Netanyahu surprised analysts and observers of Israeli affairs by winning (or “sweeping,” as they say in the Hebrew state) 30 seats in the Knesset. His was not just a victory over the Likud's traditional foe, the Labour Party, led by Isaac Herzog and the centre-left alliance. It was also a victory over the right wing and racist ultra-religious conservative parties, with respect to which he can now negotiate from a position of strength. The results contradicted the predictions of public opinion polls, now under a glare of suspicion, which up to polling day insisted that the Zionist Union (the coalition between Herzog and Tzipi Livni) would win a 24-seat majority while the Likud would only win 20. When the survey organisations switched to exit polls they predicted a tie at 27 seats each or that Netanyahu would barely scrape ahead with 28 seats. But Netanyahu's 30-seat victory was not the only surprise. The Arab List won 14 seats, making the coalition the third-largest bloc in the Knesset. This is unprecedented in Israeli history in which the Arab parties at best held between seven and nine seats. Explanations after the fact pointed to a number of causes that are worth contemplating, as they might prove useful when it comes to dealing with Israel in the near future. First, as much as party and coalition campaigns focused on economic and social issues, it was “security” however flawed the concept and its perceptions that ultimately made up the mind of the Israeli voter. Second, Israeli demographic changes appear to be having an impact on the Israeli political makeup. Simply put, “the Jerusalem state”, which is based on Sephardic Jews with their conservative, racist and violent mentality in which religion plays a major role, as is the case elsewhere in the Middle East, is coming out ahead over “the Tel Aviv state”, with its modern European demographic and outlook, which subscribes to negotiations and compromise as a part of its approach. A third cause is to be found in changes abroad in the region since the so-called “Arab Spring.” The chaos, conflict and warfare ushered in by this phenomenon have generated a state of doubt, apprehension and uncertainty. What with the war in Sinai on one side and the war in Syria on the other, Israeli voters are primed for a person with Netanyahu's demagogic skills and his flare for playing on fear in order to draw votes to the Likud. Fourth, Netanyahu's gamble with the US and President Barack Obama personally paid off this time. By going ahead with his speech to Congress and winning a letter to Iran signed by 48 senators threatening not to abide by the results of negotiations between Washington and Tehran, Netanyahu increased his kudos among the Israeli public. There are other reasons, certainly. However, the result is the same in any case, which is that Israel will be led by Netanyahu for a couple of more years. Perhaps this seems to present nothing new to the Arabs. But the fact is that Netanyahu will be stronger at home and abroad than before, now that he bears the seal of the democratic popular choice in Israel. However, not all is bleak. The Arab surprise was not the product of structural changes but of Israeli stupidity. Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman thought he had it made when he spearheaded a drive to eliminate the Arab minority from the Knesset by raising the electoral threshold from two to 3.25 per cent. He must have thought the idea ingenious. The Arabs perpetually divided and in disarray were lucky if their parties could win two per cent of the vote to qualify for a Knesset seat. So, obviously, raising that threshold would keep them out of the Knesset altogether, and then that parliament could show the world what Israeli democracy is really like. But Lieberman's magic potion backfired. Instead of remaining divided, the Arab parties joined forces and formed the Arab Joint List. More significantly, Arab voter turnout was unprecedentedly high: 70 per cent, or just one percentage point below the turnout of Jewish Israeli voters (this may at least in part be due to the encouragement Palestinian Israeli voters received from Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza). When we place this in a demographic context, we arrive at two conclusions. First, Israeli Arabs have gone beyond the “boycott” tactic with the Israeli state and its elections and now their political representatives have become a force to be reckoned with in terms of the Arab-Israeli reality and Israeli politics as a whole. The political expression of the Arab population in Israel now considerably surpasses what existed before, and even under the current circumstances there is considerable room for manoeuvre. The second conclusion we can draw is that in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean there are 12 million people, about half of whom are Arabs (four million in the West Bank and Gaza and two million in Israel) and the other half of whom are Jews. This demographic situation compels Netanyahu, regardless of his intentions, which are racist and belligerent, to face certain facts and take some major decisions on their basis. This we can sum up as follows: either he accepts the notion of a single bi-national state that the Palestinians would probably not object to as long as the state is based on the principles of full and equal citizenship, or he accepts the concept of a two-state solution which, during his campaign, he said he did not support. Netanyahu's and the Arabs' electoral surprises appear as though they are another episode in the complex and intractable Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Like all previous episodes there are both dangers and opportunities. The dangers are familiar and have to do with Israeli use of violence against Gaza. As for the opportunities, these derive from the fact that Netanyahu is not one of the most widely admired people in the world. Moreover, his campaign projected an image of a person who is not interested in a solution and who seeks to perpetuate the occupation, which is the only phenomenon of its type in the world. This opens opportunities at the UN and at other international organisations that can increase the pressure on Netanyahu to accept the two-state solution. Another opportunity arises from the new position of the Arabs in Israel, especially if they use the Arab electoral leverage to augment the political profile of Israeli Arabs both inside and outside the Knesset. But they will need considerable Arab political and economic support to drive home the fact that Israel is already a bi-national country and that it will not be able to ignore this in the years to come. In short, Arab legitimacy in the Knesset has the power to open doors to a solution to a conflict that has dragged on far too long, sapping much too much of the resources of this region and, moreover, drawing attention away from issues of no less importance. Quite simply, the Palestinian and Arab diplomatic and political drive must work to push Netanyahu into a position of having to choose, because he is at his most dangerous when he can avoid commitment by falling back on the hysteria of fear in Israeli society.
