Results aren’t even official, but already nightmare 3rd election scenario looms
(Worthy News) – These are early days indeed to try to make sense of what government may emerge from the migraine-inducing complexity of Israel’s elections. We haven’t even gotten the final results yet. But the outcome everybody professes to want to avoid is already starting to loom in the distance.
Neither of the rival camp leaders, incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu and challenger Benny Gantz, has attracted the support of the majority of the 120 incoming Knesset members. Likud leader Netanyahu has now locked in the backing of the two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, and the Orthodox-nationalist Yamina. Blue and White head Gantz can assume that the two left-wing parties, Democratic Camp and Labor-Gesher, will side with him, and that the Arab Joint List will also work to try to prevent another Netanyahu term. Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman — a settlement-residing hawk from Netanyahu’s part of the spectrum when it comes to issues of security, but a secular Jew of a Blue and White mindset in his determination to confront ultra-Orthodox coercion — holds the balance of power between the blocs. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]