Israel’s voting — is today Bibi’s last stand? (LIVE BLOG)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu casts his vote during Israel’s parliamentary elections in Jerusalem on March 17, 2015.
Israelis are voting today in what could be a very significant election. One of two things could happen: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be elected to a fourth term. Or he could be defeated. The latter could be transformative for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
In pre-election polls Netanyahu’s party trailed by several seats. And so, in an apparent act of desperation on the eve of the election, the prime minister reached for his conservative base, telling an Israeli news site that he doesn’t support the idea of a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu is the leader of Israel’s conservative party, Likud. Growing settlement activity, the brutal bombings of Gaza, and mounting tensions in Jerusalem have marked his time in office. So his statement is not that surprising and might very well be what he really believes. But it is a reversal of comments he made in 2009, just after being elected, when he said he supported a two-state solution.
The reversal is important. It means that with Netanyahu in power, peace in the Middle East would be a near impossibility. It’s something many analysts — and US President Barack Obama — have long suspected. Netanyahu has long frustrated Obama, who took office at the same time as the Israeli leader. There is near open hostility between the two of them, not least because Netanyahu continues to expand Israeli settlements.
But after today, Netanyahu could be out. And even more remarkably, there is a chance that for the first time in Israel’s history, a coalition of Arab political parties could gain significant power.
It's all going down now. Follow along.
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5 p.m. EST — Bibi declares victory on Twitter, but the coalition math is still complicated
We're still waiting for actual election results, but at least one person is already willing to call it based on the exit polling:
It's not that simple. Even if the exit polls are right and Likud ends up with 27 or 28 seats, Netanyahu will need to build a coalition of at least 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset to retain his premiership. That means striking a deal with several of the Knesset's smaller parties and their leaders — most likely with other right-wing parties, some of them right of Likud and therefore likely to pull Bibi further to the right. Based on his last-minute promise never to allow a Palestinian state under his watch and today's race-baiting warning about Israeli Arab voters, he seems ready to go there.
Now it's all about math and deal-making. Bibi seems to have an easier route getting to 61 through a right-wing coalition, but don't count out Herzog and the Zioninst Union. There's also a third option: a national unity government. That's the preferred option of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.
Much of it will come down to the decision of one man: Moshe Kahlon, a Likud defector and leader the new Kulana party. He has reportedly said Kulana will make it's decision about whom to back after final results come back.
4 p.m. EST — Exit polls show a really tight race. Bibi seems to have the edge
Israeli media are releasing their exit poll numbers now that polling stations have closed, and things look very, very tight, with Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party either tied at 27-27 seats with Isaac Herzog's center-left Zionist Union party or ahead by 28-26.
Netanyahu had polled four seats down in the final opinion polls before the election. So one thing looks sure: he closed the gap.
Results via the World News editor at Haaretz:
Haaretz made this handy chart.
3:15 p.m. EST — Israel's polls close in less than an hour, exit poll numbers coming up
Polls close in an hour. At 8 p.m. local time, with two hours before the close, turnout was pretty strong: 65.7 percent of the electorate compared to 63.9 percent at the same point in the election in 2013, according to Lahav Harvok of the Jerusalem Post.
Meanwhile, GlobalPost's Laura Dean reminds us that even though the 4.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank can't vote, they have opinions about who should govern the country that occupies them.
Not everyone wants to talk politics today, though — 86-year-old barber Hajj Waleed Halawa, for example.
1:30 p.m. EST — While Israel votes, Palestinians in the West Bank protest new settlements
You'll see a lot of photos today that look like this:
Meanwhile, Palestinians are protesting the planned construction of new Israeli settlements near the West Bank town of Abu Dis. So election day also looks like this:
12:40 p.m. EST — Uh oh, Netanyahu is now begging for Retweets
This is not the act of a man marching to victory:
12:15 p.m. EST — Bibi tries for last-minute speech, election commission shuts him down
Reporters from Reuters and Haaretz are tweeting that Netanyahu was planning to make a last-minute address to encourage supporters of his right-wing Likud party to go to the polls.
No dice, Bibi.
11:45 a.m. EST — What a loss for Netanyahu would mean for Israeli settlers
Israeli “settlements” — Israeli communities built in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights that are considered illegal by the international community — have thrived under Netanyahu.
Since he took office in 2009, the number of settlers in the West Bank grew from 290,000 to 385,000.
Laura Dean spoke to Dani Dayan, the former head and now chief foreign envoy of the Yesha Council, a settlers’ umbrella organization, to find out what will happen to settlers' political influence if Netnyahu and his right-wing Likud party lose power to the center-left.
11:30 a.m. EST — Watch Chuck Norris endorse Netanyahu
"I watched Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech before Congress," he says, "and I saw a man who loves his country with all his heart and soul. I also saw a strong leader that is absolutely crucial for the safety of the Israeli people."
Translation: Chuck Norris is really sad that Barack Obama is the President of the United States. Why can't he be more like Bibi?
11:15 a.m. EST — Netanyahu says "Arab voters are going to the polls in droves"
Whoa. The remark came in a video that Bibi posted to his Facebook page a few hours ago.
Haaretz translated it:
Jerusalem-based AP reporter Tia Goldenberg translated a tweet from Shelly Yacimovich, a member of the center-left Zionist Union alliance, that pretty much sums the whole thing up:
As Laura Dean explains, Israeli Arabs finally have a reason to get excited about an Israeli election. Most Palestinians have been forcibly removed from Israel, but they still make up 20 percent of the country's population. And though Arab political parties have never had much power, this election could change that.
Arab voters see promise in the recently founded Joint List, which brings together several Arab parties as well as the Arab-Jewish communist party.
Some observers think the Joint List could become the third or fourth largest party in the Knesset.
Looks like the Joint List is inspiring "droves" of Palestinians living in Israel.
Read more: For the first time ever, Arab parties in Israel are poised to become a real political power
10:45 a.m. EST — Laura Dean is in the West Bank
Follow the election with GlobalPost's senior Middle East correspondent, Laura Dean.
She spent the last several days in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. She'll be following the day's events from the West Bank, where Palestinians who can't vote are watching to see what the election will mean for their future.
Find Laura on Instagram and Twitter.
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