The Haaretz headline reads: the world is trying to understand who is Yair Lapid. As an Israeli who left the country just less than two years ago (temporarily) and is still obsessively checking Israeli news websites, I am supposed to be able to understand the election results and in particular the big surprise of these elections which is supposed to be the rise of the new centrist party “There is a Future” (Yesh Atid) headed by former television presenter Yair Lapid. I don’t feel I do.
The new party which received according to the results coming in now 19 seats over 14% of the votes. Especially coming from Tel-Aviv I should be familiar with Lapid’s electorate. In Tel Aviv Lapid gained over 18% of the votes, so it seems that I must have many acquaintances who voted for this party. Although parties with similar agendas have appeared in previous elections I am still curious who are those that voted for this party and whom did they vote for in the 2009 election? Well, probably many of them did not a right to vote at the time as the result of the soldiers votes indicate (16% for Yesh Atid), possibly many others did not vote claiming that they had no one to vote for or they are “not political” (this election saw voting rates higher than usual), possibly there are many ex-Likud (Netanyahu) voters who could not stomach his alignment with the ultra-right current Foreign Minister Liberman. This alignment proved a big mistake on Netanyahu’s part because the seats it gained are significantly less than the sums of seats both parties have in the current Knesset.The slogan that is being waved around now is “Carrying the burden equally”. This is code for lifting the exemption ultra-orthodox Jews have from the compulsory military service and for demanding civil service from the Palestinian population inside Israel. The main problem actually is that these communities are not fully incorporated in the work force and not necessarily out of their own choice. Therefore they do not have equal chances to improve their economic situation. Most of the few current initiatives that address this problem are private and pay discriminatory rates. It doesn’t seem that Yesh Atid cares much about this. They just like to complain that the secular middle class population is carrying the tax burden and regard themselves as a sectorial party just as the religious parties do.
It is unlikely that there will be a major change after this election: Netanyahu with 31 seats has the highest chance of forming a coalition and the current configurations available to him are either an ultra right settler and religious coalition similar to the outgoing one or a coalition leaning more towards the centre including Lapid’s party. Lapid has disgracefully rejected any attempt to form a coalition with centre and left wing parties, because this would only be possible with the Arab parties. It seems that the current policy of building settlements in the Occupied Territories and the lack of will to pursue a settlement with the Palestinians will continue with this government. In my view this is the heavy burden that Israelis should be concerned about.
Sharon Casson
Israel
Department of Philosophy
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