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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

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

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.

J Street is the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans who want Israel to be secure, democratic and the national home of the Jewish people. Working in American politics and the Jewish community, we advocate policies that advance shared US and Israeli interests as well as Jewish and democratic values, leading to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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