The first time I voted in an Israeli election was in May 1996, two years after I made aliyah. Shimon Peres had been prime minister for six months, following Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination the previous November, and he’d called early elections to cement his hold on the leadership.
It was a powerful experience, going to my (my!) voting station on Ben Yehuda Street in Tel Aviv and adding my voice to those of my fellow citizens. It had been a tumultuous few years, starting on an upward trajectory with two major peace treaties — the PLO in 1993, quickly followed by Jordan in 1994 — and then veering sharply off course with a rash of suicide bus bombings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and then the unbelievable assassination of Israel’s prime minister by a fellow Jew. How deep did the social divisions really go, we wondered, if such a tragedy could take place? And if, even more unbelievably, some Israelis could support it?
I remember sitting in a friend’s apartment in Ramat Gan that evening, watching live television coverage of the exit polls. For the first time, the prime minister would be elected separately from the various parties, meaning that a simple majority was all that was needed to claim that seat — the governing coalition would be formed by the winner.
At midnight, when all the stations had called it for Peres, I went home to bed.
When I woke up the next morning, Benjamin Netanyahu was prime minister instead. Somehow, confounding all the pollsters and upsetting Labor victory celebrations, he had slipped past Peres at the 11th hour by fewer than 30,000 votes out of more than 3 million cast. By noon, the phrase was on everyone’s tongue — “going to bed with Peres and waking up with Bibi.”
Now it’s March 2015, Tuesday afternoon in the J. newsroom in downtown San Francisco. Voting ended in Israel an hour ago, and the results are inconclusive, with both Likud and Zionist Union holding 27 seats according to exit polls. But that doesn’t stop the pundits, who are all swirling around the numbers, positing every conceivable coalition of the right, left and center.
First out of the dock was Israel’s Channel 10 news, which, two minutes after the polls closed, predicted that Netanyahu would hammer together a right-wing coalition of Likud, Kulanu and United Torah Judaism. We posted their scenario on our Facebook page right away — you have to have something up, right? Even if it’s ultimately proved wrong.
Within an hour, President Reuven Rivlin called for a unity government between Likud and Zionist Union, something he’s been advocating for more than a week. Netanyahu is reportedly on board with the idea, according to some media sources, while Zionist Union chairman Isaac Herzog is staying up all night holding talks with potential coalition partners to form a broad government that would exclude both Likud and Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party.
The predictions change by the minute. Pollsters say we won’t know the final results for days. Social media is afire. My friends are all posting their own half-baked notions on Facebook. The irrepressible Tatiana Menaker has sent out perhaps my favorite email of the day — “BREAKING: Reporters await Obama’s concession speech in Israeli election.”
Me, I don’t know who I’m going to bed with tonight, nor with whom I’ll wake up.
That’s not comforting.
Wednesday morning. I wake up alone, except for the three cats curled around my legs. Turn over, yawn, switch on the radio.
Zounds! Once again Netanyahu has proved the exit polls wrong. Once again Likud party stalwarts rallied ’round and made their voices count, pushing his lead in just a few hours from negligible to undisputed. Thirty Knesset seats for Likud, 24 for Zionist Unity. The king is enthroned again.
So, time to pull the country together. Time to get past the angry, divisive campaign tactics and face Israel’s challenges head on. There will always be elections, there will always be electioneering.
The next few days will be, as they say in China, interesting times.
Note to self: Always make decisions in the morning. It’s a lot safer.
Sue Fishkoff is the editor of J. and can be reached at [email protected].