I hope it doesn't go anywhere in terms of public endorsement
31:16
of the notion that the elections were stolen
31:19
or are under a cloud or are not legitimate.
31:21
Again, there are echoes here, and I'm not making comparisons
31:24
with the United States.
31:25
But practically speaking, again, not only I will try and pull away
31:29
support from a Eisenach bloc members of party.
31:35
Maybe Lieberman, although that looks like a dead end at the moment.
31:38
Are there people in Bennett's party you might come over?
31:41
If this sounds particularly ridiculous, we should remember that the Lapid Bennett
31:45
government collapsed because Netanyahu did manage to prize away
31:49
defectors, most especially from Bennett's own party.
31:53
Now, the rules,
31:54
because we're into the nitty gritty here, but we don't need to be.
31:57
But the rules have been changed a little bit.
31:59
It's harder to defect.
32:00
You can't, as a single member just crossed the aisle.
32:04
You have to take about a third of your party with you.
32:07
Is that impossible?
32:08
You tend to think so, but those are the two paths that are happening right now.
32:12
I'm caught solidifying his block and and mulling.
32:17
Personally, I think about what's within his capacity
32:21
to to live with in terms of coalition partners and what is not.
32:24
And Netanyahu gearing up both to deal with the eyes and cop block
32:29
and to perhaps query the elections and to woo people away or
32:34
or groups of people away from the anti Netanyahu Zionist parties.
32:40
Let's move to the international arena.
32:42
Or are you worried about Israel's dramatic decline in standing in the West?
32:48
Yeah, I think
32:49
anybody who cares about Israel would be would be deeply worried by it.
32:53
It's potentially going
32:55
to have practical economic effect to a degree that it hasn't had before.
32:59
You'll know that, for example, the United Kingdom
33:02
declared a whole program of sanctions, essentially,
33:06
barring interaction with the settlement enterprise,
33:09
but they didn't introduce them right away.
33:11
I think probably unilaterally.
33:13
There are some people who are already acting in that way
33:16
in terms of trade and cultural interaction, for sure.
33:20
Academic interaction.
33:21
We know that's been happening before Britain said or did anything.
33:25
But if Britain goes through with this and that may be
33:28
a function of the government here,
33:30
that's going to have a real impact and not limited to the settlement settlements.
33:34
Right? I'm talking about the whole banking sector in Israel.
33:36
There is no banking enterprise in Israel that does not deal with settlements,
33:41
and it would not want to,
33:42
and it would probably not be able to untangle itself from that interaction.
33:46
So does that mean the entire Israeli banking sector is going to be sanctioned?
33:49
If you're running a supermarket chain anywhere in Britain, or the 10
33:53
or 11 other countries that have inclined to the same kind of steps,
33:56
are you going to bother trying to work out whether those avocados or oranges
34:00
you were thinking of importing came from over the Green Line or inside Israel,
34:04
or you're just going to buy,
34:05
you know, your fruit and vegetables from from a different supplier altogether.
34:09
So these things are going to start to hit home,
34:12
part of these measures and part of Israel's
34:14
pariah status is a consequence of the unpopularity of Netanyahu.
34:19
Of the degree to which aspects of Israel's war against
34:23
Hamas have been cynically and despicable, misrepresented.
34:27
It's a very problematic and complicated reality.
34:30
Some of what Israel is facing in terms of pariah status
34:33
is a function of anti-Semitism.
34:34
I mean, let's not be delusional about that.
34:37
The hostility to Israel was pretty widespread in certain quarters,
34:41
even before Israel had begun hitting back to try and stop Hamas,
34:45
realizing its promise to carry out further October 7th.
34:48
So, in other words, October the 7th was even still going on.
34:51
The invasion had not been,
34:54
utterly thwarted, and already there was hostility to Israel
34:58
and an effort
34:58
to deny his role of arms, in other words, or the means to defend itself.
35:02
That was not a function of anything Israel did or didn't do in Gaza.
35:05
It hadn't been gun doing anything in Gaza.
35:07
So we have to to understand the context in which so much of this is playing out.
35:11
But to come back to the beginning
35:12
of your question, of course, this is incredibly troubling.
35:16
And where it goes now, to some extent will be a function of Israel's governance,
35:20
but to a large extent, is anti-Semitism masked as anti-Zionism?
