As the results of the latest (fourth) election show, the situation has remained much as it was.īut something has changed now, nonetheless. Ideas, interests and ideologies have emerged or become more entrenched than before. Personalities have sought to express themselves and their views. Political parties have split and splintered. It was hoped that the introduction of a minimum threshold would improve the situation, but that does not appear to have been the case. Thus, anyone who feels they have a cause worth fighting for sets up a party and tries to garner support. This was the system that was used to elect delegates to the pre-State’s representative bodies, and so, although palpably unmanageable and inefficient, no government, once in power, has ever felt inclined to change it. Political gridlock is almost inherent in the nature of Israel’s electoral system, in which parties are elected on the basis of proportional representation rather than regional constituencies, thus making coalitions almost inevitable. During that period Israel has managed to weather the storm of the Covid 19 pandemic and the attack on its population by rockets fired from Gaza, but its ministries have been unable to take any positive action or initiate fresh policies because of the political stalemate and the inability (whether genuine or deliberate) to approve the budget. The cost to the country in political, financial and social terms has led to a downturn in general morale as well as in its international standing. But the coalition government he cobbled together did not last long, and so for the past three years Israel has had to go through another three general elections, in all of which we voted for rival parties and all of them resulting in political deadlock.
That election was won by Netanyahu and his party, despite all our efforts. We were determined to cast our votes in order to get rid of the party in power and especially the man at its head. About three years ago my husband and I rescheduled our flight back to Israel from London, at considerable financial and personal cost, because Netanyahu had called a snap general election.
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