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Campaigning during COVID

As Israel’s political leaders jostle for position in a crowded field,
Israelis themselves continue to battle a difficult third wave of
coronavirus infections.

A nationwide lockdown aimed at preventing hospitals from being over-run
looks set to stretch into February. Last Sunday, the government took the
major step of almost entirely shutting Israel’s only international airport
in an effort to block the arrival of more transmissible, more deadly
strains of the virus. “We are closing the skies hermetically,” Prime
Minister Netanyahu said.

While the government’s speedy rollout of vaccines has seen a quarter of
Israel’s 9.2 million citizens vaccinated, hospitals have been pushed to
breaking point in recent days by a significant spike in serious cases.
While Prime Minister Netanyahu was initially lauded for taking early steps
that contained the spread of COVID-19, a hasty and ill-designed attempt to
“return to normal” has caused two subsequent spikes and blunted Israel’s
economic recovery.

Now, after overseeing a speedy deployment of the vaccine which aims to
have every eligible Israeli inoculated in nine weeks, Netanyahu will be
hoping voters have much shorter memories when they arrive at the ballot
box on March 23. To sweeten the deal, the Prime Minister is seeking a new
economic stimulus plan to boost Israel’s vaccine-led recovery -- a plan
which would include direct cash payments to most Israelis. The plan was
not prepared by the professionals of the ministry, and was announced by a
Likud spokesperson -- making it appear to be a political prop in
Netanyahu’s campaign.

Polling turns up the heat ahead of merger deadline

[2]Saar

Since entering the new year, polls show Netanyahu’s Likud party has been
gaining further ground as it pulls away from Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope
party. While it’s not yet clear whether either right-wing party would be
able to form a coalition government without the other, what is clear is
that the proliferation of minor parties on the left of Israeli politics
threatens almost all of them.

If parties fail to receive more than 3.25% of the vote, they don’t receive
any seats in the Israeli Knesset. Currently, that’s a very real risk for
the half a dozen left of center parties if they don’t strike a deal with
their ideological allies and run on a joint ticket. While a grand, broad
center-left ticket like that proposed by Blue and White Leader Benny Gantz
appears to be off the table, a consolidation of parties is urgently
needed. The deadline for finalizing any mergers is February 4, though
parties often leave it to the very last minute to announce agreements in
order to extract the best possible terms from each other -- a high-stakes
game of chicken.

Sa’ar’s attack, Netanyahu’s response

While the race is still highly fluid, Gideon Sa’ar and his freshly formed
New Hope party remain the top threat to Netanyahu’s continued grip on the
Prime Ministership. As a former Likud Minister who’s taken several of the
party’s high-profile members with him, Sa’ar isn’t seeking to strongly
differentiate his new party so much as position it as a new,
Netanyahu-less version of Likud. As for the leader himself, Sa’ar argues
that he can end the chaos and division of Netanyahu’s leadership and has
what it takes to form a strong, stable, unifying government. He announced
that Benny Begin, son of the late prime minister Menachem Begin, would
join his list -- a figure who also represents more of the old style, less
intensively populist Likud.

In response, Netanyahu seems to be trying to blunt the attack by
presenting a calmer, more statesman-like version of himself to voters.
Attacks on the judiciary, the press and minorities have been put to the
backburner in favor of speeches about unity, healing and outreach. Whether
the jarring about-face succeeds remains to be seen, especially following
three highly-charged campaigns marked by racism, division and incendiary
rhetoric.

Labor hopes for a new beginning with a new leader

[3]Merav Michaeli

Israel’s once-mighty Labor Party was served a bitter repudiation at the
polls last year, winning just three seats in the Knesset. Now, the party
hopes its newly elected leader, Merav Michaeli, can save it from electoral
oblivion. “At the last moment, we saved this movement from being erased,”
Michaeli said in a victory speech after receiving 77% of the party’s vote
in the leadership primary. “I understand the enormity of the hour. The
Labor party is still stuck in the mud and I have the mission of rescuing
and rebuilding it.”

It’s a dramatic turn of events for Michaeli, who just months ago condemned
Leader Amir Peretz’s decision to join the Netanyahu-Gantz coalition after
promising never to join a Netanyahu-led government. Instead of joining
Peretz and fellow Labor MK Itzik Shmuli in the government, she chose to
sit on the opposition benches. Now, in one of her first acts as leader,
she has withdrawn Labor from the coalition. “The Labor party is leaving
the corrupt Netanyahu-Gantz government. I have informed Peretz and Shmuli
they must resign the government as soon as possible,” Michaeli wrote on
Twitter. “Labor is starting anew.” Since Michaeli’s victory in the
primary, polls have shown Labor passing the threshold to enter the
Knesset.

Lincoln Project to turn its fire on Netanyahu

Known for their viral attack ads against President Trump in the 2020
election campaign, the Republican ad-makers behind the conservative super
PAC ‘The Lincoln Project’ will turn their fire on Netanyahu under a new
deal inked with Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party. They’re not the only
Americans who’ll be working on this year’s elections, with Israeli parties
on all sides often recruiting political talent from abroad. Netanyahu
continues to work with President Trump’s pollster and recently appointed
Breitbart’s former Jerusalem bureau chief, Aaron Klein, to run his
campaign.



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