By Imtans shehadah

Security crises and war situations usually lead to the rearrangement of the political and party system in Israel. The 1967 war and its results were the beginning of the emergence of far-right parties in Israel, the strengthening of the discourse of the religious Zionist movement, and the increase of its strength and political and social presence. The 1973 war was the beginning of the end of the Labor Party in the 1977 elections, and the beginning of a change in the party system in Israel. The first and second intifadas also played important roles in partisan and political changes, and in changes in the political positions of Israeli society.

The war on Gaza...a political turning point

It is expected, according to all estimates, that the current war on Gaza will constitute a serious turning point in the political and partisan system in Israel, and push towards a change in the political positions and convictions of Israeli society. It can be said that it will be an impetus for rearranging the partisan and political scene in general in Israel, for many reasons. The most prominent of these reasons is that this war is unlike its predecessors in Israel in terms of military and security aspects, and reflects a major security failure of all security services and the government. The human losses so far are very large, especially the civilian losses on the home front, and the financial and material losses. This war fragmented the Israeli military doctrine and struck the security and political strategy that had been in place towards Gaza and the West Bank for two decades to the core.

This war is unlike its predecessors in Israel, and reflects a major security failure of all security services and the government

This war, existential in Israeli terms, came to make clear that no matter how much Israel ignores the natural rights of the Palestinian people, denies their right to self-determination, and prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state, it cannot abolish this right nor prevent the Palestinian people from struggling for that, no matter how much it uses tools for managing or reducing conflict. Thus, the Palestinian issue will return to being a main focus in the Israeli political scene after being almost completely ignored in the last two decades.

This war also came after nearly a year of internal rifts and protests in Israeli society over the government plan to restrict the judiciary, the erosion of the “Jewish democracy” equation from the perspective of liberal secular Zionist movements, and the attempt to weaken the judiciary, which demonstrated the depth and reality of the political and social rifts within Israeli society. It brought back to the forefront the rift between secular and religious trends, the rift between Jews of Western origins and Jews of Eastern origins, and class rifts. All of them came together in the government plan to restrict the judiciary, ostensibly, because it reflected a real struggle over the nature of the political, social, and economic system in Israeli society.

All of this means that there is a necessary need, from an Israeli perspective, to put forward political projects that are compatible with the re-evaluation of the military strategic situation and how to deal with the Palestinian issue, on the one hand, and to deal with the projections of the government plan to restrict the judiciary and the deep rifts within Israeli society, on the other hand. Nor can we ignore the need to deal with the economic crisis that will befall Israel after the end of the war. These factors together have defined the political rifts in Israel in recent decades.

Since 2009, the Likud Party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Likud Camp have become a dominant camp in the political system in Israel, after decades in which the Labor Party and the Likud Party shared control of the party system in Israel. In this sense, there was no possibility of forming a government in Israel that was not headed by Likud and Netanyahu, except for a very short period between 2021 and 2022.

This reflects the dominance of right-wing security, political, economic and social values and positions in Israeli society. Rather, these values and positions turned into the lowest ceiling for any political proposal, thus paving the way for the extreme right’s control of the political and party scene in Israel. The proposals of the traditional Zionist left were almost completely absent and the parties that represented it, such as the Labor Party and the Meretz Party, disappeared. Instead, center-right parties grew, whose political projects and proposals did not differ much from those of the traditional Likud Party, but they opposed Netanyahu personally and refused to join an alliance led by him, such as the “There is a Future” party led by Yair Lapid, and the “National Camp” party led by Benny Gantz, who finally joined the war government led by Netanyahu.

The failure and prolongation of the Gaza war, and the human and material losses, will have a significant impact on the standing of Likud and Netanyahu directly.

The great failure and the current war on Gaza, and the expectations that the war will be prolonged and the human and material losses will increase, not to mention the losses in the medium and long term, including the possibility of a decline in Israel’s international standing and perhaps strengthening the economic, academic and other boycott campaigns, will all have a major impact on the standing of the Likud Party and Netanyahu directly and immediately. 

Netanyahu was accused from the first moment of being responsible for the major failure and its consequences, and that he neglected the warnings of the military establishment and focused only on the plan to restrict the judiciary and worked to save himself from the criminal courts, fragmenting Israeli society and weakening security and military capabilities. There is almost consensus among political analysts and political leaders that the end of Netanyahu's political career will come directly with the end of the war. Rather, there are those who demand that this be done immediately by withholding personal confidence from Netanyahu and forming a new government, even if that was during the war and in an exceptional and unprecedented manner in the history of Israel.

The end of Netanyahu's political career means the end of Likud's control over legislative and executive power. But it also means great harm to the far-right parties that are partners in the current government, which are accused, along with Netanyahu, of contributing to the major military failure, of being unable to manage the civil and economic aspects of the war, and of being prepared to burn the region in order to achieve their political desires. In this sense, the war on Gaza will lead to a decline in the status and strength of the right-wing and extremist parties that are partners in the existing government coalition.

Rearranging the party scene

Netanyahu's political end will open the door to competition for the leadership of the right-wing camp, and may provide an opportunity for the return of right-wing figures who left the Likud Party due to Netanyahu's presence, or to build new alliances between right-wing parties, or to establish new right-wing parties, and for the return of right-wing political figures who have retired from politics, even temporarily, to the forefront. Like former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. It will also strengthen the position of the “General Camp” party headed by Gantz, and to a lesser extent the “There is a Future” party headed by Lapid.

Netanyahu's political demise will open the door to competition to lead the right-wing camp, and may provide an opportunity for the return of right-wing figures who left the Likud Party.

The decline in the status of Likud in particular and the far-right parties in general will not lead to the emergence of new left-wing Zionist parties or the strengthening of the presentation of left-wing projects. Rather, it may lead, despite what happened and the failure of the complete right-wing government, to an expansion of the spread of right-wing values in Israeli society.

The great failure and war on Gaza will lead, as previous military failures or successes have led, to rearranging the political scene and the party system in Israel. Despite the responsibility of the right-wing government for the great failure and war, and its results, it will lead to the strengthening of the values and positions of the right in Israeli society, to the emergence of new parties carrying the projects of the traditional right, and to the shift of the parties of the center right, and Israeli society in general, to the values and positions of the traditional right.