Israeli General Election 2013

[hawkeye59]

Any chance of a Likud Beitenu-Labor-Yesh Atid coalition? By that I mean, any chance of a government formed without an ultra-orthodox party in the coalition?

[hawkeye59]

Poll from Globes:

Likud Beitenu: 35
Labour: 17
JH-NU: 16
Yesh Atid: 12
Shas: 10
The Movement: 7
UTJ: 6
Meretz: 6
Hadash: 4
RAAM-TAAL: 4
Balad: 3

Ugh.

[hawkeye59]

I got
1. Labor
2. Ha'tunah
3. Meretz

[hawkeye59]

And Netanyahu is once again ruining Israel's reputation and making most Israelis look bad, showing that the current government has no interest in peace at Bab Al-Shams. I mean, I support Israel generally, but these people are non-violent protestors.

[hawkeye59]

Plus, they were ignoring the Israeli Supreme Court. Also, according to Haaretz, this was private Palestinian land. Danny, as an Israeli, what is your opinion on this?

[hawkeye59]

Something I dont understand after reading about Israeli politics, why is it a given that Arab parties would not be invited into a coalition? With 20% of Israeli citizens being Arab it seems strange. No surprise Arab turnout is low.

The Arab parties wouldn't want to join the government, and the government doesn't want them. All the Arab parties have irreconcilably different views that would make it impossible to work together with any government.

I get why they wouldn't want to join with Likud. But why was it a given that they wouldn't join a center left government led by Lapid? Are their views any more extreme than some of the ultra right parties?

The Jewish Home Party is being talked about as a potential coalition partner with Likud even though they advocate annexing most of the West Bank and expelling the resident Palestinians...that seems pretty extreme.

From an ignorant outsider point of view it just seems odd. Is it at all controversial within Israel?

JH might want to annex some land, but they have no problem joining a government which won't do this. The Arab parties wouldn't spend a day in a government that controls the West Bank. If there was an Arab party that said that they will leave the Palestinian issue to the government and that what they care about is more funds for Arab Israelis, they would probably find themselves in the government.

Of course, that sort of party would get about 5 votes nationwide.