Israel's Still Deciding.

Yesterday (17/3/15) Israel held an election for its Parliament/Knesset. As a result today is really when Israel's starts choosing its next government as part of its notoriously complex politics.

For example Zionist Union the front-runners before the election are themselves a coalition made up of the traditional centre-left Labor party and Hatnauh which is the latest incarnation of Ariel Sharon's breakaway faction of the centre-right Likud party. They were largely formed to counter the influence of the progressive left Yesh Atid party and they're not particularly Zionist, their name is just a bit of misdirection.

The Arab Joint List who came third are also a coalition made up of four Arab parties in order to make sure they passed the threshold for gaining seats in Parliament.

The big winner of the night was the centre-right Likud party which secured 30 seats. However this still leaves them 31 seats short of a majority. The obvious thing would have been for Likud and Zionist Union to join together which is not that unusual in Israeli politics to form a coalition supported by either Yesh Atid or the far-right, religious parties. However Zionist Union very much ran a "Anyone but Likud" campaign and seem to have indicated this morning that they won't be joining a coalition that includes Likud.

The problem is that Likud can't for a coalition with just the religious parties so will need the support of either Yesh Atid or Kulanu - the two progressive parties. Mathematically though the right-wing coalition could just scrape over the line with support from the very left-wing Meretz party which would be an interesting coalition.

If Likud were to fail to put together a coalition the only way Zionist Union could form a government would be by working with both the progressive parties, Meretz and the Joint List which would put Israeli Arabs in government for the first time which would be very interesting not least because that coalition would be made up of 9 parties.

Basically I'm staying out of it until a coalition has been formed.

16:25 on 18/3/15 (UK date).

Edited at around 11:55 on 19/3/15 (UK date) to add;

It's totally pouring gasoline on the fire but I must say that I'm a bit disappointed by the Zionist Union. If rather then throwing a sulk they'd agreed to work with Likud there is a possibility that the settler parties could have been frozen out of government for the first time in a very long time. Of course now I've said it out loud it's going to be near impossible because there was a noticeable shift from the far right to the centre in order to protect Bibi. No doubt this is something that Netanyahu is going to be reminded of in the future.