There is only one more month until the Israeli elections take place March 17, and we are getting a much clearer picture of what is actually happening. This was supposed to be a multiparty race, with five or six midsized parties or coalitions — the Likud with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Zionist Camp with Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, Naftali Bennett (HaBayit HaYehudi), Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beitenu), Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) and Moshe Kahlon (Kulanu) — but it has turned into a head-to-head clash between Netanyahu and Zionist Camp Chair Herzog. Livni, Herzog’s partner in the Zionist Camp, has been pushed to the sidelines for concerns about her electoral pull (as Mazal Mualem reported here), after initially helping Herzog shoot up almost overnight into being almost on par with Netanyahu in terms of strength.

The balance of power between Netanyahu and Herzog places them in a dead heat. A rundown of the polls published over the past two weeks shows them head-to-head, with 25 seats each. The fact that this has become a race between the two men has been severely damaging to the other parties, which are regarded as increasingly less relevant. Bennett is plummeting in the polls, because his electorate is determined to “save the right” by voting for Netanyahu. Lapid is unable to leap ahead for the exact same reason. Kahlon and Liberman are in an even worse state. Then there are these three conspicuous additional factors:

1. In the 2009 elections, Livni and Netanyahu finished in a virtual tie (28-27 for Livni), but Netanyahu had more than 61 Knesset members to recommend him to President Shimon Peres, who then granted him the task of forming the next government. This time, however, the fight over who will recommend each candidate is close. At present, neither of the two men (Herzog or Netanyahu) has a majority to recommend him to the president on the day after the election. In that case, the decision will be left to President Reuven Rivlin, who is himself aligned with the right, but who also has a long history of personal animosity toward Netanyahu.

2. The parties headed by Foreign Minister Liberman and former Minister Kahlon will hold the balance of power. Though they both originate in the right, it is not at all clear that they will recommend Netanyahu to the president on “the day after.” In private talks over the past few weeks, Liberman has said, “I will recommend myself.” Meanwhile, Kahlon has announced that he would recommend whoever supports all the points in his socio-economic agenda. What will Kahlon do if it is Herzog who offers to implement Kahlon's program in full?

3. The United Arab Party, which was founded because of the new electoral threshold, is likely to recommend Herzog. In the past decade, the Arab parties refused to recommend any candidate after the elections. They preferred to pursue political separatism, and kept themselves out of the game. On the other hand, Herzog enjoys a strong relationship with the Arab members of the Knesset. He will therefore invest enormous efforts in an attempt to win their recommendation. According to the polls, the United Arab Party will win between 12 and 14 seats. With them, Meretz, and Yair Lapid, Herzog would be very close to the 60-member threshold on the day after the election. This is an ideal opening situation, even if Herzog would still have to square a few circles to put together a new government. Two issues he will have to contend with are Liberman’s announcement that he will not sit in a left-wing government (which eliminates the possibility of him sitting in a government with Meretz), and the insistence of the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox Yahadut HaTorah party that it will not join a coalition with Lapid, the man who forced them to serve in the Israel Defense Forces with his “Sharing the Burden” law.