With voting concluded in Israel’s January 22 election, projections indicate that both the incoming Israeli government and the likely opposition will be led by parties that endorse a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As predicted by almost all polling going back months, the results were divided between a center-right bloc anchored by the Likud-Beitenu slate of incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a similarly sized but fractured center-left. The three top parties clustered around the Israeli political center, with the center-right Likud-Beitenu winning 31 seats, the most of any party, and the center-left Labor party coming in third. The surprise of the night was a late surge by the new centrist Yesh Atid party, led by former journalist Yair Lapid, which secured a projected 19 seats and seems set to become Israel’s second-largest party. Coalition math dictates that the next government will almost certainly be led by Likud-Beitenu and will include Yesh Atid as the next-largest coalition partner. Foreign policy analysts and outlets, many of which had predicted a rightward lurch by an apathetic Israeli electorate, expressed surprise at the results and admitted to having misjudged the mood of the Israeli public.
[Photo: The Israel Project / Flickr]