In Israel, winning does not mean ruling. In order to govern, the center bloc has to lean to the right and the conservative bloc has to ally itself with the most radical right, Jewish ethnic, religious and nationalist fanaticism.
Israel is a conservative country. Increasingly. In one generation, Israelis who define themselves as conservative have gone from 40% to more than 60%. Demographics play in their favor. The ultra-Orthodox have many children and form an increasingly powerful and divisive minority.
Identifying with the right implies, in most cases, being anti-Palestinian, distrusting Israeli Arabs, supporting the annexation of the West Bank and the Jewish identity of the state of Israel.
The theocracy raises its demands and strikes hardest at secular, cosmopolitan and progressive Israelis who live primarily in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, work in the booming tech sector, and in top-tier academic and scientific centers.
Benjamin Netanyahu needs radicals, whether they are racists and neo-fascists, defenders of Jewish supremacism and the laws that govern it, people who are trying to ban science subjects in Orthodox schools and want to subordinate democracy to the laws of Jewish orthodoxy.
The Likud leader will not be able to govern without the support of these fanatics who, furthermore, persecute homosexuals, separate men from women in public spaces, oppose marriage between Jews and non-Jews and try to impose on the entire world its food customs.
One of these radicals, Hamar Ben Gvir, speaks of expelling "disloyal" citizens, that is, Arabs from Israel and of suppressing autonomy in the Palestinian cities of Hebron and Jericho, which would mean violating the Oslo agreements. Although he has been convicted several times for racism and support of terrorism, Netanyahu can make him a minister in a government that would be the most radical in the country's history.
The Likud coalition with the ultra right is also in favor of Parliament legalizing certain corrupt practices - such as accepting bribes - for which Netanyahu is being prosecuted. It also defends that the legislative power can annul a sentence of the Supreme Court. Adulterating the separation of powers is essential for Netanyahu to stop the judicial process for corruption that he faces and for which he could go to jail.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid is having a hard time countering this extremist movement. The collapse of the traditional left has led it to forge alliances with settlers and the military, people who will do nothing to redirect the situation in the occupied territories.
During this year, more than 125 Palestinians, including several teenagers, have been killed by Israeli armed forces in the West Bank, according to a UN tally. There had not been so many deaths since 2015. Lapid did not want the right wing to steal the security card from him.
The Palestinian conflict condemns Israel to radicalism because it feeds ultra-Orthodox religious fanaticism and drags the centrist bloc to policies that reaffirm the submission of Israeli Arabs, a minority that represents 20% of the population.
After last year's elections, the ones that ousted Netanyahu from power, one of Lapid's main strategists told me that the great challenge was going to be incorporating Arabs into Israeli political life, normalizing their weight in society.
Lapid got the support of an Islamist party, Raam, the first to join an Israeli government. He broke a taboo with promises that he hasn't kept. On the contrary, the Palestinian cause has been a risk that he has not wanted to take. It is a contradiction that he has paid dearly for.
His government fell, in part, because it was impossible for Raam to support a bill to extend Israeli civil law to settlements in the West Bank, while Palestinian cities remained under military rule.
Lapid has allies who defend the status quo in the Palestinian territories and he cannot do without them. He plays the progressive card in Israel, but not in the West Bank. He does not support the Zionist messianism of a Greater Israel with the annexation of Judea and Samaria, that is, the West Bank, but he does support Jewish sovereignty over all of Jerusalem.
The Israeli Arabs are not clear that they should participate in a coalition government again. Many believe that if they do so they will contribute to whitewashing a democracy that does not deserve it. They also consider that it would be a betrayal for the Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank. Especially because Lapid, although he defends the two-state solution, does not believe that the conditions are in place to resume dialogue with the Palestinian Authority.
Of the 40 parties that have stood for election, three are Arab: two secular and one Islamist. His ability to influence Israel's affairs, however, is minimal. The neo-fascist, xenophobic and ultra-Orthodox right wing accuses them of supporting terrorism, of not being loyal to Israel, demagoguery that consolidates its electoral base at the cost of the coherence of Israeli society.
The ethnic violence that broke out last year between Jews and Arabs in several Israeli cities is a consequence of this neo-fascist rhetoric that identifies the Palestinian with the terrorist.
The Palestinian cause is the original sin of Israel, a birth defect that erodes democracy and coexistence, a shame that Israelis who believe in a secular state, with separation of powers, mixed marriages and science classes in all the schools.
This modern and progressive Israel, with which more than 40% of the population identifies, without a doubt the most productive part of society, is hostage to the sins that are being committed and will continue to be committed in the name of God and of Jewish supremacism .
Neither political debate nor elections serve to resolve this descent into hell.