35:26
And just to make the point, no massive human rights outcry
35:29
when Iran killed its own people, tens of thousands of its own people
35:33
whose crime was
35:34
they opposed the lousy economy and some of the things
35:37
that their government was doing right.
35:39
Israel went to war against a terrorist government
35:41
that had invaded and massacred its people in their own homes,
35:45
and this was deemed unacceptable from the get go.
35:49
So we should have that in our minds when we think about this pariah status.
35:53
Massive concern.
35:55
So even under the best case
35:58
scenario and I say this not as a partizan, but,
36:01
you know, in terms of Israel's standing in the West, that Prime Minister
36:05
Netanyahu is replaced, it would have to be somebody like Gadi Eisenstadt
36:09
who is not a left wing,
36:13
you know, two state solution guy, at least not at this point in time.
36:17
Israel's policies, the tone might be different,
36:21
but the policies, at least initially, are not likely
36:24
to be that dramatically different. So
36:29
even under the best case scenario in terms of Israel's
36:33
standing in the West, are things likely to change dramatically?
36:36
If it's about anti-Semitism,
36:38
you know, and it's about fundamental hostility to Israel,
36:42
then they're going to be hostile to Israel under any government. No.
36:46
I think it would take a long time.
36:47
I think, first of all, there would be a slight change of tone.
36:50
There might be some changes of policy.
36:53
I don't think an Eisenhower
36:55
led government would be any less worried about Iran.
36:59
That doesn't mean it would.
37:00
It would play out in exactly the same way.
37:02
But I'm fairly certain that nice and led Israel
37:05
would regard this regime in Iran
37:08
as a potential existential threat, certainly, if it maintained its stockpile
37:12
of enriched uranium and other aspects of its nuclear program,
37:16
the tone would be different.
37:17
Does that mean,
37:17
oh, immediately everything will be lovely and everyone will love Israel again?
37:21
Really not.
37:22
I think more effective public diplomacy might nudge the needle a bit,
37:26
but an awful lot of it is hostility to Israel
37:28
for the fact of it being the world's only Jewish majority state.
37:32
In other words, a lot of it is anti-Semitism.
37:36
And, you know, we've had a grapple with that forever.
37:38
And it's not going to change simply because if it turns out
37:43
Netanyahu loses power.
37:44
But the dam broke after October 7th.
37:48
Something's dramatically different over here in the West.
37:52
Why is that?
37:53
It would seem to me that there was a great deal of preparation
37:55
that had gone on in terms of trying to shape public opinion,
37:59
for many years, maybe even many decades of a readiness to,
38:04
to utilize Israel
38:07
and anti-Zionism to stir up hostility and the hostility, you know,
38:12
we've seen it extending into spiraling anti-Semitism around the world.
38:16
In other words, I think anti-Semitism is the root cause
38:19
even of that drastic shift of October the 7th and October
38:23
the 7th was seized upon as a means
38:26
to try to misrepresent what was happening and stir up more hostility.
38:30
When people come to do the historical research and work out, how was it
38:34
that on American campuses, from the get go, there was this
38:37
tremendous surge in vicious hostility to Israel?
38:41
And how was it that all these useful idiots were walking down,
38:45
you know, Broadway on the Upper West Side
38:46
with signs saying from the River to the sea
38:48
when they didn't even know which river and which sea, because lots of stuff
38:52
had been put in place to galvanize a lot of useful idiots.
38:56
And there weren't leading people in the human rights community
38:59
who said, wait a minute, guys, this is more complicated.
39:02
That's not to say that we shouldn't hold Israel to standards of acceptable
39:06
behavior in warfare and so on, but this is more complicated.
39:10
They had left adjoining territory.
39:12
There were no Jews or Israelis living in Gaza except, you know,
39:16
two hostages and two bodies of people who had wandered into Gaza years before,
39:21
they were invaded, that organization, Hamas, that took over Gaza, by the way,
39:26
ousted the slightly less awful Palestinian Authority in Israeli mines.
39:31
Those guys turned Gaza into a war zone.
39:34
They subverted all material to build a war machine.
39:37
They fought from mosques, they hid tunnels under people's homes.
39:40
I mean, there's never been a civilian, quote unquote,
39:43
territory turned similarly into a into a battleground.
