In the United States, almost 3/4 of the population does not get a real chance to have their vote count. In the elections for President (held every four years) the results are determined by vote of the “electoral college” which means in essence that it is winner take all electoral votes by state. Generally, the vote in at least 40 of the 50 states are pre-determined long before election day making the votes of citizens in those states irrelevant. The same generally holds for the United States Senate. Races in the House races which are supposed to be more “representative” the districts are gerrymandered so that most of them are predetermined as well.
Israel has none of that. Everyone votes and everyone’s vote counts until the votes are distributed into Knesset seats by percentage. There are 120 seats in the Knesset, and 61 votes are needed both to pass legislation and to form a government. Votes are cast for parties and not for individuals (even though most people are primarily familiar with the individuals who are leaders of the parties) BUT there is a threshold (currently 3.25 percent) which translates into four Knesset seats and parties who do not reach the threshold get no seats. Voters who cast ballots for parties that do not get threshold do not get a second choice. Their votes are wasted and the seats distributed among the parties that made threshold.
Then it gets kind of quirky. Under Israeli law, the President (currently Isaac Herzog) is required (within seven days of the announcement of the election results) to hold formal meetings with the leaders of every party elected to the parliament (the Knesset) and to ask each leader which member of the Knesset they support to become the prime minister. The President then chooses the Knesset member who he thinks has the greatest combined support and the highest likelihood of successfully building a stable governing coalition and this candidate receives a 28-day window to negotiate coalition agreements and secure a parliamentary majority. Traditionally the President has chosen the leader of the party which gets the largest number of votes to get first chance to form a government but there is nothing mandating that by law.
This is where the smaller parties sometimes have an inordinate amount of influence on policy if their votes become necessary to allow a coalition to form with 61 votes. If the first party given the opportunity to form a government cannot create a governing coalition the President can then select the leader of a different party and give him (or her) 28 days to try. Ultimately if the new Knesset is too divided to agree on a prime minister new elections are held.
The Anti-Netanyahu block consists primarily of four parties with five potential leaders.
(picture from left to right of Yair Lapid, Gadi Eisenkot, Yair Golan, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman meeting at Lapid’s Tel Aviv home on September 26, 2026)
The anti-Netanyahu block consists of four parties led by Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennet, Avigdor Lieberman and Yair Golan. None of them (except for Eisenkot who is leading in all polls) nor Lapid (who was previously prime minister but has merged his party with Bennet) seem willing to agree that the candidate who gets the most votes should be the next prime minister. In fact, it appears that all five really still believe that they should be the next prime minister no matter who gets the most votes. This creates a somewhat unpredictable situation when the President (Herzog) meets with each of them and asks who they support. What happens if Eisenkot (as most polls suggest) gets the largest number of votes but Bennet, Liberman and Lapid come in with an agreement where one of them should become prime minister instead of Eisenkot whom they announce they will not support ? This is where the difference between direct democracy and the parliamentary system gets tricky.
Or what happens if the Netanyahu coalition gets 50 seats (as is expected in many polls) and the anti-Netanyahu coalition gets 55 seats and the Israeli Arab party gets 10 seats (as they had in the current Knesset) and a third party gets 5 seats but has policies that are unacceptable to 5 members of both blocks ?
One of the other upsetting possibilities is that there are small parties focused on unique issues that are important to different constituencies that might ultimately be attractive to voters who support either the pro or anti Netanyahu blocs but if they do not make threshold the votes cast for them are totally disregarded.
Personally – I have the following primary issues.
- I strongly believe that it is necessary to have an independent inquiry into the failures of the prior government that led to the October 7, 2023 massacre.
- I believe (from what I understand to be the situation) the education system needs to be revamped. Currently significantly more money per pupil goes to the Haredi (ultra-orthodox) school as (in my opinion) the payoff for their support of the Netanyahu coalition. Per student spending should be the same for all communities of Israelis including the Arab Israeli communities. There is also no core curriculum mandated for state funded schools. Consequently, Haredi schools (also still as payoff for their support of Netanyahu) are allowed to have schools that do not teach math, science, computer skills or basic government and civics. That has to stop. The Haredi should be allowed to send their children to schools that fail to prepare their children to hold jobs, but those schools should not get any public funds.
- I want the government to enforce all appropriate criminal laws and stop the violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and prosecute anyone responsible.
I really don’t know where any of those issues fit on a traditional left/right scale.
I recently posted a commentary on the (English Language) Times of Israel site that included the following as my most important goal/hope of the election. I want to be part of an Israel committed to the precepts laid out in its Declaration of Independence of May 1948 which promised to promote the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; “based on the precepts of liberty, justice, and peace taught by the Hebrew Prophets; that will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed, or sex; (that) will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education, and culture;”
please feel free to share this however you please and continue to let me know what you think by e-mail at adrchildlaw@hotmail.com