Israel General Election Thread: March 17 2015

[Donerail]

Prediction:

Zionist Union: 25 seats
Likud: 21 seats
Joint List: 13 seats
Yesh Atid: 12 seats
Jewish Home: 12 seats
Kulanu: 9 seats
Shas: 7 seats
Meretz: 6 seats
UTJ: 6 seats
Yisrael Beiteinu: 5 seats
Yachad: 4 seats

It'd be genuinely remarkable if Herzog could manage to woo Lapid, Shas/UTJ, Meretz, and Kahlon into one coalition, though it'd be just as remarkable if Netanyahu could both get Kahlon to join him and get Deri and Yishai to play nice together. Grand coalition of Likud, Zionist Union, Kahlon and Lapid seems most likely at this point, but even that seems improbable.

[Donerail]

Bibi has cut a last-minute campaign ad featuring Chuck Norris.

[Donerail]

So the question now seems to be, does Netanyahu want to just deal with Labor & Kulanu, or does he want to try to manage Bennett, Lieberman, Kahlon, and the ultra-Orthodox? The latter makes more sense, but I can't imagine it'll be pleasant given how he seemed to try to cannibalize Bennett's seats for the sake of padding his own margins.