The MED This Week newsletter provides expert analysis and informed comments on the MENA region’s most significant issues and trends. Today we turn the spotlight on Israel, where citizens are again called to the polls, in an attempt to ensure stability to the next government and unravel the country’s political impasse.
On March 23, Israelis will vote for the fourth time in two years. According to the polls, however, this electoral round won’t reduce the deep fragmentation of the Knesset. The dissolution of the Israeli Parliament came after the coalition supporting the current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to agree on the country’s budget law, leading to another electoral campaign. Over the last months, the public debate has been focused almost exclusively on Netanyahu, with an increasingly polarized electorate over his corruption charges. After a year of deep grief due to Covid-19, the candidates have been campaigning during the worldly record vaccination drive, a personal flagship for the Prime Minister, whose Likud party leads the polls. Besides the surveys (which see the centrist party Yair Lapid in the second position), the new government will face several challenges both at the domestic and international level. Biden’s election has forced Israel to re-calibrate its strategic alliance with Washington, opening the way to new developments in many dossiers, such as the dialogue with the Palestinians and the security architecture of the Gulf.
Experts from the ISPI MED network react to the meaning of this election to Israel’s political future.
Three scenarios, the “same old story”
