Politics during the elections often turns into a real fair and festival of promises. We have all seen very poor quality of election spots, exceptionally unsuccessful billboards, as well as promises based on sci-fi books. However, there is a country where the election campaign leads to tragic events.
The Knesset (Israeli parliament) rarely survives the end of its term. This is due to quite high political fragmentation and a low electoral threshold (3.25%). There are 10 parties in the current 120-person Knseset. Effect? In the Knesset, it never happened that one party reached a parliamentary majority. A political party that wins elections must always enter into coalitions and often with many parties. Each of them has its own postulates and views, which often leads to a conflict within the grouping and, consequently, the dissolution of the coalition.
It was the same with the current government. A right-wing coalition composed of the Likud (Union) party, Jahadut Ha-Tor (Torah Party), Ha-Bajit Ha-Jehudi (Jewish House), Szas (Sephardic Party of Torah Guardians) and Kulan (We all) fell apart. This was due to the party of Jisra’el Betenu, (Our Home Israel), who joined the coalition in 2016 and left it in 2018. The main reason for the disagreement was signing an agreement with the Palestinians after the biggest clashes since 2014. Avigdor Lieberman, the head of Jisra’el Beten, could not accept it. He is in a group of politicians who do not accept any compromise on the Palestinian issue.
