UPDATES
9 am Israel time, Wednesday, March 18 2015
Latest election results 99% of votes tallied
**Virtually all of the “regular” votes have now been counted, and the only change from the 7 am update is that Likud is now registering 30 seats. However, the votes of foreign diplomats and one other very important large segment of the country have not been counted.
Those of the soldiers of the IDF.
What many of us are hoping is that their votes will push Yachad over the 3.25% threshold and add 4 more seats to the “Right”.
**Netanyahu has already announced his intention this morning to form a nationalist-religious government, and he has talks scheduled for today with Jewish Home, Shas, United Torah Judaism, Yisrael Beiteinu (Lieberman), and Koolanu (Kahlon). His announced intention is to form a government in the next three weeks.
Unless Yachad makes it in, his ability to form a coalition will depend in large part on Koolanu. As late as yesterday afternoon, Kahlon was signaling that he was leaning toward joining Herzog. Netanyahu will have to offer Kahlon many incentives to get him to join a Likud coalition.
**Your humble servant has never been happier to have been so wrong in his prediction about the outcome of the election, and should have spent more time reading what I wrote myself. At various times in the last week, I wrote:
1. The daily polls in Israel are an outright fraud. Commissioned and written by left-wingers, they grossly missed the reality of the situation–all except one, the Geocartography Poll.
2. The exit polls yesterday would be heavily biased toward the Left.
3. It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings. And last night, she brought down the house in a resounding Likud victory.
**Looking at the results, here are the changes from the previous Knesset:
Likud: +12
Labor and Hatenua (aka the Zionist camp): +3
United Arab List: +4
United Torah Judaism: no change
Yesh Atid: -8
Yisrael Beiteinu: -7
Jewish Home: -4
Shas: -4 (though this could change via Yachad)
Meretz: -2
All told, as things stand now, the Left (Herzog/Livni, Yesh Atid, Meretz, United Arab List) lost 3 seats. The Right (Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas, Jewish Home, United Torah Judasim) have gained 1 seat.
Given these facts, Herzog and Livni crowing this morning about how they greatly expanded the Israeli Left is particularly hollow (as is everything they say).
**So what happened last night? How did things go so wrong for Herzog-Livni and so right (no pun intended) for Likud?
1. Media overkill–the continuous pummeling and bashing of Netanyahu and his family– badly damaged Herzog-Livni. Even this morning, the leftist newspapers in the country are still trashing Netanyahu and his wife.
2. Foreign intervention badly backfired. All Israelis knew full well that President Obama and John Kerry were trying to help Herzog-Livni in every way possible–even to the point of subsidizing anti-Netanyahu NGOs and organizations. Israelis deplore such behavior and have always reacted against such meddling.
3. The rally for the Left in Tel Aviv two weeks ago had a devastating impact on Herzog-Livni. When one of the speakers trashed all Sephardic Jews as being “amulet carriers”, mezuzah kissers, and “bowers down to idols”, it took Herzog and Livni days to even mildly condemn him. By that time, the damage was done. Here in my section of Ashdod, which is heavily Sephardic, every voter at the polling station yesterday was voting for Netanyahu.
4. The Sunday rally for the “Right” in Tel Aviv dramatically changed the momentum of the election.
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5. Likud cannibalized other parties on the Israel Right, particularly Jewish Home.
6. Herzog-Livni panicked Monday night when they falsely announced that Livni was ready to drop out of the prime minister rotation with Herzog. Yesterday morning, we all realized yet again that the announcement was a fraud.
7. In the end, Israelis realized, as always, that the survival of this country is constantly at stake, and most of them do not want to entrust that survival to Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni.
UPDATES
7 am Israel time, Wednesday, March 18 2015
Latest election results 99% of votes tallied
Likud/Netanyahu: 29
Herzog-Livni: 24
United Arab List: 14
Yesh Atid: 11
Koolanu: 10
Jewish Home: 8
Shas: 7
United Torah Judaism: 7
Yisrael Beiteinu: 6
Meretz: 4
Yachad: [No seats at moment, but on the edge]
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.