It’s a head-to-head race between Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and the Blue and White Alliance with Benny Gantz. And on the day before the vote, many voters are still undecided. From Jerusalem, Tania Krämer.
Cabbage, flowers, and goat cheese are welcome on a table in front of the parish hall – the local products of the village of Beer Tuvia in Israel’s South. Here Benny Gantz is almost home: The top Opposition candidate grew up in a Moshav in the vicinity. Many people came from the surrounding towns, the former army chief the election for the liberal party Alliance of Blue-and-White to look at.
“I haven’t decided yet, and I got to listen to it. In any case, I’m not going to vote for Bibi. Anything that could stop him is important to me,” says Gilit Heyman with a view to the incumbent Likud Chairman Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. “Gantz is from the Region, I know his family and he seems to me to be a good candidate.”
Others have already decided. “It just needs a change. I think Gantz will bring this change. I looked at him to me over the past few months and I think he should be Prime Minister,” says Yonathan philosopher. It is time for Netanyahu to go, he adds.
Benny Gantz wants to be an Alternative to the “polarizing politics Netanyahu’s”. “We want to form a Cabinet of hope, not a Cabinet of agitators and Radicals,” says Gantz in Beer Tuvia.
Strong man in Motorcycle gear: Benny Gantz in the election campaign
In February, the former chief of General staff Benny Gantz and the Ex-Finance Minister Yair Lapid, the party leader of the moderate Yesh Atid had closed, to the new Blue-and-White Alliance. The two would alternate on the Post of the Prime Minister after two years. On the first four list places two other former army chiefs. The military component is to attract voters – in a country where the topic of safety plays a major role. Gantz can look back on a 30-year career in the military and was from 2011 to 2014, head of the Israeli army, under Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Economy, safety, and Benjamin Netanyahu
“If you ask the Israelis, is the economy the number one issue. The people it comes to the cost of living, social and economic issues. Safety comes in second place. During a war, the safety takes a backseat in the first place,” says pollster Dahlia Scheindlin. But in this election it is less about content. “The voters focus on the Person of Netanyahu, his ten-year tenure, as well as the allegations of corruption against him.”
Netanyahu polarized abroad as well as in Israel. On the one hand, he has a strong electoral base, which is at his side, whatever happens. On the other hand, there is also the Anti-Bibi group, which wants to see a change. The Likud has portrayed Gantz, however, in the election campaign as a “left-weakling” who wanted to bring the Arab-Israeli parties in the government and, therefore, the right Block will endanger.
Relax in the election: Yair Lapid (left) and Benny Gantz (right) at the Backgammon
The Prime Minister, in turn, showed in the past weeks on the diplomatic level with the Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, with US President Donald Trump in Washington, recognized also by Israel sovereignty over the occupied Golan heights. The message: Only Netanyahu can ensure Israel’s security and diplomatic successes.
“The Israelis are like smokers would like to quit Smoking, but can not imagine, without the nicotine life”, writes “Haaretz”Journalist Anshel Pfeffer, author of a biography about the head of government. Netanyahu did it with flying colours, to make himself “indispensable,” he writes. And the centre-left Opposition cannot get to him in a society that is drifting more and more to the right. The labour party have, however, in these elections a strong list of young politicians.
Ilana Binyamin wants to go again this year to choose because it is the first serious competition to Netanyahu, because they would see the Prime Minister like to again in the office. “We are facing so many serious decisions with regard to Iran, the Hezbollah, the Hamas. I have raised two sons, all in combat units of the army are, and I can’t sleep,” says Ilana, which leads to their family a vegetable shop in Jerusalem. “Maybe you don’t understand the abroad, but I think Netanyahu is the right man for this Job. The rest of the candidates do not have the experience and the maturity.” The allegations of corruption is not important – as long as Netanyahu make good policy for the country.
Watch the Video 02:37 Share
Arab Israelis disappointed
Facebook Twitter google+ send Tumblr VZ Xing Newsvine Digg
Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3GSBo
Arab Israelis are demanding the same rights
Other Likud supporters see the similar. “He has made it possible that Arab leaders like him,” says Itzik Ben-Tzvi. “And look what Trump does: He has given Israel everything, the Embassy in Jerusalem, and the Golan heights. Only Bibi can do something like this possible.”
A lot of parties, undecided voters
Most polls say is a tight race between Likud and the list of Blue-and-White before. Netanyahu would have more opportunities to form a coalition with the right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties in order to reach the necessary majority of 61 of 120 Knesset seats.
Between 12 and 15 percent of voters are still undecided. As Natalie Yazur, a young Israeli woman, remained in Jerusalem in a state of the new national-religious Zehut-party. “There are a few things that I think is good for them, but I’m not sure if I would choose for you.” First of all, you have considered to vote for Benny Gantz, but maybe you’ll choose but then again the Likud and Benjamin Netanyahu. “You can hear it, yeah all around me,” she says, pointing to a few people, the “Only Bibi!”. “My parents are out for Bibi, and for most people here it seems to be just Bibi.”
Watch the Video 01:44 Share
Israel, a direction of choice
Facebook Twitter google+ send Tumblr VZ Xing Newsvine Digg
Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3GR71