Israelis can now shift gears.
For months we were closely following the American elections, as if Israel had, without noticing it, become the 51st state. This is reasonable, since many Israelis feel that our country’s future depends more on the person in the White House than on the man or woman who occupies the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem.
Now that Barack Obama has obtained a four-year lease on the White House, it remains to be determined who will be his counterpart in Jerusalem, and how well they will get along with each other.
This is the issue to which Israelis are now turning their attention.
Two recent polls indicate that probably either former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Kadima leader Tzipi Livni will triumph. But polls are volatile.
Ms. Livni’s party was expected to win 13 seats just a couple of months ago. Now the number is about 30. The same is true — in reverse — for Labor, which went from 19 seats to 11 in the polls.
But it won’t be easy for anyone to form a stable government because of the multiplicity of parties. Thirteen parties, each with its own platform, are now represented in the 120-member Knesset. This includes a number of Arab parties that probably won’t be considered suitable coalition partners.
There are only two ways of breaking the present deadlock. One would be to change the electoral system, from one of countrywide proportional representation to a constituency system. The other — and more plausible — course of action would be for parties with a similar platform to unite into a single party, thus reducing the number of Knesset factions by half.
The latter might be starting to happen.
Just last week, four right-wing Orthodox parties united. Among the results of this amalgamation is the end of the independent life of the National Religious Party, the predecessor of which, Mizrachi, was established in 1902. The NRP was a major force in the early years of the state, when it was aligned with the left rather than the right, as it has been in recent years.
Also under preliminary discussion is a merger of the two major center-left parties — Kadima and Labor. This won’t happen very soon, as it would require a lot of people with big egos to take a back seat. The same problem exists in regard to the five small Arab parties and the two ultra-Orthodox ones.
As things look now, there will still be some 10 to 15 parties competing for votes in February. The government subsequently formed will be far from united on many key issues, from foreign policy to Sabbath observance.
This is unfortunate, because Israel will need all the unity that it can get, as it struggles to ensure that it retains the same close ties with Obama that it enjoyed with Bush.
Nechemia Meyers is a journalist who lives in Rehovot, Israel.