Photo: Ballots papers of Israeli legislative election. Laliv g via Creative Commons, 2010; cropped. CC BY-SA 4.0.
On September 17, Israelis went to the polls for the second time this year – just five months after national elections in April ended in a stalemate. What happened in this “round two” of elections, and what do the results mean for Israel's future?
Wednesday, October 23, 20195:30 PM - 7:00 PMBunche Hall, Room 6275
Panel Discussion
An expert panel will analyze the most recent national elections in Israel and address a range of issues, based on the results, including:
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's survival politically and legally; • the reemergence of the religious-secular divide as a central elections issue; • possible annexation of the West Bank; • Arab voters role in the election and the marginalization of the Arab parties; • the future of left and center-left parties, particularly the survival of the Labor Party and long-term prospects of the Blue & White party.
Background
In the April election, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud political party tied with his primary rival, Cahol Lavan (Blue & White), each winning 35 seats in the 120-seat Knesset (Israel’s parliament). Netanyahu was given the first opportunity by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin to try to form a governing coalition with smaller right-wing parties, in order to reach the majority threshold of 61 parliamentary seats – but Netanyahu did not succeed. Rather than give the leaders of Cahol Lavan their chance, as is customary, to form a governing coalition (of center and left-wing parties), Netanyahu dissolved the parliament and called for new elections.
Israel's Sept. 17 "do-over election" led to inconclusive results. Israel's President encouraged Netanyahu and his political rival, Blue & White party head Benny Gantz, to form a unity government. As of early October, however, there was no agreement on a coalition. Netanyahu remains under a pending corruption indictment and is facing a leadership challenge from Likud rising star Gideon Saar, a former senior Cabinet Minister.
It’s believed that Netanyahu’s call for new elections was motivated, at least in part, to gain a stronger right-wing coalition that would pass legislation protecting him from prosecution while in office.
About the Speakers
Shaiel Ben-Ephraim is a Visiting Lecturer with the Y&S Nazarian Center for Fall 2019, teaching "U.S.-Israel Relations: Anatomy of a Special Relationship" in the Department of Political Science. He received his PhD in Military and Strategic Studies at the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary in 2017. His research interests include U.S.-Israeli relations and the foreign policy of both states, Israeli settlement policy and strategic studies. Ben-Ephraim holds an MA in International Relations and BA in International Relations and History from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Ben-Ephraim is currently working on a book on the role of settlements in U.S.-Israeli relations (based on his PhD dissertation) and article on U.S. alliance policy in the Middle East. He has published a number of articles, most recently “'Therefore They Shouldn't Exist': The Carter Administration, the 'Israel Lobby' and the Sinai Settlements” (International History Review, Jan 2019). He is also a regular columnist on Israeli politics in the Asia Times.
Eran Kaplan is the Rhoda and Richard Goldman Chair in Israel Studies in the Department of Middle East and Islamic Studies at San Francisco State University (SFSU). He received his B.A. (magna cum laude) from Tel Aviv University and his PhD in Modern Jewish History from Brandeis University. Before coming to San Francisco, he taught at Princeton, Cincinnati and Toronto.
He is the author of The Jewish Radical Right: Revisionist Zionism and its Ideological Legacy and of The Origins Of Israel: A Documentary History with Derek Penslar (both published by the University of Wisconsin Press). Most recently, he authored Beyond Post-Zionism, published in 2016 by SUNY Press. In addition to his scholarly publications, he has contributed articles to Haaretz and Tikkun. At SFSU, Professor Kaplan teaches courses on Modern Israel, the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israeli Cinema, Modern Hebrew Culture and on the History of Jerusalem.
Liron Lavi is a Research Fellow at the Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies whose work explores political communication; elections and democracy; Israeli politics; philosophy of time; and national identity. Her current research focuses on the recent 2015 and 2019 Israeli elections and the 2016 U.S. elections as she investigates new media's impacts on democracy and its legitimacy.
Lavi has published several articles, including "Voter Election Frames: What Were the Elections About?" and "Making Time for National Identity", in the journals Political Studies and Nations and Nationalism, among others. She received her PhD in Political Science in 2017 from Tel-Aviv University, where she studied the role of time in elections and democracy in Israel, and received the Best Dissertation Award from the Israeli Political Science Association in 2018.
Roy Peled is an Administrative and Constitutional Law professor at the Haim Striks School of Law, College of Management – Academic Studies in Israel. Professor Peled received a Ph.D from the Buchman Law Faculty at Tel Aviv University and spent two years as an Associate in Law at Columbia Law School. His research and teaching today focus on media and law, fairness in the media, minority rights, Israeli constitutional law, and comparative constitutional law.
Professor Peled is the Israel Institute Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley for 2019-2020, affiliated with the Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies and the Department of Legal Studies. He is teaching "Minority Rights in a Nation-State: The Israeli Balance" and "Comparative Constitutional Law: The Case of Israel".
Sponsor(s): Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies