Okay folks. Time to admit you don't have a clue about Israeli politics [View all]

[brooklynite]

We (and American media) tend to aggregate everything into left/right, red/blue, and with only two Parties of significance, one or the other will be above 50%. The Israelis are nothing like that. Likud and the Zionist union (itself an amalgam of other Parties) each grab only about 1/3 of the vote. The challenge for either is to cobble together a coalition from the dozen or so other Parties, which are all over the map. You have ultra-religious parties which are economically socialist, and ultra-conservative parties which are completely secular. There are ethnic parties, religious sect parties, and economic group parties. And, there are a plethora of personal relationships which either aid or inhibit the ability to form coalitions. Bottom line is that nobody here has a grasp on what the new Government will look like, other than that history says Natanyahu will have an easier time assembling a coalition than Herzog will.