FRESH AIR

In Israel’s election, wasted votes were PM Lapid bloc’s undoing

November 4, 2022 | Ahron Shapiro

Screen Shot 2022 11 04 At 3.48.35 Pm

With the announcement late on November 3 of the final vote count for Israel’s November 1 national election, Israeli Opposition Leader Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud-led right-wing bloc is poised to form the next government with a commanding 64-seat majority of right-wing and religious parties in the 120-seat Knesset, while outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s centre-left bloc was left with only 46 seats, with two non-Zionist parties oriented towards the interests Israel’s Arab minority holding the remaining ten seats.

Yet despite the lopsided allocation of seats in favour Netanyahu’s bloc, the popular vote was actually almost evenly split between the right and left camps. In fact, when you include the votes that went to the three non-Zionist parties supported by Arab voters – parties mutually incompatible with any right-wing government that has a far-right element – the pro-Netanyahu camp received just 30,293 more votes. That’s a difference of just 0.63% of the popular vote.

You read that right. The right-wing pro-Netanyahu bloc of Likud (1,115,049), Religious Zionism (516,146), Shas (392,644, United Torah Judaism (280,125) and Jewish Home (56,793) received 2,360,757 total votes, or 49.56% of the popular vote of 4,763,694.

Meanwhile, Yesh Atid (847,145), the National Unity party (432,376), Yisrael Beitenu (213,655), the Joint List (193,916), Hadash/Ta’al (178,661) Labor (175,992), Meretz (150,696) Ra’am (193,916) and Balad (138,093) garnered 2,330,464 votes, or 48.93%.

(The number does not equal 100% since I’m leaving out the 1.51% of the votes that went to a smattering of tiny niche parties that had no chance to pass the threshold, and the 0.63% of votes that were thrown out as invalid.)

How is it, with the popular vote so close, that the number of Knesset seats allocated were so different?

The simple answer is that many more votes for the anti-Netanyahu bloc were wasted on parties that did not get over the 3.25% electoral threshold, especially the left-wing party Meretz party and the vehemently anti-Zionist Arab nationalist party Balad.

Meanwhile neither Balad, Ra’am nor the Joint List – parties that had successfully run together on the Joint List ticket in the past despite their vast political differences – forged vote sharing agreements for surplus votes. Such arrangements could almost certainly have helped these parties wring out the maximum number of seats between them.

Fractured centre-left had no viable path to a new coalition

There was no right-wing landslide afoot, but an efficient campaign strategy by Netanyahu to concentrate right-wing and religious votes – Likud’s so-called natural partners – into just four parties (squashing out a fifth, Ayelet Shaked’s Jewish Home party, even at the cost of wasting a few votes). Meanwhile, the centre-left was relying on seven or eight parties to enter the Knesset in order to merely block Netanyahu from forming a government.

It was doubtful that Lapid could form a government after the election always because none of the Arab parties besides Ra’am had said they would support a Lapid government, even from the outside.

As the Jerusalem Post’s Lahav Harkov, a Knesset reporter for most of her career, reflected in a tweet on November 3, “I long thought that the choice in this election was between Bibi and another election.”

In an op-ed on November 3, Ha’aretz columnist Uri Misgav summed up the mistakes that the centre-left camp made to contribute to the fall of the unity government and the failed campaign leading up to the election loss. Among them are Labor leader Merav Michael’s ill-fated decision not to run together with Meretz and recent comments of two members of the communist Hadash party defending Palestinian terrorism.

The mistake of Labor and the Joint List to run alone and without running together with Meretz and Balad, respectively, transformed what could have been a very close finish between parties allied for and against Netanyahu into a romp and strong comeback for Israel’s longest serving prime minister, in spite of his ongoing court cases on corruption charges.

RELATED ARTICLES

Children in a camp for the displaced from the war in the city of Taiz, Yemen (Image: akramalrasny/ Shutterstock)

The United Nations stopped delivering aid to millions of Yemenis nine months ago. No one seems to care.

