While all Israel's political parties, particularly the newly-formed ones, are openly focused on aiming their attacks at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, their real fight is against each other. Right now, these battles are being waged behind the scenes. Later on, as their distress grows, they will take center stage in the 2021 election, unless some important mergers are formed ahead of the deadline to submit party lists in February.
Both camps are seeing in-fighting in the ranks of small and mid-sized parties, but the most vicious fighting right now is on the Left. On the Right, Naftali Bennett and Gideon Sa'ar grappling over the higher number of seats seems like a first-world problem compared to what is happening on the Left, where a number of parties are fighting for their very existence. If one of those parties fails to make it past the minimum electoral threshold, it could significantly up Netanyahu's chance of forming a right-wing coalition.
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After a couple of election, and after the four former members of the Blue and White "cockpit" did their spontaneous victory dance, the Left has realized that it's not the size of the party, but the size of the bloc that is the deciding factor. Therefore, in the last election, Blue and White head Benny Gantz pressured Labor leader Amir Peretz to run on a joint ticket with Meretz to ensure that the party would make it past the minimum threshold. This is also why members of the left-wing parties were happy to see the Joint Arab List become the third-largest party in the Knesset, meaning more seats for the camp that would prevent Netanyahu from forming a right-wing government.
But now the Left will need to make a much bigger move to arrange a victory. The camp is currently made up of Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party; Gantz's Blue and White; Ron Huldai's Israelis party; Ofer Shelah's Tnufa; Labor, Meretz, Yaron Zelikha's as-yet unnamed party; and to a certain extent, Yisrael Beytenu under Avigdor Lieberman, as well. Obviously, a few of these parties will have to form joint tickets by February, but that might not be enough. In the last three elections, the left-wing camp had a leader whom everyone on the Left backed for prime minister. But this time, there is no such leader.
Right now, the hottest pick is actually Gideon Sa'ar – and he's from the opposing camp. But the lack of a leading candidate for prime minister doesn't only affect the maneuvers that follow the election itself – it has an effect right here, right now. The absence of a central figure means that there will be no hand steering things until the lists are closed, making sure that joint tickets are formed to ensure that no vote is wasted.
Another question that will likely remain unanswered until the last minute is whether or not the parties that fail to form partnerships by the deadline and wind up running alone will put their egos aside and withdraw, or go all the way, sending hundreds of thousands of left-wing votes down the drain.
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