Israeli Elections
4 November 2022

In Israel's fifth elections in four years, the Likud party under leader Benjamin Netanyahu has emerged as the largest party. Likud is expected to form a bloc of religious and right-wing parties having in total 64 seats in the 120 seat Knesset (Parliament). Netanyahu will likely be tasked by President Herzog with forming a government next week. 
 
The Religious Zionism faction, which includes the Otzma Yehudit party of Itamar Ben Gvir, emerged as a winner in the elections. It is unclear what role these parties will play in a new government. 
 
Left-wing Meretz party failed to cross the threshold to enter Knesset, and Labor was reduced to four seats. 
 
The results will likely bring greater political stability than has been the case over recent years. But the results also reflect the increasing polarisation of Israeli politics. 
 
Huge internal and external challenges face the nation in the coming months. Netanyahu faces a major challenge to restore unity and stability in the country where there are many internal divisions. 
 
Meanwhile, the miracle of the return of the Jewish people to the land continues. Our team in Ukraine is working tirelessly to assist Jewish refugees in war-torn Ukraine, and help them return to Israel. 
 
A Christians for Israel delegation is currently in Ethiopia, where for over a decade we have been assisting the work of bringing the Ethiopian Jewish community home to Israel. 
 
The Lord has stated clearly in scripture that He will reveal His holiness through the ingathering of the Jewish people from the nations where they were scattered.
 
The nation of Israel is a work in progress. It is far from perfect, but God is working out His purposes. Let us continue to pray fervently for unity amongst the Jewish people, and all the people of the land. For a fresh working of the Spirit of God in the hearts and minds of its leaders, that they will know that the Lord alone is their God. 
 

Melanie Philips analyzes the election results at JNS.org: “Just as happened in Hungary, Italy, the U.S. and Sweden, the once-fringe Religious Zionist Party has come to power because a significant proportion of the public has become profoundly disillusioned with a political establishment that it felt was ignoring and betraying its interests and values.”

Netanyahu, Ben Gvir win marks the elevation of Jewish Israel above democratic Israel
 
David Horovitz writes at Times of Israel: “Vote shows backlash against Bennett-Lapid coalition, especially among religious Zionists; it will take an unforeseeable shift in Israeli reality for pendulum to swing back.”

‘I dreamed that you were coming’

Anemone Rüger, Christians for Israel’s Project Coordinator for Holocaust Survivors in Ukraine, reports on her recent visit to elderly Jewish people in Moldova, the poorest country in Europe. “The elderly find it incredibly hard to let go of their soviet apartments and their familiar surroundings, while the younger families are waiting for the mandatory military service requirement to be lifted so they can take their husbands along.”