Oct 29, 2025 | Featured, Fresh AIR
(Image: Shutterstock)

With all the discussion of disarming Hamas, how are the plans to disarm Hezbollah going?

Oct 24, 2025 | Featured, Fresh AIR
Image: Shutterstock

China could be the key to the success of the renewed “snapback sanctions” on Iran

Oct 3, 2025 | Featured, Fresh AIR
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Image: UN Photo)

Abbas said some positive sounding things in UN speech – pity they are so far-fetched

Sep 30, 2025 | Featured, Fresh AIR
Image: Shutterstock

Media Matters: The ABC’s blind spot

Aug 17, 2025 | Fresh AIR
Fighters and military vehicles belonging to Syrian government forces intervene in the city of Sweida to enforce a ceasefire between Druze factions and Bedouin tribes. Syria, July 20, 2025 (Image: Shutterstock)

Druze crisis tested Israel’s Syria strategy

Jul 31, 2025 | Featured, Fresh AIR
D11a774c 2a47 C987 F4ce 2d642e6d9c8d

Bibi in DC, the Houthi threat and the politicised ICJ opinion

Jul 26, 2024 | Update
Image: Shutterstock

Nine months after Oct. 7: Where Israel stands now

Jul 10, 2024 | Update
Palestinian Red Crescent workers from Al-Najjar Hospital in the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip (Image: Shutterstock)

Hamas’ impossible casualty figures

Mar 28, 2024 | Update
455daec3 C2a8 8752 C215 B7bd062c6bbc

After the Israel-Hamas ceasefire for hostages deal

Nov 29, 2023 | Update
Screenshot of Hamas bodycam footage as terrorists approach an Israeli vehicle during the terror organisation's October 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel, released by the IDF and GPO (Screenshot)

Horror on Video / International Law and the Hamas War

Oct 31, 2023 | Update
Sderot, Israel. 7th Oct, 2023. Bodies of dead Israelis lie on the ground following the attacks of Hamas (Image: Ilia Yefimovich/dpa/Alamy Live News)

Israel’s Sept. 11, only worse

Oct 11, 2023 | Update
Screenshot

“Bittersweet” aftermath of hostage release deal: Joel Burnie on Sky News

Oct 27, 2025 | Featured, Video
Screenshot 2025 10 16 At 12.41.57 pm

“Time for regional cooperation”: Joel Burnie on Sky News

Oct 16, 2025 | Video
Screenshot

Hamas responsible for huge suffering on both sides of Gaza war: Colin Rubenstein on Sky News

Oct 13, 2025 | Featured, Video
Screenshot

Protests were always about the delegitimisation and demonisation of Israel: Joel Burnie on Sky News

Oct 12, 2025 | Featured, Video
Screenshot 2025 10 12 At 6.12.29 pm

Peace depends upon disarmament of Hamas: Bren Carlill on Sky News

Oct 12, 2025 | Featured, Video
Screenshot 2025 10 11 At 10.12.08 am

Elation for hostage families but need to maintain isolation of Hamas: Joel Burnie on Sky News

Oct 11, 2025 | Featured, Video

RECENT POSTS

Children in a camp for the displaced from the war in the city of Taiz, Yemen (Image: akramalrasny/ Shutterstock)

The United Nations stopped delivering aid to millions of Yemenis nine months ago. No one seems to care.

Screenshot

“Bittersweet” aftermath of hostage release deal: Joel Burnie on Sky News

(Image: Shutterstock)

With all the discussion of disarming Hamas, how are the plans to disarm Hezbollah going?

Guy Gilboa-Dalal, a former Israeli hostage, waving to supporters after his release (Image: Screenshot/ X)

From the Shadows of Death to the Light of Life

CT masthead

“Too much disinformation to rebut in one letter”

SORT BY TOPICS