opinion
Don’t Get Hysterical Over
Israel’s Election
BY MITCHELL BARD
N ew York Times columnist Thomas
Friedman has predictably described the
results of Israel’s Nov. 1 election in apocalyptic
terms. Of course, any government that does
not share his views is anathema. The same
goes for many other critics.

The doomsayers predicting the demise of
U.S.-Israel relations are crying wolf.

Israel demonstrated again that it has a
super-democracy that Americans and Jews
should be proud of. Instead of being limited
to choosing between two parties, Israelis
had a choice of 40, giving them a better
opportunity to be represented.

While his supporters crown Benjamin
Netanyahu king and the media interprets
the election outcome as a great victory for the
comeback senior, few analysts have noted that
only 23% of Israelis voted for him. Netanyahu is
unpopular, but he won because his rivals are even
less popular.

Netanyahu did not do well even by Likud stan-
dards, winning fewer seats than his predecessors.

His bloc picked up 64 seats, but this was no land-
slide either. Analyst Yossi Alpher has noted that the
incoming coalition received barely 30,000 more
votes than the outgoing one.

However, a win is a win, and Netanyahu will
hold power.

The election did show Israel’s continuing shift to
the right. This began with the failure of Oslo and
was cemented by the disengagement from Gaza.

Israelis have no interest in compromising with peo-
ple they view as a mortal threat, whether they are
radicalized Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, Hezbollah or
Iran. After decades of Palestinian intransigence, the
Palestinians’ rejection of multiple opportunities for
a state and incessant terror, it is unsurprising that
the “Palestinian issue” was a non-issue in the last
five elections and the left has become irrelevant.

The dovish once-dominant Labor Party won just
four seats and Meretz none.

The most disturbing result for many Jews was
the success of the far-right Religious Zionist Party.

It was embraced by only 10% of the electorate, but
still became the third-largest party in the Knesset.

Though it has been taken for granted that party
leaders Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich will
be given ministries and wreak havoc on Israel’s
democracy, Netanyahu has already signaled that he
will not let them dictate policy. Theoretically, they
12 NOVEMBER 17, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
could threaten to bring down the coalition, but that
would mean giving up their newly-won influence.

It is also possible that Benny Gantz will decide it is
better to be in the government, keep Ben-Gvir and
Smotrich out and give Netanyahu an opportunity to
avoid the headaches they would cause.

However, the main reason not to get hysterical is
that Netanyahu is a known quantity. He will con-
duct himself as he has in the past.

Netanyahu has successfully steered the econ-
omy, kept Israel out of war (though he wanted to
attack Iran) and is familiar to world leaders. He
will have to make the usual concessions to the reli-
gious parties on the budget, education, the draft,
the Western Wall and Shabbat, but his domestic
approach to security will not change dramatically,
no matter what Ben-Gvir and Smotrich want. His
first, second and third priorities remain Iran. The
only question is whether he can convince the
defense establishment to pull the trigger if Iran
gets closer to building a nuclear weapon and the
United States fails to act.

Without U.S. approval, which Israel is unlikely
to get, an attack on Iran would upset the Biden
administration, but the intensity of its ire would
depend on the success of the operation and Iran’s
reaction. Remember, President Ronald Reagan was
furious over Israel’s attack on Iraq’s nuclear reactor,
but the relationship survived and America’s security
was enhanced.

Unlike the hostility that marred relations during
President Barack Obama’s presidency, Joe Biden
and Netanyahu have gotten along in the past and
understand where they disagree. In his congratu-
latory phone call to Netanyahu, Biden “reaffirmed
the strength of the U.S.-Israel bilateral partnership,
based on a bedrock of shared democratic
values and mutual interests, and underscored
his unwavering support for Israel’s security.”
Biden recognizes that the peace process
with the Palestinians is moribund and hasn’t
wasted time or political capital on it. The focus
will be on expanding the Abraham Accords.

This is Netanyahu’s priority after helping to
drive the normalization of ties with Bahrain
and the United Arab Emirates. Though it is
still a long shot given the current state of U.S.-
Saudi relations, the hope is that the Saudis
will join the Accords. We know Netanyahu
met secretly with Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman in 2020, and they share concerns
about Iranian ambitions.

Congress will also remain solidly behind
Israel. With Republicans likely to control the
House, Israel can count on continued mili-
tary assistance and greater scrutiny of aid for the
Palestinians. The Senate will remain reliable no
matter who has the majority. Neither party wants to
alienate pro-Israel voters as they gear up for 2024.

Inevitably, there will be disagreements over set-
tlements, Israel-China relations and policies toward
the Palestinians, but none are new or consequen-
tial enough to weaken the relationship.

Most American Jews are not going to turn on
Israel. The same disputes over pluralism will remain,
but the outgoing government did not resolve them
either, despite its pledge to do so.

If the Religious Zionists are in the government,
their rhetoric will cause tsouris, but it will not cause
American campuses to grow more anti-Israel than
they already are. Israel didn’t get any credit for hav-
ing an Islamist Arab party in the last government
and can do nothing to assuage the hostility of its
detractors on and off campus. Israel’s existence, not
its policies, is the root of their hatred.

If the new Israeli government adopts policies
that are viewed as anti-democratic, it will be just
one more thing to kvetch about. Elections have
consequences, and if you don’t like the results,
make aliyah and participate in the political process
rather than throw bricks from afar.

Some American Jews will always focus on its
flaws, but true lovers of Israel, unlike the Thomas
Friedmans of the world, do not turn on the country
because they have disagreements. JE
Mitchell Bard is a foreign policy analyst and an
authority on U.S.-Israel relations who has written and
edited 22 books, including “The Arab Lobby, Death to
the Infidels: Radical Islam’s War Against the Jews” and
“After Anatevka: Tevye in Palestine.”