Why younger Israelis lean more right-wing

Here's an article explaining why younger generations of Israelis are supporting conservatives more than in countries like the US and/or UK:

According to the 2018 Israeli Democracy Index (an annual study by the Israeli Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan Israeli think tank), approximately 64 percent of Israeli Jews aged 18-34 identify as right wing, compared to 47 percent of those 35 and older. An Israeli Democracy Institute survey conducted just one week before Tuesday’s election likewise found a direct correlation between age and support for Prime Minister Netanyahu: 65 percent of Israeli Jews aged 18-24, and 53 percent of those 25-34, favored Netanyahu winning re-election, while 17 percent and 33 percent, respectively, preferred his more centrist rival, Benny Gantz.

“There are young people who like Netanyahu’s ideology,” Eli Hazan, a Likud campaign spokesman, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “They see the diplomatic achievements of Netanyahu and believe in him. Those are the facts and that’s the reality.”

[...] The trend might have to do with the events that shaped their formative years. An 18-year-old Israeli wasn’t alive during the heyday of the peace process in the 1990s, nor when the Israeli left last won an election, in 1999.

Young Israelis grew up during the second intifada, which saw hundreds of Israelis killed in suicide bombings. The aftermath of the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, which occurred when this group was between 4 to 20 years old, has led many young Jewish Israelis to resent any leader who is willing to cede any more land currently under Israeli control. Since some of this group has served in the army, successive wars in Gaza have only hardened that perception.

“They were born after the Oslo process started, they were exposed to the bloodshed during the second intifada, they are coming right after military service,” Hermann told JTA.

Hazan, the Likud spokesman, said that “people who grew up in the middle of the Al-Aqsa intifada don’t trust the Palestinians, don’t believe in peace. They really want there to be peace, but there is no partner.”

For younger religious Zionist voters in particular, the disengagement, which displaced some 8,000 Jewish settlers, “was considered an absolutely devastating moment that they’ve vowed never to return to,” Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli political analyst and a public opinion expert, told JTA.

“The general narrative is, we gave up this land, they sent rockets in return,” Scheindlin said. “The national religious have considered it a national trauma ever since then.”

[...] Right-wing parties have also attracted young voters because they prefer the same platform: social media. Netanyahu, who is famously averse to speaking with the Israeli press, is most comfortable tweeting and posting videos to Facebook. Those happen to also be networks popular with young Israelis.

And there you have it. These are some of the most valid reasons anybody in Israel today prefers the right to the left.

Netanyahu wins his 5th electoral victory

97 percent of votes have been counted so far, and while the Likud and the Blue & White party are tied at 35, the right-wing has a majority, ensuring Benjamin Netanyahu his 5th term as prime minister, and 4th consecutive one since a decade ago:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clinched a clear victory early Wednesday morning in Israel’s general elections.

With some 97 percent of votes in Tuesday’s contest counted, his Likud party was tied with Blue and White, but his right-wing/ultra-Orthodox bloc held a decisive lead and Netanyahu was thus safely en route to forming a majority governing coalition.

With more than four million votes counted as of 9 a.m., Likud had snagged 26.27% of the vote, or 35 seats in the 120-seat legislature — the party’s best result since the 2003 election (when it won 38 seats under Ariel Sharon), and its best under Netanyahu.

Likud’s main rival in the election, the Blue and White party led by Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, won 25.94% of the vote, which would also give it 35 seats, but had insufficient support from other parties to prevent Netanyahu staying in power for what will be a fifth term.

The left-wing is 10 seats behind, and since there's even leftists who don't want to work with the Arabic parties (though they may not be willing to join a coalition regardless), that's one more reason why Gantz won't be able to form a government. Besides, most importantly, he's never served in public office before, and so, he's untested and thus unreliable.

Maybe most interesting about this election is the Labor party's plummeting to a single digit, their lowest number to date:

The historically dominant Labor Party crashed to sixth place with 4.46% (six seats), the party’s worst showing in its 71-year history.

Yep, and a lot of leftists abandoned them for the sake of Gantz's pretentious cobbling together of a political faction with Yair Lapid, himself a crummy politician, who's since suggested he's not really opposed to the Haredi parties, as he too actually hoped to court them.

On the right side of the spectrum, Naftali Bennett's "New Right" failed so far to win any Knesset seats:

In a shock development, the New Right party, led by Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, appeared to have failed to cross the electoral threshold of 3.25%, garnering just 3.14% of the vote, thought it held out hopes that soldiers’ votes could lift it above the threshold; those final votes should be tallied by early Thursday morning.

I get the feeling he alienated some voters with his dreadful campaigning, and splitting from Union of Right-wing Parties obviously didn't help. He honestly struck me at times as a very fishy character, and so, if his career in politics is over, who knows? He may have asked for it. He may have had good intentions, but he sure didn't know how to convey them well, and his approach may have even alienated some Haredi voters who decided to just vote for the 2 Haredi-led parties as well as Likud, as they'd be the safe choices.

So anyway, this is relieving news, and now, we'll see if Netanyahu keeps his promise of seeing to it Judea/Samaria are given valid status they deserve.

Update: here's a columnist at Israel HaYom summing up that Labor's fiasco is chairman Avi Gabbay's fault.

Election results are hopefully better in some ways, if not all

I'd voted early in the morning, then waited all day long for the results of the Israeli election, realizing it may not turn out well. But now, here come the results as reported on Bloomberg, and while Benny Gantz's party may have more according to these exit pollings, the Likud does seem to have a majority coalition available.

Well I sure hope this is about what's estimated. It doesn't look like Gantz and Yair Lapid will be able to form a coaltion. It most certainly does, however, look like the Labor party did terribly, brought down to a single digit of 8 or 9 seats. Here's more on INN about Channel 13's results:

An exit poll published by Channel 13 News showed the Likud and Blue and White parties tied at 36 seats while the right-wing bloc won 66 seats in total.

According to the poll, the Labor, Shas, Hadash-Ta'al and United Torah Judaism parties would each receive seven Knesset seats, while the United Right, New Right, Kulanu, Meretz, and Yisrael Beiteinu parties would receive four seats each.

The results on the different channels are conflicting, however. But if this is any indication, the results are a relief for the most part.

Update: the Kulanu and Shas parties will give their recommendations to the president that Netanyahu form the next government.