Can Bibi’s wife Sara spoil Israel’s coalition?

Published on January 25, 2013

Forging a coalition is, without a doubt, the most difficult part of the election process in Israel.

Poll trends: ‘Likud plus right bloc’ in decline over the draft

By Shmuel Rosner
Published on August 1, 2012

June 28, 2012

By Shmuel Rosner
Published on June 28, 2012

Abortion politics arrives in Israel

Published on June 18, 2012

Israel’s paradoxical approach to abortion — the procedure is illegal unless approved by a committee, which gives the go-ahead to 98 percent of the requests — could radically change if a Knesset member has his way.

NEW: Tracking the trends in Israeli elections season

By Shmuel Rosner
Published on May 3, 2012

A king, a martyr, and a bunch of rabbis

By Shmuel Rosner
Published on February 10, 2012

Yes, we cantankerous

By Steve Greenberg
Published on November 13, 2008

ANALYSIS: Livni’s failure to build coalition could help or hurt in new elections

By Leslie Susser
Published on October 27, 2008

With Israel headed for new general elections, supporters and opponents of Tzipi Livni are putting a very different gloss on her failure to form a governing coalition

Tzipi Livni to seek new elections as coalition effort fails

Published on October 26, 2008

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Tzipi Livni has called for new general elections in Israel, saying she failed to form a coalition government.

Can Livni form a coalition or are elections next?

By Leslie Susser
Published on September 25, 2008

Livni says she does not intend to be dragged into a long coalition-building process. If in about 10 days she believes the chances of forming a government are not high, she says she will lead a move for new elections herself.

The Party Line

By Gil Sedan
Published on January 23, 2003

Nearly 30 political parties are vying in Israel's Jan. 28 general elections. According to the latest polls, about 15 parties stand a chance of getting at least 1.5 percent of the vote, the threshold for getting at least one of the Knesset's 120 seats.

The Shas Phenomenon

By Jordan Elgrably
Published on October 12, 2000

Israel's political landscape has, over the past decade, been transmogrified by the growing strength of the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi party Shas (Sephardic Torah Guardians). But the conviction and recent jailing of party leader Aryeh Deri has only fortified Shas' power among an electorate of largely disenfranchised Middle Eastern Jews; the party currently holds 17 seats in the Knesset, just behind Likud. The American Jewish community, which had not previously taken much notice of Sephardic Jewry, has been shaken by the Shas phenomenon. Last week, Hebrew Union College invited Dr. Zvi Zohar, one of Israel's most astute observers of the socio-political scene, to give a lecture in Los Angeles on what many now perceive to be a permanent feature of Israeli politics.

Two Insults Too Many

By Eric Silver
Published on August 10, 2000

Ovadia Yosef, the Shas spiritual mentor and former Sephardichief rabbi of Israel, is a gold medalist among insulters. The mediahere monitor his Saturday night sermons, broadcast live on Shas's pirateradio station, for his latest news-making tirades.

Political Gamesmanship

By Eric Silver
Published on December 30, 1999

As sure as death and taxes, Israelis can count on a coalition crisis every year in the last week of December. It happened three times to the Likud's Binyamin Netanyahu, and no one was surprised that this month it happened to his Labor successor, Ehud Barak.

Is There Room for Shas in Barak’s Tent?

By Larry Derfner
Published on May 27, 1999

During the wild victory party in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square on Election Night, a chant went up in the crowd: "Just not Shas!" Ehud Barak heard the same chant when he spoke early this week to a gathering of campaign activists. A booth with a fax machine in Kikar Rabin has already sent more than 20,000 faxes to Barak from his supporters, who urge him not to invite the meteoric Sephardic fervently Orthodox party into his governing coalition. Thousands of e-mails have been sent to Barak with the same message.

Barak’s Tough Choices

By Larry Derfner
Published on May 20, 1999

The tens of thousands of happy secularists who danced Election Night away in Rabin Square may have thought they'd "taken back the country" from the right-wing and religious, but according to all the signs, incoming Prime Minister Ehud Barak has a surprise in store for them.