Governing Coalition Emerges for Israel

Having just gone through an election cycle in the United States, Americans can sympathize with the predicament of the Israelis, who are amidst an election process. The situation in Israel is quite different and definitely more complicated than that of the United States.

First and foremost, Israel just had elections for their Knesset, the Israeli version of parliament, and prime minister.

Although Israel also has a president, elections for the aforementioned positions are very different from the type of elections in the United States.

Knesset and prime minster elections take place every four years and are conducted within a very short time period. In late December, the political parties that are officially recognized by the Central Elections Committee submit their lists of candidates. On Feb. 10, the elections were held.

In Israel, all parties that receive at-least two percent of the vote are given seats in the Knesset proportionate to the number of votes they received.

After the election results are officially released, the president of Israel meets with representatives of the parties elected to the Knesset and assigns the responsibility of forming a government to a Knesset member.

This Knesset member is usually the leader of the party with the largest Knesset representation or the head of the party that leads a coalition (that includes multiple parties) with more than 60 members.

Since the institution of these election rules, there has never been any party that has won an outright majority of 60 out of the 120 Knesset seats; so every government has been a coalition government consisting of multiple parties. The parties not included in the coalition government have constituted the opposition.

This past election cycle was no different for Israel. The centralist party, Kadima, led by Tzipi Livni, received 28 seats in the Knesset, the most of any party, closely followed by the right-wing Likud party led by Binyamin Netanyahu that won 27 seats.

Israeli President Shimon Peres was advised by Knesset member representatives to ask Likud party leader Binyamin Netanyahu to form the next coalition government, in turn making him the next Prime Minister of the nation.

Netanyahu was afforded this opportunity because he was able to lead a coalition of several parties.

This would not have been possible had the leftist Labor party led by Barak Ehut, which received a disappointing 13 seats in the Knesset, voted against joining the coalition government on March 25, 2009. They opposed the vote because Netanyahu would not have achieved the 60-member majority support required to form his coalition government.

Barak Ehut's agreement with Benjamin Netanyahu was met with adamant opposition by seven of the 13 members of the Labor party elected to the Knesset. Some members of the labor party, specifically Ophir Pines-Paz, even alleged that Ehut's deal with Benjamin Netanyahu would be throwing the Labor party into the "garbage bin of history."

The deal brokered between Labor and Likud had several provisions that would ascertain Labor's role in shaping Israeli, domestic, economic, and foreign policy.

Some of these provisions included Ehut retaining his position as defense minister, as well as the Labor party receiving four cabinet positions in the coalition government.

According to The New York Times, other provisions were that the coalition government would recognize and commit to all previous signed diplomatic and international agreements.

The coalition government would devise a comprehensive plan for peace in the Middle East, but did not necessarily agree to, or rule out, a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (a move the Labor party supports), and the government would work to reach peace accords with all of Israel's neighbors while preserving Israel's security and vital interests.

Although this agreement did split the Labor party into two different camps, with 680 of the 1,187 members of the Labor party voting for it and 507 voting against it, it also made sure that the new governing body of Israel would be somewhat balanced.

The election process in Israel is significantly different from that of the United States, but Americans can definitely empathize with the Israeli's desire for a change in direction during the next four years.

Israel, like the United States, has to deal with a deteriorating international image as well as a faltering economy.

Additionally, because Israel is so dependent on the support of Western powers (the EU and America), that the coalition government must also balance its desire to push through a hard-line right-wing agenda that includes not recognizing a Palestinian state, not withdrawing from Golan Heights, and not partitioning Jerusalem, with it's desire and need to help create peace in the Middle East.

There is no telling what will happen in the next four years in Israel, but one can only speculate forward-motion with the ushering in of a balanced coalition government.