39:47
They'd built 24 battalions and they were waiting for the Israelis.
39:51
In other words, this is not as simple as it is being
39:54
misrepresented by some of those anti-Israel people.
39:57
We need to look a little deeper. None of that happened.
40:00
Where were the, you know, the strident human rights
40:02
activist voices saying, this is more complicated?
40:06
And the fact that that didn't happen underlines to me that this was
40:10
an opportunity seized by people who want to see his role wipes out.
40:14
My last question to you is, how do you see the future
40:18
of the relationship with world jury, in particular American jury?
40:22
We are one nation.
40:23
We are one people.
40:24
And the closer that relationship and the more clear
40:28
and the better understanding there is between the only Jewish majority state
40:32
and for example, you know, the largest Jewish community
40:35
outside of Israel, which, of course, the United States.
40:37
But all parts of the diaspora community, there are different realities.
40:39
There are different challenges that we all face.
40:42
First of all, we need to understand each other really well,
40:44
and then we need to work together for what is our common interest,
40:48
which ultimately is survival and the capacity to live safe
40:52
lives as proudly Jewish people, publicly Jewish people.
40:57
That's much more of a concern in the diaspora,
40:59
because in Israel we go about our lives worrying about our physical survival.
41:04
The capacity to lead public Jewish lives in the diaspora is is a greater
41:08
immediate concern
41:09
abroad than it is for Israel, and that needs to be understood here.
41:13
And that can impact some of the things that are said
41:15
and done in all circumstances.
41:18
Diaspora, understanding of Israel, the challenges that Israel is facing,
41:21
that, hey, there may be things that are done here
41:23
that look incredibly problematic.
41:25
And some of them I wouldn't defend personally,
41:27
but others of them, well, they're a function
41:29
of the different reality that we are facing here as a country.
41:32
Nine miles wider.
41:33
That's narrowest point, a tiny little country
41:35
on the western edge of an at least partially very hostile region,
41:39
with one state, Iran, working all the time, subverting all its resources
41:44
to support organizations, terror groups trying to wipe us out, and gearing up
41:48
to try and build nuclear weapons to to to wipe us out as well.
41:52
So we're all in this together.
41:54
We need to be conscious of each other's most immediate priorities
41:58
and what matters most and what needs to be handled with the greatest wisdom
42:02
and the greatest priority, and the appropriate allocation
42:05
of resources and the necessary sensitivities.
42:08
Because there's never been a period like this, certainly since the Holocaust,
42:12
there's never been a period like this in the modern history of Israel,
42:15
where our fates are intertwined, where all sections of the Jewish nation
42:20
are in an incredibly difficult position, where people are worried like
42:24
never before, certainly never before in the lifetimes of most of us.
42:28
And that requires intelligent communication, understanding
42:31
open channels, mutual sensitivities and so on.
42:34
And I'm not the expert on any of that, but it seems to me obvious.
42:38
And one final request of you
42:42
to just to look into the future, you optimistic about the future of Israel?
42:46
To the degree that I'm optimistic,
42:47
I'm optimistic because for most Israelis, there is no other choice.
42:51
This country has to survive and to survive.
42:54
Moreover, it has to thrive.
42:56
By the way, these were election issues
42:59
which people found their own answers to in the ballot boxes.
43:02
We have to have a thriving economy just at the most basic level,
43:06
because otherwise we won't have a thriving workforce
43:09
and we won't have a thriving army.
43:11
Israel's army is not going to outnumber other people's armies.
43:14
It's going to have to outsmart them.
43:16
And we need a society that that educators, people properly that has a cutting edge
43:21
workforce and therefore has a very effective military force.
43:26
And if people are listening and they lack optimism, what I can only do
43:30
is encourage people abroad who have the capacity to be helpful
43:33
and invested emotionally, practically, financially in Israel, help us ensure
43:38
that we are the best Israel that we can be because that's what we need to be.
43:43
David Horowitz, thank you very much for coming back on
43:46
explaining very complicated situation and that great news
43:52
outlet that you created, Times of Israel, which is so important
43:56
for world Jews to understand what's going on in Israel.
44:00
Thank you. I'll take care of everybody.
