By Sammy Benoit
If you listened to the US news to hear results for the Israeli Elections....throw that all out of the window.
If you listened to the US news to hear results for the Israeli Elections....throw that all out of the window.
They are totally wrong. Tzipi Livni did not win the Israeli Election---Yet. Neither has Netenyahu. Israeli Politics is much more complicated than that. Once the election ends the campaigning first starts.
As of this morning with a little more than 99% of the votes been counted, the results look like this.
Party | ("Left"/"Right") | Seats |
Kadima (Livni) | "Left Wing" | 28 |
Likud (Netenyahu) | "Right Wing" | 27 |
Yisrael Beiteinu (Lieberman) | "Right Wing" | 15 |
Labor (Barak) | "Left Wing" | 13 |
Shas | "Right Wing" | 11 |
United Torah Judaism | "Right Wing" | 5 |
Ichud Leumi (National Union) | "Right Wing" | 4 |
Meretz | "Left Wing" | 3 |
Hadash (Arab/Jewish party) | "Left Wing" | 4 |
Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) | "Right Wing" | 3 |
Ra'am Ta'al (Arab party) | "Left Wing" | 4 |
Balad (Arab party) | "Left Wing" | 3 |
Total "Right Wing" | 65 | |
Total "Left Wing" | 55 |
Notice I labeled some parties "Right or Left Wing." That is really a misnomer. If you lived in Israel you would most likely call Kadima, Labor, Likud and even some of the smaller parties centrist. Most of the parties in Israel support some degree of territorial compromise.
Right now one seat separates Netanyahu from Livni. The last votes to be counted are the military votes, they tend to be more "right wing". In the end this may lead to an extra Knesset seat for Netanyahu, leaving the two largest parties tied. Wasn't Bibi supposed to be a clear winner? Netanyau's seat count has been pretty stable for two weeks. While Bibi's support stood still, Labor's plummeted. Probably because labor voters knew that their guy, Ehud Barak had no chance and wanted to make sure Netanyahu would not be the next PM. They changed parties at the last miniature going for Tzipi Livni enabling her to barely leap frog over Bibi.
Who Will Be The Next Prime Minister? If you want to know that you have to Click Here and read the rest of the article.