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Politics in Israel are based on parliamentary democracy.[1] ThePrime Minister of Israel is thehead of government and leader of amulti-party system.[2] Politics in Israel is dominated byZionist parties. They traditionally fall into three camps, the first two being the largest:Labor Zionism,revisionist Zionism, andreligious Zionism. There are also severalnon-ZionistOrthodox religious parties and non-Zionistsecularleft-wing groups, as well as non-Zionist andanti-ZionistIsraeli Arab parties.
During the1948 Palestine war (part of theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict and more widely theArab–Israeli conflict), theState of Israel wasformed in thePalestine region, thenunder British rule. Until the1977 Knesset election, Israel was ruled by successivecoalition governments led byMapai or the Mapai-dominatedAlignment. From 1967 to 1970, anational unity government included all of Israel's parties except for theCommunist Party of Israel's two factions. In 1968, theIsraeli Labor Party formed from three earlier left-leaning parties, but was defeated in the 1977 election byMenachem Begin's centre-to-right Revisionist ZionistLikud bloc[3] (then composed ofHerut, theLiberals and the smallerLa'am Party). The Likud formed a coalition with theNational Religious Party,Agudat Israel, and others. Menachem Begin was prime minister until 1983, when he resigned due to health reasons and was succeeded byYitzhak Shamir.
After the1984 elections had proved inconclusive with neither the Alignment nor Likud able to form a government, anational unity government was formed with a rotating prime ministership –Shimon Peres took the first two years, and was replaced by Shamir midway through the Knesset term. Although the1988 election produced another national unity government, Shamir was able to take the role alone. Peres made an abortive bid to form a left-wing government in 1990, but failed, leaving Shamir in power until 1992. Rabin became prime minister for the second time when he ledLabour to victory in the1992 election. After hisassassination on 4 November 1995, Peres took over as prime minister.
In the1996 Israeli general election–the first direct election of aprime minister in Israeli history–Likud leaderBenjamin Netanyahu won by a narrow margin, having sharply criticized the government's peace policies for failing to protect Israeli security. Netanyahu subsequently formed a predominantly right-wing coalition government publicly committed to pursuing the Oslo Accords, but with an emphasis on security first and reciprocity. His coalition included the Likud party, allied with theTzomet andGesher parties in a single list; three religious parties (Shas, theNational Religious Party, and theUnited Torah Judaism bloc); and two centrist parties,The Third Way andYisrael BaAliyah. The latter was the first significant party formed expressly to represent the interests of Israel's newRussian immigrants. The Gesher party withdrew from the coalition in January 1998 upon the resignation of its leader,David Levy, from the position ofForeign Minister.
On 27 May 1999,Ehud Barak fromOne Israel (an alliance of Labor,Meimad andGesher) was elected Prime Minister, and formed a coalition with theCentre Party (a new party with centrist views, led by former generalsYitzhak Mordechai andAmnon Lipkin-Shahak), the left-wingMeretz, Yisrael BaAliyah, the religious Shas and the National Religious Party. The coalition was committed to continuing negotiations; however, during the two years of the government's existence, most parties left the coalition, leaving Barak with a minority government of the Labor and the center party alone. Barak was forced to call forearly elections, the only prime ministerial elections not held alongside Knesset elections.
On 17 February 2001, elections resulted in a new "national unity" coalition government, led byAriel Sharon of the Likud, and including the Labor Party. This government fell when Labor pulled out, and new elections were held on 28 January 2003.
Based on theelection results, Sharon was able to form a right-wing government consisting of the Likud,Shinui, the National Religious Party and the National Union. The coalition focused on improving Israeli security through fighting against terror, along with combating economic depression. However, when Sharon decided on his2004 disengagement plan, which included evacuation of Israeli settlements in thePalestinian territories (particularly theGaza Strip), the National Union and National Religious Party withdrew from the coalition. Sharon's attempt to add the Haredi United Torah Judaism to the coalition drove Shinui out, and forced Sharon to bring the Labor Party back into his coalition.
Since not all Likud Knesset members supported Sharon's disengagement plan, he still lacked a clear majority in the Knesset. Apparently calculating that his personal popularity was greater than that of the party, Sharon pulled out of the Likud on 21 November 2005 and formed his own newKadima party. He was joined only days later by Shimon Peres, who pulled out of the Labor party to join Sharon in a bid for a new government. This represented a cataclysmic realignment in Israeli politics, with the former right and left joining in a new centrist party with strong support (unlike previous centrist parties in Israel, which lacked the popularity Kadima now seemed to enjoy).
On 4 January 2006, Prime Minister Sharon suffered a massive stroke and went into acoma, eventually dying in 2014.[4] DesignatedActing Prime MinisterEhud Olmert took power, becoming interim Prime Minister 100 days after Sharon's incapacitation. He did not become full Prime Minister due to elections being held in March and a new government being formed.
Following theMarch 2006 elections, which leftKadima as the largest party in the Knesset, Olmert became prime minister. He includedLabour, Shas andGil in a 67-seat coalition. In November 2006,Yisrael Beiteinu (11 seats) also joined the government, but departed from the coalition in January 2008. Faced with internal opposition due to mounting corruption charges, Olmert announced that he would not seek reelection in thenext elections held in February 2009.Tzipi Livni won theSeptember 2008 Kadima leadership elections, but failed to form a new coalition government.