44:02
I want to thank David Horovitz, who on short notice,
44:05
gave us this in-depth overview of the Israeli elections
44:08
and possible scenarios for the future government.
44:12
I'll make six. Brief points.
44:14
First.
44:15
The elections were a celebration of Israeli democracy.
44:19
Close to 80% of the eligible electorate voted,
44:22
which is even higher than it seems because many of Israel's eligible voters
44:27
live abroad or for one reason or another, could not exercise the right to vote.
44:32
Almost everyone who realistically could vote did.
44:36
The democratic spirit is alive and well in Israel,
44:39
and Israel is incomparably freer than any of its neighbors.
44:44
It's baffling to me why many in the West are so hostile to Israel.
44:48
Rather than viewing her as a kindred spirit and ally on the front lines
44:54
of the monumental struggle against anti-Western extremists
44:57
and plucky defending not only Israelis but the West itself.
45:03
Second, after all
45:05
the analyzes, punditry and spins,
45:08
free and fair elections are clarifying
45:11
yet again.
45:12
The polls were way off, proving that Israelis are the only people in the world
45:17
who tell the truth to the posters and lie in the voting booth.
45:21
But in all seriousness, politically, Israel is a center right country.
45:26
Liberalism thrives in Israel, in some cases
45:29
more than the United States and Europe, where liberalism
45:32
has been corrupted recently by some on the hard left
45:36
who call themselves liberal but are in fact highly illiberal.
45:41
But unlike any Western country.
45:43
The central political issue in Israel that determines elections
45:47
is not the economy or social and cultural matters, but security.
45:52
And on this question, which is existential in Israel, Israeli citizens are less
45:58
prone to take risks than American Jews,
46:01
especially after October 7th.
46:04
Distance from danger breeds a higher tolerance for risk
46:07
taking in someone else's name.
46:11
Third.
46:12
A word about the stunning participation of the Arab parties.
46:16
This is some kind of strange apartheid.
46:19
I hope that the investigation into a legal Katari influence
46:22
in the Israeli elections will produce nothing substantial.
46:26
Arab-Israeli are 20% of the population,
46:29
and it would be great for Israeli democracy, for Arab Israelis
46:34
and for Israel standing in the West, where at least one of the Arab
46:37
parties, the more moderate Raam. Party.
46:40
To share in the responsibility of governance.
46:44
Fourth.
46:45
I have Partizan political views, of course,
46:49
but I do not share them in public life.
46:52
That's not my role.
46:53
So what I'm about to say is not Partizan.
46:58
It is very unhealthy for any democracy
47:00
to have the same leader elected and reelected for 20 years.
47:06
George Washington was one of the great heroes of America,
47:09
not only for his leadership in. War.
47:12
But in his wisdom to leave the presidency after two terms.
47:15
He established a constitutional norm that was codified
47:19
after FDA's death in the 20th century.
47:22
Fifth,
47:24
we're in for weeks of political jujitsu.
47:28
Relax. Take a break.
47:30
Nothing will change for a while.
47:32
We will just have to be patient.
47:35
David laid out for us some of the possible scenarios.
47:39
What is important to remember is that fundamentally,
47:42
this electoral deadlock has been in place in Israel now for a decade or so.
47:47
Not much has changed.
47:49
Either a government will be formed or there will be new elections
47:53
in the coming months.
47:56
Sixth, and finally,
47:58
no matter who leads the next Israeli government,
48:01
do not expect any change in those who vilify and oppose Israel.
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Their opposition to Prime Minister Netanyahu's policy is real,
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but they will oppose any Israeli government
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because their problem with Israel is not political.
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It's ideological.
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They are against any Jewish state in any territory, and thus,
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of course, will oppose any and all Israeli policies.
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The ideological battle with anti-Zionist will continue for decades to come,
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as it has since Israel was created 78 years ago,
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when five Arab armies invaded the newly declared Jewish state in an effort
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to wipe out Jewish life in the Land of Israel.
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Whatever happens, we will still be living here
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with surging anti-Zionism, which in turn
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generates intensifying anti-Semitism.
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And whatever happens, Israel will still be
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the home of half of the remnants of our tiny people.
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A healthy Israel diaspora relationship
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will still be a central interest of the American Jewish community,
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and a central component of Jewish identity in America.
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Until next time.
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This is in these times.