Israel's endless election gets a third try

JERUSALEM – Israelis on Monday will effectively recreate the premise of Groundhog Day, the movie about a man who inexplicably relives the same day again and again.

For the third time in less than a year, they will vote in a national election.

The likelihood of the country, led by its longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud party, emerging with a government again looks slim, setting up a possible fourth vote. While polls show Netanyahu with a narrow lead over his main challenger, Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White party, neither group may win enough votes to form a government.

Under Israel’s fractious electoral system, the party that wins the most seats gets first crack at cobbling together a coalition in the 120-seat parliament. But two previous efforts involving Netanyahu, Gantz and others to break this deadlock also failed.

"I voted the first two times, but won’t be voting the third time because nothing will change, so why bother?" said 22-year-old Shani Mizrachi, who sells skin-care products in downtown Jerusalem.

This feeling of powerlessness, if not quite apathy, abounds.

"In the weeks before an election, the country is normally abuzz with interest and nervous energy. This time around, though ... most Israelis simply don’t want to talk politics," noted Allison Kaplan Sommer, in a recent column for the Haaretz newspaper.

Still, the public continues to worry about the economy, how deeply issues of religion should be integrated into the state, and security.

Ahead of the first two votes in April and September last year, Netanyahu's leadership credentials were buoyed by President Donald Trump's pro-Israel actions that include moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as part of their future capital; recognizing the Golan Heights as belonging to Israel instead of Syria, in defiance of international law; and pulling the U.S. out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with world powers, an accord that Israel, Iran's sworn enemy, firmly opposed.

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In January, the Trump administration released its long-awaited plan for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The plan, which Palestinians rejected even before its release because of its perceived pro-Israel slant, called for Israel to be able to eventually annex Israeli settlements built on West Bank land claimed by Palestinians.

It also calls for a four-year freeze in settlement building. Netanyahu approvingly dubbed it "the Deal of the Century." Palestinians also refer it by this moniker, for the opposite reason. They say it reflects Trump's shady roots in real estate and while it ultimately calls for the creation of a Palestinian state, it's not one they recognize.

Trump has had little to say about Israel's forthcoming vote.

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Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said that

Netanyahu's failure to form a government during the last two elections reflects growing dissatisfaction from his voting base. Settlers and other right-wing supporters want him to fully extend Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, a move that he has been reluctant to do because it would make any future Palestinian state untenable.

In the background looming over the vote is Netanyahu's trial, on March 17, on fraud, bribery and breach of trust charges. Some of the allegations involve giving favors to several media tycoons in exchange for positive news coverage or gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Netanyahu has called his indictment a "witch hunt" and is insisting on serving as prime minister during the trial. A jail sentence is possible.

Gantz, a former general and chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, is a relative newcomer to Israeli politics. He is refusing to form a unity government with Netanyahu unless he agrees to step down during his trial.

But it's not only Gantz's lack of political experience that has put some voters off. He also lacks Netanyahu’s legendary charisma and has alienated right-wing voters who fear he will relinquish land to the Palestinians, and left-wing ones who worry he will hold on to settlements, if not expand them.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s reputation for taking a tough line with Israel's enemies is also taking a beating. While the West Bank and Israel's northern borders with Lebanon and Syria have been relatively quiet, the Hamas militant group and its proxies have launched thousands of rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians from the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian enclave it controls on Israel's southern border, during his many years in office. This has been underscored in recent days by heavy rocket and mortar fire from Gaza that has fallen on Israeli border communities.

"I want the government to solve this problem. It is solvable," said Adele Raemer, a school teacher who lives on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border.

Raemer, who voted for Gantz's Blue and White Party in the two previous elections and is now considering supporting the left-of-center Labor Party, spoke from a bomb shelter in between air raid sirens. She said she wants Netanyahu to negotiate with Gaza leaders.

"If those negotiations have to be with Hamas, so be it. You don’t make peace with your neighbors. You make peace with your enemies," she said.

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In Jerusalem, where fewer and fewer election posters and signs have been posted during the run-up to each election, Idan Shimoni, a 26-year-old sporting goods salesman, said the country needs "a change," but in the next breath said that he plans to vote for Netanyahu because he doesn't want Gantz to become prime minister.

"Bibi knows how to represent Israel around the world, including the United States," Shimoni said, using Netanyahu’s nickname.

While it’s possible that Israelis will shrug off their malaise next week and give Netanyahu or Gantz enough votes to form a new government, election officials have circled September 8 as the most likely date for a fourth election as a precaution.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel's endless election gets a third try in March 2 vote