On 31 March 2009 theKnesset approved the appointment of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, despite Kadima winning more seats than Netanyahu's Likud. The new government took office on 1 April 2009. Netanyahu was re-elected in 2013 after his party, nowLikud Yisrael Beiteinu, won the most seats inthat year's election. The new coalition included theYesh Atid,the Jewish Home andHatnuah parties, and excluded ultra-Orthodox parties. In2015, Netanyahu was re-elected for a third term, forming a coalition with the Jewish Home,Kulanu, Shas andUnited Torah Judaism.
Following theApril andSeptember 2019 elections, no party was able to amass a governing majority, leading to fresh elections. In2020, Netanyahu was able to form a government withBlue and White, Labor,Gesher, Shas, United Torah Judaism,Derekh Eretz and the Jewish Home.[5] The government dissolved in December, triggering fresh elections in2021.[6]
An agreement was made byNaftali Bennett andYair Lapid in early June 2021 to form a coalition government that would replace the long-standing government led by Netanyahu. On 13 June 2021, Knesset voted and approved the appointment of the new catch-all coalition government, and on the same day Bennett was sworn-in as the new prime minister of Israel. The government dissolved in June 2022, leading Lapid to serve as prime minister until the formation of a new government on 29 December 2022.
After the2022 Israeli legislative election, Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud formed a government with Shas, United Torah Judaism, theReligious Zionist Party,Otzma Yehudit andNoam. The government was sworn in on 29 December 2022.
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Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974, once joked that "in Israel, there are 3 million prime ministers".[7] The particular version ofproportional representation used, in which the whole country is a single constituency, encourages the formation of a large number of political parties,[8] many with very specialized platforms, and often advocating the tenets of particularinterest groups.[citation needed] The prevalence of similar seat totals among the largest parties[citation needed] means that the smaller parties can have strong influence disproportionate to their size. Due to their ability to act askingmakers, the smaller parties often use this status to block legislation or promote their own agenda, even contrary to the manifesto of the larger party in office.[9]
The 2013Freedom in the World annual survey and report by U.S.-basedFreedom House, which attempts to measure the degree of democracy and political freedom in every nation, ranked Israel as theMiddle East andNorth Africa's only free country.[10] (However, the organization's 2015 and 2016 reports also listedTunisia as free.)[11] TheEconomist Intelligence Unit rated Israel a "flawed democracy" in 2022.[12][needs update]
According toIlan Pappé, the division between left and right in Israeli politics is distinct from global norms. In Israel the term "left" or "Zionist left" primarily relates to attitudes toward the Arab–Israeli conflict, especially regarding Palestine. The leftist stance involves a willingness to compromise on territories occupied since the Six-Day War and a commitment to secular democratic values.[13]
Compared to other countries, the number of parties contesting Knesset elections is relatively high considering the population size. This has resulted in a fragmented legislature where smaller parties have representation in the Knesset and no party has the 60+ seat majority needed to form a Government on its own.
This system also allows fringe parties which hold views outside of the mainstream political and public consensus to have representation in the Knesset. Examples of these are theHaredi religious parties, parties that represent the national religious or limited agenda parties such asGil, which represented pensioners in the 2006 elections.
Israeli politics are subject to unique circumstances and often defy simple classification in terms of thepolitical spectrum. Groups are sometimes associated with the political left or right, especially in international circles, according to their stance on issues important to theArab–Israeli conflict.
On thepolitical right:
On thepolitical left:
Left-leaning politics are traditionally supported by Israel's academic, cultural, and business elites, as well as its security establishment.[14][15] Although left-leaning Israelis tend to be critical of thegovernment, they are not usuallyanti-Zionist.[16]
Thepolitical centre (represented in theKnesset byYesh Atid, and in the past represented by Kadima, Gil[17][18] and Kulanu) combines the Israeli right's lack of confidence in the value of negotiations with the Palestinians and the Arab states with the assertion of the Israeli left that Israel should reduce the Israeli presence in the areas of theWest Bank. As a result, the political centre supports unilateral actions such as theIsraeli West Bank barrier andIsrael's unilateral disengagement plan alongside the continuation of militaristic actions (such as theselective assassination policy) as a means of fighting against terrorism. Economically, the centre is liberal, supportseconomic liberalism, and has acapitalistic approach. Until recently, the political centre in the Knesset was relatively small—it never won more than 15 seats on average and centre parties tended to disintegrate within less than two terms (for example:Democratic Movement for Change, theCentre Party and Shinui). Other centre parties split up into factions which joined one or both of the two major parties, likeYachad (Ezer Weizman's party, which merged into theAlignment in 1987) andTelem (Moshe Dayan's party, which eventually split up between the Alignment and Likud). TheIndependent Liberals which had spit from the Liberals eventually merged into the Alignment.
Parties which do not identify themselves as political right or political left are also considered to be centre parties. For example:The Greens,[citation needed] which focuses on environmental subjects and so far has not been able to enter the Knesset.
Major issues in Israeli political life include:
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