Two facts will make the final two weeks of the Knesset election campaign critical, and possibly even drama-laden. The first is that the Sept. 17 election is a do-over, only a few months after the April election, and the public is already sick of it all and not paying too much attention. The second is that the heavy campaigning took place in July and August, when interest in newspapers and TV news reports plummets to the single digits.
The various parties know this, so they have been pacing themselves in the past couple of months – meaning that they are going into the final two-week stretch with well-lined pockets and well-stocked arsenals.
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In the Likud, panic is growing, and this time, it's justified. None of the polls to date have shown the right-wing bloc beating the Left, and if that is how the election actually plays out, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government could be in real danger.
The center-left Blue and White is busy with internecine fighting, but they are maintaining their position as a party the same size as the Likud and the only option for a change of government. Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz are attracting the anti-Netanyahuites, leaving the other left-wing parties only crumbs.
The fact that the Labor party hasn't gotten a second wind since the final results of the April election points to a problematic campaign that isn't delivering the goods. While the candidates in the party to the Left of Labor, the Democratic Union (Ehud Barak and Meretz), seem to be aggressive and hungry, both Labor and Blue and White are falling asleep at the wheel and sending out messages that don't hit home. Blue and White exists mostly thanks to inertia, while Labor is failing to take votes from Blue and White and is running the clumsiest campaign of the election.
In the last two weeks, everything could change. It looks like Netanyahu will be the one to dictate the agenda, and the battle between the big parties will be a tough one and close. This is bad news for the "satellite" parties: Labor and the Democratic Union on the Left, and Yamina (formerly the New Right) on the Right. They will all lose votes to the large parties, and it doesn't look like they can do anything about it unless a miracle happens. The Hebrew month of Elul, which has just begun, isn't a bad time to start praying for one.
