Despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claims, the ultra-nationalist/ultra-Orthodox bloc did not come out on top in the third round of elections. It still lacks the majority needed to compose a coalition. At the same time, the Zionist left did not disappear. For the time being, the right cannot establish a government on its own, a government that some argue would undermine the rule of law in Israel, turn the government and the Knesset into a refuge for criminals and make a mockery of international law with the underhanded backup of the US president in his last months of tenure. Instead, perhaps the best Netanyahu can do is to cobble together a national unity government, which would be preferable to a fourth election campaign. The main advantage and also handicap of a unity government would be that either side could halt any initiative by the other.
True, the trilateral union of the Labor Party, Meretz and Gesher won only seven Knesset seats, but it does not mean the Zionist left is on its way out or that Israel is not interested in peace with its neighbors. In every democracy there is right and left, conservatives and liberals, even if the details change.
Does France have no social democrats after the great majority voted for the rather ideologically empty party of Emmanuel Macron? Of course not. We can assume that in the next election or the one after that, Macron's new party will fade into the shadows and the center-left voters will return to the traditional parties. Or perhaps a new party will arise in the center left to attract their attention.
The most important thing is to engage and excite the voters, to convince them that voting for a specific party will bring about the change they hope for and that the personality at the top is worthy of their trust and faith. This is no easy task for long-standing parties. Meretz won 12 seats in the 1992 elections, riding the excitement over the union of Ratz, Mapam and Shinui in a single list. In the next elections, Meretz dipped to nine seats and Shinui left the union. Meretz has received between three and six seats in elections thereafter, but by continuing to hold clear stances on peace as well as its struggle for civil equality and human rights in Israel, the party has remained attractive to highly educated middle-class voters.
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