Israeli General Election: April 9, 2019

[jaichind]

I am always surprised how Likud support always seems to hold up despite various Netanyahu scandals.

[jaichind]

I thought Gantz  going to join with Yesh Atid ?

[jaichind]

I assume Orly Levy  will go with Likud in any post-election scenario.

[jaichind]

Israel seems to have moved a lot to the right since independence, why?

My impression is that Ashkenazi Jews lean Left and Sephardi Jews lean Right and that over time relative size of Sephardi Jews population has been going up.   Also the Russian Jews that moved into Israel in the early 1990s also lean Right.

[jaichind]

Joint List has Split with Tibi announcing Taal is going to contest on its own. For the first Time under the new Threshold there are now going to be multiple Arab Lists running.
Also he says that he is not going to join any centre-left Government, which was never going to happen anyway.

Is there any risk that some of the split lists will be under the threshold?  Was that not the reason why there is a joint list in the first place ?

[jaichind]

So in the end will Hatnuah/Livni submit a list on their own? 

[jaichind]

When will the parties lock down surplus vote agreements ?

[jaichind]

Almost all the polls I read from Israel are in terms of seats and not vote share (I may be wrong about that.)  Why is this? Seems pretty annoying as it does tell you how close parties below the threshold are to getting seats.  Ideally polls should show both vote share and seats. 

[jaichind]

I totally get the logic of Netanyahu's maneuvers around Otzma and JH/NU but why does he have to be so open about it.  It seems him being so actively involved to get Otzma above the threshold will lose him moderate/centrist votes to Blue & White.  Is he not better off doing this behind the scenes in smoke filled rooms ?

[jaichind]

Ok.  So the Likud campaign, just like 2015, will be "A government without Netanyahu will be controlled by the Arab extremists" and the Left campaign will be "A government with Netanyahu will be controlled by Kahanist extremists"   

What is Blue and White take on all this?  Are they not for some sort of grand coalition with Likud ? What is their position on "Netanyahu letting in Kahanist" ?

[jaichind]

Different impossible trinities where you can have only at most 2 out of the 3

International economics: fixed foreign exchange rate, free capital movement, independent monetary policy

healthcare: Access, Cost, Quality

Distributed data store: Consistency, Availability, Partition tolerance

Israel: Jewish, Democratic, Open borders

[jaichind]

Hi, simple and armature question from me:   My understanding is that Arabs make up 20% of the Israel population.  If so then why are Arab parties only winning around 9%-11% of the vote?  Is it because not all Arabs are citizens (my understanding is that people in East Jerusalem can vote which I assume have to include that Arabs that live there)? Is it because Arab turn out a lower rates?  Perhaps Christian and Druze Arabs do not vote for the Arab parties?  If so why do they vote for?

I am asking because it seems to me if the Arab parties can get to around 20% of the seats they can pretty much cause political chaos by forcing constant grand coalitions since in such a situation I cannot see how Right-Religious or the Left-secular bloc every getting a majority without bringing in Arab parties into the government or buy them off.

[jaichind]

In the meantime I hope we still believe and support women...

I find the timing of these accusations (just like Kavanaugh and Fairfax) very disturbing.  Not saying they are not true but concerning nevertheless.  On the other hand the more more these things that take place the net impact of these last minute accusations will have less and less impact over time. 

[jaichind]

ALAN DERSHOWITZ PUBLISHES LETTER DEFENDING NETANYAHU

https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Alan-Dershowitz-publishes-open-letter-to-A-G-defending-Netanyahu-581888

[jaichind]

This poll has to be wrong...right? If Bibi indicted (I mean it's happened...) B&W gets 44 to Likuds 25. I mean their current numbers are in line with what everyone else is saying...



https://www.timesofisrael.com/indictment-announcement-is-an-election-game-changer-times-of-israel-poll-shows/

It seems weird that Netanyahu indictment would lead to a fall in support for Shas.  I would think it should push some Likud votes to Shas.  Most likely I just do not know what I am talking about.   

