ANALYSIS - Israeli Left May Leave Political Scene After March Elections As Peace Agenda Lost Appeal

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th December, 2020) Israeli left wing parties, which support the idea of an independent Palestinian state alongside the Jewish one and oppose occupation practices, are on the brink of political extinction and may not pass the vote threshold in the March parliamentary elections, experts told Sputnik in the run-up to the country's fourth elections in two years triggered by the collapse of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's center-right coalition.

On Wednesday, the speaker of Israel's 120-seat unicameral parliament, Yariv Levin, said that snap elections would take place on March 23, 2021. It came after Likud and the Blue and White alliance failed to meet a deadline to agree on 2020 and 2021 state budgets.

Despite the collapse of another center-right coalition, experts doubt that it will embolden left forces, which have been in crisis over the past several years.

"The internal political reality in Israel has developed in such a way that today there is no political left in Israel ... The left agenda has lost its momentum; a party is no longer capable of building a coalition if it prioritizes [ideologist of peace talks with Palestine, Nobel Peace prize laureate for talks in Oslo] Shimon Peres's political ideas. I believe that left parties are likely to fall below the voting threshold this time around," Sofi Ron-Moria, an Israeli political expert and former prominent parliamentary reporter, told Sputnik.

Such a result would have been unthinkable some years ago. From the state's founding until 1977, the Israeli left Labor party enjoyed uncontested power for decades. In 1992, the Zionist left, represented by Labor and Meretz parties, won 56 seats in the Knesset. But since the last Labor-led government collapsed following the suspension of peace talks between Israel and Palestine, the Israeli left have never returned to power struggling to remain on the political landscape. In 2015, the Labor party won 25 seats. In September 2019, it secured only six.

Zeev Khanin, professor at the department of political studies in Bar-Ilan University in Israel's Ramat Gan, believes that the problem is that traditional ideals and policy priorities of the left are no longer realistic or politically relevant among the Jewish population in Israel.

"The reality is that within the span of a few decades the party that enjoyed total hegemony in the past became irrelevant. Oslo accords are dead, most Israelis agree that there is no need to negotiate with Palestinians, the eastern borders are stretching west of the River Jordan, Gaza Strip must be eliminated, Europe's position regarding the Middle East conflict is not important, the United States is a strategic partner while Russia is a neighbor," Khanin told Sputnik.

WHATEVER COALITION COMES, IT WILL KEEP RIGHT-WING STANCE ON PALESTINE

According to the expert, despite the ongoing rivalry within the right-wing camp, the latter will keep determining the political agenda in the next few years.

Khanin, in particular, noted that ahead of the election, Netanyahu found himself confronted by his former aides led by former Likud lawmaker Gideon Saar, who left the party after accusing the prime minister of turning it into a "personality cult" that serves the sole purpose of ensuring political survival of its leader indicted on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

"The current political rivalry is between two political blocs, which are respectively headed by Likud A party and Likud B party. Likud A party is Likud ruled by Bibi, Likud B party is a party with Likud's ideology where anyone is welcomed except for Bibi," the expert stated, adding that these two right-wing parties have equal political weight and will therefore need to seek support from either Arab parties or the ultra left.

Fresh polls, published earlier this week in Israeli media, suggest that if elections were held today, Saar's party would finish second behind Likud.

Netanyahu's other former aides and ministers such as Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman and Zeev Elkin are now either leading their own parties or have recently joined Saar for personal rather than ideological reasons. It means that Israel's next government regardless of its leader will have a right-wing ideology that opposes the Palestinian state and supports Israeli settlement policies, Khanin explained.

According to a recent poll if the elections were held this week, Netanyahu's Likud would receive 28 seats, followed by Saar's new party with 20 mandates and right-wing Yamina alliance with 15 seats.

Along with the opposition from former supporters, Netanyahu will likely face a backlash from middle class voters, who have been hit hard by the pandemic, Sofi Ron-Moria projects.

Weekly demonstrations have been ongoing in Israel throughout the pandemic, with protesters demanding that Netanyahu resign over corruption charges and his alleged poor handling of the coronavirus crisis. On Sunday, the country is set to enter a third national lockdown in a bid to curb a new COVID-19 resurgence.