Israeli Elections February 2009

Summary: Israeli parliamentary elections held on February 9, 2008, resulted in a shift towards more conservative parties and the designation of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party to become the next prime minister. His party gained 15 seats in the Knesset, and now stands at 27 seats. The ruling Kadima Party led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni lost one seat, to 28. The conservative nationalist party Yisrael Beytenu of Avigdor Lieberman won 15 seats, up from 11, while the Labor Party of Defense Minister Ehud Barak slipped to fourth place with 13 seats, a loss of six. In the weeks following the voting Netanyahu won agreements by the Yisrael Beytenu and Labor parties--the number 3 and 4 vote-getters, respectively, to join a coalition government, assuring him of a majority of votes in the Knesset. The former governing party, Kadima, refused to join the coalition, principally because Netanyahu declined explicitly to endorse the "two-state solution," meaning establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza. This issue confronted President Barack Obama with an Israeli government skeptical about what his administration had declared to be at the heart of a Middle East peace agreement.

Israel held parliamentary elections on February 9, 2009, four months after Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of the ruling Kadima Party failed to assemble a ruling coalition (61 votes in the 120-member Knesset). Although Livni's party won 28 seats, one fewer than it had going into the election, the conservative Likud Party led by Benjamin Netanyahu made major gains, winning 27 seats, up from 12. The right-wing Jewish nationalist party Yisrael Beytenu gained four seats, to 15, while the left-center Labor Party led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak won 13 seats, a loss of six.

Eleven days after the election President Shimon Peres invited Netanyahu to form a new government. The invitation came after the former prime minister had already garnered support from 65 members of the new Knesset--excluding both Kadima and Labor, the main partners in the previous government. Netanyahu appealed for national unity, proposing a broad-based coalition, rather than the alternative of trying to govern with a more narrowly based right-wing government that might prove unstable in months to come. In the following weeks Kadima refused to join a coalition. In late March, the Labor Party held a contentious vote and agreed to join a coalition, with its leader Barak continuing as defense minister.

Most observers took the rise in the fortunes of Likud and Yisrael Beytenu as an indication that the Israeli electorate had taken a conservative turn. (See table below for specific results by party.)

The election was also viewed as a referendum on future peace talks with the Palestinian Authority on establishment of an independent Palestinian state--the "two state solution." Those negotiations had stalled before the parliamentary vote, partly because Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was embroiled in a personal financial scandal and partly because the Palestinian Hamas Party, in control of the Gaza Strip, had persisted in launching rockets against nearby Israeli settlements. In January 2009 Israel invaded Gaza, determined to halt the rocket attacks. One result was that national security became the paramount issue in the February elections. Some candidates, such as Yisrael Beytenu's Avigdor Lieberman, vowed to take a hard-line with the Palestinian Authority. Livni of the Kadima Party vowed to continue peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Netanyahu, also considered a relative hard-liner, refused explicitly to endorse the two-state solution after the elections, while at the same time trying to persuade both Kadima and Labor to join a government of national unity.

In Israel voters cast ballots for parties rather than for specific candidates. Before the voting each party assembles a list of people whom it will send to the Knesset; the number of people from each party list who actually serve is determined by their party's percentage of the overall vote. Unlike the American and British systems, members of the Knesset represent their party in a single nationwide constituency, rather than a geographical area. Each party that receives at least two percent of the votes is eligible for at least one seat.

Election Issues

When he appealed for support for a broad government of national unity, Netanyahu declared that Israel faced an "existential" threat in 2009 from the fundamentalist regime in Iran, which was developing nuclear weapons and the long-range rockets that could deliver them to Israel. The Iranian government was also a strong supporter of the hard-line Islamist Hamas Party in Gaza (as well as the similar Hezbollah Party in Lebanon). Israeli politicians also wondered about the implications of having a new president, Barack Obama, in Washington. The previous administration under George Bush had largely stood back from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict until its last year in office. The new administration publicly vowed to push forward with the "two state solution" and appointed a senior diplomat, George Mitchell, to help mediate between the Palestinian Authority and the government of Israel. Concern over the extent to which the new American administration might be inclined to lean on Israel to make concessions in exchange for a peace treaty with the Palestinian Authority--which might or might not be able to control the actions of Hamas in the Gaza Strip--was widely viewed as a background element in the parliamentary election that resulted in a rightward shift in the government.

