Netanyahu was master in game of threatening

   The elections for the 20th Israel Knesset, held on March 17, were a real rollercoaster ride for me, as for many Israelis.

   I spent the Election Day morning giving a crash course in Israeli elections to Nicolet High School Hebrew students. I pointed out that the Likud is the strongest party in Israel, and that its leader, current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, enjoys the largest base of supporters.

   However, I mentioned that Netanyahu had been publicly criticized for neglecting social issues such as the cost of living and housing prices, while trying to draw the Israeli public attention to Iran’s nuclear plan.

   I wrapped it up by presenting the final polls, taken three days earlier, giving Yitzhak Herzog and the Zionist Camp party a four seat lead over Netanyahu and the Likud, and I predicted a Herzog win.

   Later that evening, I followed the actual nightly counting of votes on the Israeli Elections Committee website, and could actually see the true and unpredictable results forming in front of me.

   By midnight I saw the reality to which people of Israel woke up — an astonishing win by Netanyahu, defeating Herzog by five seats and assuring him another term as the Israeli prime minister.

   I am now trying to explain to myself what happened here.

   It seems as though during the months prior to the election, many Likud voters were fed up with Netanyahu’s way of handling social issues, and shifted to other parties, a move which showed up on polls.

   But they were not shifting to the Labor party, which has once again failed to grow a leader to match Netanyahu.

   Forever trying to reinvent itself, the Labor party united with HaTnua’a of Zipi Livni, creating an awkward duo. When I was standing in front of a class at Nicolet High School, I found it really hard to sell this package.

   What was the idea behind this union other than the joint votes? Who is the leader? And what is this name about — HaMachane Hazioni (The Zionist Camp) — as if someone else isn’t? I could see why they were not so attractive to Likud drop-offs.

   Moreover, HaMachane HaZioni ran a negative campaign whose slogan was, “It’s us or him” — to which Netanyahu responded with, “It’s us or them,” putting the burden of proof on their narrow shoulders.

   Trying to scare the voters was actually playing in Netanyahu’s field, and in the last days of the campaign he proved that in the game of threatening he still is the master:

   During the last three days before the election, Netanyahu appeared on every news channel in Israel. But instead of his regular upbeat performance, he put on an apocalyptic, worried face, warning his viewers of what would happen if the other side — “The Left and the Arabs” — would win.

   On Election Day itself, he posted on his Facebook page something like, “The Arabs are voting in masses, you must vote now and prevent a Left and Arabs government.”

   It worked on both sides of the map but not equally. The Israeli Palestinians responded by a larger voting rate, but they didn’t vote for Herzog. On the other side, Likud drop-offs took his last call, came back home and secured his win.

   Netanyahu won another small but important victory. His coming-home-drop-offs came from his partners for the forming coalition.

   In his former government there were two parties — Yesh Atid (There is a Future) and HaBayit HaYehudi (Jewish Home) — and their combined number of seats equaled those of the Likud. They all even called themselves brothers for a while.

   In his nowadays-forming government, the largest candidate partner would only have a third of the seats of the Likud. This is a recipe for a more stable government where Netanyahu has a complete authority, and can execute his plan (which he hasn’t yet disclosed with the voters!).

   The person to watch is Moshe Kachlon, whose Kulanu party won 10 seats, and holds a promise from Netanyahu for becoming the next minister of treasury.

   An ex-Likud member, Kachlon earned his glory as the communications minister who broke the monopoly of the three Israeli cellular companies by opening the market for competition and dropping prices by 75 percent.

   As a future minister of treasury, Kachlon knows that the public expects him to tackle at least one monopoly — the banks, the food companies, etc. And he’d better do it if he wants to become what many expect him to be: the next Likud leader after Netanyahu.

   So this government may end up as much more social than its predecessor. And if not, there’s always Iran.

   Doron Zehavi is a computer software engineer and the husband of Amit Yaniv-Zehavi, the emissary from Israel to Milwaukee.