Thu 5 Mar 2020 at 7:30pm - 8:30pm
Zoom Webinar
With Israelis heading back to elections soon, we’re hosting an exclusive results webinar with Dr Dahlia Scheindlin to process the results and help us understand Israeli politics following an unprecedented third election in a year.
Joining us just two days after polls close, Dahlia, a public opinion expert and strategic consultant with twenty years experience, will share her analysis on who’ll take the leadership mantle, possible coalition partners and the impact the Trump deal and Netanyahu’s indictments had on the campaign.
Here are some updates on the election campaign so far:
- Following the latest elections in September no party was able to form a coalition majority with the required 61 seats. Some pundits don't believe anything has changed and are predicting a similar stalemate in this election. Unbelievably, there is already talk of a fourth round of elections.
- There have been some subtle shifts recently in terms of post-election coalition wrangling. Avigdor Lieberman, head of the secular nationalist Israel Beiteinu party, is no longer insisting on a coalition unity government. He said he will consider sitting with the recently amalgamated left-wing Labor-Meretz-Gesher party.
- Likud has continued to discredit the centrist Blue and White party by insisting that they will not have a Jewish majority to rule, but would be dependent on the Arab List joining their coalition.
- Polls show the Blue and White party with a slight lead ahead of PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party (35-33). However the Israeli public still supports Netanyahu as the preferred PM (44% vs 32% for Gantz).
- The blocs of right-wing and religious parties (56 seats) and left-wing and Arab parties (57 seats) are still evenly poised, at roughly the same levels as both previous elections.
Dahlia will share her expertise and help us understand the motivations of Israeli voters. She has advised eight national political campaigns in Israel and has worked in 15 other countries. She conducts research and policy analysis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, regional foreign policy, democracy, human rights and civil rights, minority issues, religion and state, domestic political analysis, comparative conflict and comparative politics. Her clients include a long list of local and international civil society groups, think tanks and political actors.
(You may have had the opportunity to hear her when she spoke at Limmud Oz in Melbourne a few years ago!)
Dahlia is also a co-founder and columnist at +972 Magazine; a fellow at The Century Foundation; policy fellow at Mitvim – the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, and she co-hosts the The Tel Aviv Review podcast. She is a frequent lecturer, analyst and media commentator.