Results. The results of the February 2009 elections, compared to the two previous Knessets (parties that won no seats in 2009 are not listed, even though they had seats in previous parliaments):

Note: Total number of seats may not add up to 120; the above lists exclude individuals.

About the parties. Political parties in Israel are divided along several main lines. Most parties are "Zionist," meaning they support the idea of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people; some primarily represent Arab citizens (roughly 20% of the population). Some parties are mostly secular in nature; some represent specific religious interests, mostly Orthodox Jews who may or may not be Zionists. Parties also divide along traditional left-right lines on economic matters. Finally, the issue of how best to deal with the issue of a Palestinian state--and specifically, such issues as whether to grant concessions to the Palestinian Authority on the exact borders separating Israel from a Palestinian state, the status of "illegal" Jewish settlements in the West Bank region, and whether to grant Palestinians some part of the city of Jerusalem for a capital--all in exchange for a peace treaty to end the long-running Palestinian resistance to Israel's very right to exist-- has long divided the main parties: Likud, Kadima, and Labor.

In brief:

Likud is a conservative Zionist party that first held power under Prime Minister Menachem Begin, a veteran of the 1940s-era Irgun terrorist organization that attacked British and Arab interests in the Palestine Mandate in order to achieve a Zionist (defined as a "homeland for the Jewish people") state. [Begin shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Egypt's President Anwar Sadat in 1978 for his role in signing a peace treaty 30 years after the founding of Israel.] Likud has traditionally advocated a hard line in negotiating with the Palestinian Authority.

Kadima, originally an offshoot of Likud formed by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the end of 2006 out of frustration with Likud's resistance to agree to concessions to the Palestinian Authority in exchange for a peace agreement. Kadima is generally considered a conservative-to-moderate party on economic issues. The inability of its new leader, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, to hold together the ruling coalition after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's resignation in September 2008 led to the elections of 2009, in which Kadima lost one seat.

Yisrael Beytenu, widely regarded as an extreme right-wing Zionist party whose outspoken founder-leader, Avigdor Lieberman, in 2009 advocated that all citizens--by which he primarily referred to Israeli Arabs--either take an oath of loyalty to the Jewish state or face losing the right to vote. The party scored a major gain in the 2009 election.

Labor. Long the ruling party in Israel, Labor is regarded as a center-left party. In 2009 it was led by former prime minister, and then defense minister, Ehud Barak, who led the invasion of Gaza in January 2009, signaling a tougher stance towards the Palestinian Hamas. Labor fell from third place to fourth in Knesset seats.

Shas. Led by Nissim Dahan, Shas is regarded as primarily focused on religious affairs and representing ultra-Orthodox Jews. Before 2009 it participated in the ruling coalition with Kadima.

Agudath Yisrael, Yakov Litzman, is a party of ultra-Orthodox Jews founded in Poland in 1912 and long opposed to Zionism. The party could be described as "religionist"--advocating rule by the clergy.

Hadash, acronym (in Hebrew) for Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, the Communist Party of Israel, led by Muhamed Barakeh, primarily represents Arabs. It opposes the principle of Zionism.

Balad (National Democratic Assembly), led by Azmi Bishara, is a left-leaning ("progressive") anti-Zionist party mostly representing Arabs.

Meretz, led by Haim Oron, is a left-wing, secular Zionist party, representing the idea that the Jewish people should have a homeland--but not necessarily one based on religion. It favors territorial concessions to Palestinians.

National Religious Party (NRP), led by Zevulun Orlev, is a religious Zionist party originally comprised of socialist Orthodox Jews who founded several collective farms (kibbutzim). Since the 1967 Six Day War the NRP moved significantly to the right and is now dominated by settlers in "occupied" territory. It advocates the idea of a "Greater Israel" that would encompass significant parts of the disputed West Bank. The NRP merged with the National Union (NU) in 2006, when the two ran as a single party and won 9 seats. NU had been a union of several smaller religious parties, among them the Yisrael Beitenyu which split apart to run independently after 2005. The National Religious Party and the National Union decided to merge in February of 2006.

Ra'am-Ta'al (United Arab List), led by Abdulmalik Dehamshe, is a part of Israeli Arabs. It is anti- Zionist and includes some Islamists.