[jaichind]

Wow.  URWP seems to be gaining at the expense of Likud, I guess the main winner out of the Netanyahu indictment seems to be for now, NRWP.

[jaichind]

One thing I find interesting about Israeli politics is that it seems like Anglo progressives' politics map onto the left-Arab bloc much more smoothly than Anglo conservatives' politics to the right-Religious bloc. I'm having hard time trying to decide who to support. I can't vote for a corrupt party or an indicted leader given all my complaints about Justin Trudeau without being hypocritical. UTJ is also out because some of their Haredi policies really don't mesh well with Christianity.

I guess I would be a Kulanu-New Right swing voter right now. Would that be ridiculous in Israel or would it kind of make sense?

My political position tend to be Libertarian-Right-Nationalist.  So it is easy for me to back Zehut.  But it seems they will not cross the threshold. 

[jaichind]

Kan and Channel 13 poll

Kahol Lavan – 37
Likud – 29
Hayamin Hehadash – 7
Hadash-Ta'al – 7
United Torah Judaism – 7
Shas – 6
Labor – 6
Meretz – 6
Ra'am-Balad – 5
Union of Right-Wing Parties – 5
Kulanu – 5

61 seats for the center-left, as opposed to the right's 59.

[jaichind]

Panels poll for Walla:

Blue & White 36
Likud 31
Hadash-Ta'al 9
Labour 8
UTJ 7
URWP 7
New Right 6
Meretz 6
Kulanu 6
Shas 4

YB (2.8%), Gesher (2.7%), Zehut (2.6%), Balad-Ra'am (1.6%) and others below threshold

Right-religious 61
Center-left-coalitionable Arab 59

Is it me or are the Arab parties losing support relative to 2015.  Balad-Ra'am  at 1.6% and Hadash-Ta'a at 9 seats seems to indicate that they lost support since 2015 when compared to Joint List.  Where did those votes go or it this more about lower Arab turnout ?

[jaichind]

Looks like Zehut is past the threshold for a couple of polls now.  Assuming they make it in will they back a Right-Religious government  ?  I though the leader of Zehut is a rival of Netanyahu so will Zehut demand that Netanyahu goes as part of its condition to join up a Likud led Center-Religious government ?

[jaichind]

Very Interesting Poll by the Israel Democracy Institute about Voting behaviour by Age. Almost a complete reversal from the US and most of western Europe.



In addition to other quite interesting findings the Poll also found that 66.5% of Israeli jews (and 4% of Arabs lol) found Israels response to Gaza too lenient. So possibility that instead of the "gaza bump" in favor of Likud, Netanyahu might be punished instead.

full Article: https://www.timesofisrael.com/young-israelis-want-netanyahu-older-ones-gantz/

Different from USA and Western Europe but similar to Japan

Asahi monthly poll show the age gap for Abe Cabinet approval

Overall it is 43/38 for Jan 2019
 

Age 20-29 it is 48/27 for Jan 2019


Age 60-69 it is 33/51 for Jan 2019

 
This pattern has been around for several years now.  The youth back LDP-KP while ages 50-69 tends to lean opposition with middle age and 70+ voters tend to be in the middle

[jaichind]

What are the reasons for Japan's age based voting patterns?

I am not sure it is that relevant for this thread but the short answers are
1) Low unemployment due to low birth rate means youth are fairly satisfied with status quo
2) The older generations tend to have more personal connection to WWII and war guild.  This generation are not connected feel WWII and war guild is ancient history and as a result are more attracted by nationalism or at least patriotism.   

[jaichind]

Is election day still a holiday in Israel ?  When does poll close Tel Aviv time ?  I assume exit polls come out at the same time ?

[jaichind]

Any link to live results?  Any links to live stream of media coverage?

[jaichind]

I guess who has the upper hand in forming government really depends on who crosses the threshold and who does not.  With so many parties close in both direction I guess we will not know until well into the night.