The morning after the Israeli electoral circus

Israel is stuck in an electoral groundhog day, with each election producing more of the same.

Israel is about to hold its fourth parliamentary election in two years. Since 2019, it has emerged from one chaotic electoral campaign season only to plunge into another. But Israeli national elections were not always the electoral whirlwind they are today, where a dozen-plus parties run blitz campaigns, coloured by marketing gimmicks and populist sloganeering and marred by vicious condemnations and personal attacks. During the first three decades after its independence, Israel held national elections once every four years with Labor Zionists running dull, rigid campaigns against the louder, more extreme revisionist Zionists, with the victory of the former almost always assured in advance.