Some hard truths about Israeli electoral politics, which you won't read in English-language analyses, and which are rarely said in Hebrew-language writings either - some people don't know them, and many try very hard not to know them. 1) Political parties are like guns that jerk leftward, and which you need to aim to the right of the target to actually shoot the target. Which is to say, every single political party's rhetoric is two standard deviations to the left of the policies that it will actually promote when in government. The reasons for this are many, but the main one is that Israel's international environment and its unelected officials exert leftward pressure on policy. Without active interference by the elected government, in autopilot mode, between any two options the more passive and the more dovish one will be implemented. Constant friction and rightward push is required even to just keep things as they are. 2) Party platforms are irrelevant and not worth reading. Almost every party, with the exception of the Democrats, has a center-right to right-wing written platform. These platforms are meaningless and largely unrelated to the party's actual policies. For this reason it's also extremely midwit to complain that a party has no published platform. These are unnecessary for understanding the party's actual policies. 3) The most important thing about a party is not what it wants, but what it's willing to sacrifice a lot for. On paper, 80% of political actors want the same thing: no Palestinian state; free market economy; most Haredim should enlist in the army; no "coercion"; improve diplomatic relations with Europe, the US, and really everyone; expand the Abraham Accords; go tough on Iran. In reality, nobody will do all of these things, and you're lucky if your elected MKs will promite half of them. If you want to know what a party will promote, ask not what it wants, but what it wants to avoid at virtually any cost - even avoiding it will hurt a lot diplomatically/economically/socially, etc. A party's true platform is not what it wants, but the place where it refuses to get dragged even if the skies fall. 4) The party's slate of candidates, except for its leader, is also an unreliable guide to its expectable policies. Tokenism is rampant in Israel. Most politicians think that if they cram their slate with people with a certain background, then people with that background will vote for them. They are wrong, but they keep assuming that. Eisenkot's Yashar is full of knitted kippahs, but the party's support among the national-religious is miniscule. Ben Gvir's Otzma Yehudit has both religious and secular candidates, but few seculars vote for the party. And so on. 5) The correct way to determine a party's probable policy is opinion polls among its voters, and the base's socioeconomic and ethnoreligious composition. As I said, on paper almost everyone is right-wing about security, capitalist about the economy, and wants peace and good relations with our neighbors and trade partners. But as I also said, it doesn't matter what people want; the real question is where they refuse to be dragged - by coalition partners, by inertia, by international pressure, and so on. So as a rule of thumb, look at who the voters are, and you can figure out policy. A nominally right-wing party won't dig in its heels about building E1 even in the face of sanctions, if its core base consists of upper-middle class hilonim in Gush Dan who cannot bear the thought of losing visa-free travel to Europe. A nominally capitalist party is unlikely to lower taxes or increase competition by letting in Uber if 70% of taxi drivers vote for it and if the average socioeconomic score of its strongholds is 5.7/10. And so on and so forth. 6) Finally, just my sense personally. I strongly believe that most Israelis know these things. They go through the moves, they argue, they insist "but the party I'm voting for also wants X!!", but deep down they know all the things I wrote above. These arguments are an exercise in trying to make cognitive dissonance go away. It's hard to be a well-informed, intelligent voter in Israel because if you're honest with yourself, you know that however you vote, you'll give up things very dear to you. That's difficult to accept, so most most voters bargain before they resign themselves to the foul-tasting compromises they inevitably have to make. It looks like they are argueing with you, but really they are bargaining with themselves.

My article in Fathom, making the case for a Netanyahu-led government, though hopefully without the Haredim.

אין שכל, אין דאגות. וינטר סמולאן!!!

Time for my prediction for the Knesset elections. My prediction is based on the latest polls and on informed prejudice. Don't take it too seriously. Coalition parties (total: 53): Likud: 23 Otzma Yehudit: 9 Shas: 8 UTJ: 8 RZP: 5 Opposition parties (total: 53): Yashar: 21 Together: 13 Democrats: 9 Yisrael Beytenu: 6 Hendel-Zelicha: 4 Arab parties (total: 14): Ra'am: 5 Joint List: 9 Under threshold: People of Israel (2%) Haredi Community Party (under 0.5%)

Israeli emigrants who returned to Israel are probably worth around two mandates. We can assume that most but not all of them will vote for the opposition. All in all, they probably move at most one mandate from the coalition to the opposition. Not insignificant but somewhat unlikely to be what decides the election.

I’m pretty sure that 10% was higher a few weeks ago. There isn’t a lot of demand for unity.

כשאתם מצביעים למפלגה גדולה (ליכוד או ישר), אתם מצביעים פעם: על השאלה מי יהיה ראש הממשלה. על המפלגות שהוא יצרף לממשלה, אתם לא מצביעים - אתם בוחרים לתת למועמד לראשות הממשלה את האימון לצרף מפלגות לפי רצונו. כשאתם מצביעים למפלגת לוויין, אתם מצביעים פעמיים: ראשית, על זהות ראש הממשלה הבא, ושנית, על איזה מפלגה אתם רוצים שהוא יצרף לקואליציה שלו. רק טמבל מוותר על האפשרות של הצבעה כפולה. אל תהיו טמבלים; אל תצביעו למפלגות הגדולות.

A country of children.