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Has scored points with many Israelis with his Corona policy: Benjamin Netanyahu
Photo: Oded Balilty / AP
This Tuesday, Israel will vote for the fourth time in two years.
At least after polls, the election winner has already been determined: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been in office since 2009 and whose right-wing Likud party is predicted to have around a quarter of the 120 seats in parliament.
That would be a few fewer than in the previous three ballots.
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This time, however, the prime minister does not have to fear an equal competitor like the blue-white alliance led by ex-chief of staff Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid a year ago.
It fell apart shortly after the election because of Gantz's alliance with Netanyahu, which discredited him.
It is not certain whether the rest of the party will even make it into the Knesset.
The Israeli left has no prospect of success either.
Yair Lapid: In the footsteps of the father
Gantz's former ally Yair Lapid, on the other hand, has benefited from the breakup of the blue-white bloc.
According to all forecasts, his Yesh Atid party will be the second strongest force, roughly as it was after it was founded in the 2013 elections with 19 Knesset seats.
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Yair Lapid
Photo: Amir Cohen / REUTERS
The political career of the 57-year-old former journalist and TV presenter is reminiscent of that of his father and role model Josef ("Tommy") Lapid, who died in 2008.
After a long career as a journalist, the senior had also headed a liberal bourgeois party.
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Journalist, bon vivant - and secular out of conviction: Josef "Tommy" Lapid
Photo: SVEN NACKSTRAND / AFP
In 2003, Tommy Lapid helped the weak "Shinui" (change) with a radically secular election program to become the third strongest force with 15 seats.
Alongside the Likud and two national religious parties, it took part in a right-wing coalition that, for the first time in the country's history, did without the ultra-Orthodox lists.
But when it collapsed in 2006, Lapid Senior, then Minister of Justice, left politics.
After his first election victory in 2013, Yair Lapid's political career initially seemed to point in a similar direction.
After the election, the then political star announced that he would replace Netanyahu as prime minister in the next round of elections.
But then he became its finance minister, and when elections took place again in 2015, Yesh Atid lost almost half of the votes - in 2019, Lapid was already looking for allies.
In the struggle against Netanyahu's Likud, which was fought passionately with Benny Gantz, the blue-white alliance of the ruling party became more and more similar in programmatic terms.
Lapid even agreed to the peace plan of the former US President Donald Trump, which was coordinated with Netanyahu, even though he is at least principally committed to the two-state solution.
Lapid's initial sharp criticism of the ultra-orthodox also grew weaker.
It remained in the election campaign despite the general resentment about the undisciplined behavior of the Haredim in the pandemic.
Apparently, although Lapid, like his father, is almost a heretic among the orthodox, he wants to keep an option open in the event that Netanyahu fails to form a coalition capable of governing and Yesh Atid, who is likely to be the second strongest force, depends on cooperation with the Haredim would.
Gideon Saar: The conservative rebel
In his attacks against the prime minister in connection with his corruption process, Lapid only differed in volume from another Netanyahu challenger, the lawyer and Likud secessionist Gideon Saar.
Because party leader Netanyahu denied him a ministerial post after the 2020 election despite being number 5 on the list, Saar turned his back on Likud.
The 54-year-old's political start-up capital, self-portrayal as a rebel and a clean man, was quickly used up.
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Considered politically talented, but his chances of success are dwindling: Gideon Saar
Photo: AMIR COHEN / REUTERS
The downward trend - from 18 to the most recent forecast of nine seats - should be counteracted by clear profiling with a detailed election program and Saar's accompanying book "Talks on My Path".
Published rather late, they also showed that Saar's New Hope party hardly differs in many ways from the Likud.
The former education and interior minister Saar, who belonged to the right wing Likud, finally made it clear in January that his former mother party would remain a potential partner for him - without Netanyahu.
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The challenger is unmistakably close to this in important foreign policy positions:
Saar expressly rejects the two-state solution, which Netanyahu has declared to be no longer an option
And when Saar advocates "expanding normalization with Arab countries" and "realizing the security and economic potential" of the so-called Abraham Agreement (with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain), it almost sounds like one of those many statements by the Prime Minister this change in peace policy, which he is only too happy to record as his personal success
Naftali Bennett: The right tech politician
In the last phase of the election campaign, Naftali Bennett, leader of the Yamina party ("To the right"), also joined the ranks of the Netanyahu challengers.
The almost 49-year-old national religious software engineer and his secular companion Ayelet Shaked, who is four years his junior, began their political career a decade and a half ago as employees in Netanyahu's office and election campaign staff.
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Courting religious and secular Israelis: Naftali Bennett
Photo: MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP
They later joined the small settlers' party "Das Jüdisches Heim", which they soon led.
With twelve seats in 2013, Bennett caused the second sensation of the election alongside Yair Lapid.
And when the two high-flyers agreed to join Netanyahu's coalition only side by side, the premier grudgingly had to accept the condition.
Bennett was first Secretary of Commerce under Netanyahu and Minister of Education from 2015 to 2019.
As Minister of Justice, he and Ayelet Shaked successfully asserted the interests of the settler camp.
They caused a stir early on with their demand to annex the entire Israeli-occupied C-Zone in the West Bank.
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Learned from Benjamin Netanyahu: Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett
Photo: JACK GUEZ / AFP
And while Shaked was accused by the opposition of politicizing the judiciary, Bennett, to the annoyance of the seculars, allowed the influence of national religions to grow in the school system.
His career peaked in 2019 when Netanyahu entrusted him with the important post of Secretary of Defense.
However, after having entered the 2020 election with their own list and only won three seats, Bennett and Shaked were almost on the verge of political end.
Bennett, meanwhile, was able to regain popularity during the pandemic as a critic of Netanyahu's crisis management and in the pose of the caring politician.
However, when the government's vaccination campaign gained momentum, this course lost its effect: “No corona, uninteresting” was one of Bennett's election slogans.
He now supposedly wanted to turn to more important things and confidently announced that 15 seats would be enough for him to head a government coalition with Netanyahu opponents.
The premier's counter-attack followed promptly.
Netanyahu reminded of the former "fraternization" between Bennett and Lapid and warned of an impending "left government" of the two.
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Need each other to defeat Netanyahu: Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett
Photo: Baz Ratner / REUTERS
Bennett's polls sank to a low of nine possible seats, and he drew the conclusion: On Sunday he presented a written statement on television that he would not form a coalition with either Lapid or the small party Arab United List, with which Netanyahu had recently been on for a while Was a cuddle course.
Bennett asked the prime minister to do the same, whereupon he was accused by Likud secessionist Gideon Saar of not wanting to overthrow Netanyahu at all.
Such a scenario always seems realistic.
Especially since the right-wing extremist party "Religious Zionism", which Netanyahu sponsored in the final spurt of the election - which includes the anti-Arab "Jewish strength" - could succeed in entering the Knesset, according to recent surveys.
In order to form a government coalition, Netanyahu would have to get them on board.
Another shift to the right would be programmed.
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