On Apr. 9, 2019 Israel will have their elections; Israel is one of America’s closes global allies and serves as a beacon of democracy in the Middle East.

Israel has a parliamentary government system with elections where voters choose a party, and the parties get seats in the parliament, called the Knesset, proportional to the amounts of votes received. Israel has over fourteen different political parties so after the election and  the parties form coalitions. The leader of the majority party in the majority coalition in parliament takes the role of prime minister.

The current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu was first elected prime minister in 1996, and served until 1999, and later was elected in 2009 and served consecutively to today. His party, Likud, controls over 30% of the Knesset.

Netanyahu, the incumbent, has been characterized by his harsh defense and foreign policy, as well as his extremely conservative social policies, promoting policies that favor Jews over Arab-Israelis, and enacting several policies that take away rights from Arabs and Palestinians that are Israeli citizens.

Netanyahu has recently been indicted on charges for corruption, which makes him the first Israeli prime minister to ever be indicted, and caused his approval rating to dip below 50%. He has also aligned himself with many fringe, extremely right wing parties in order to keep power in parliament– a controversial move.

To combat Netanyahu, several smaller center-left parties have merged into a larger party called Kachol Lavan, led by Benny Gantz. Kahol Lavan has been outspoken in favor of a two-state solution, even admitting that they are prepared to make territorial and policy concessions in favor of peace, according to Haaretz.

Haaretz also reports that many Israeli political scientists not only see Kachol Lavan as the only chance to remove Likud from office, but see polls favoring a victory for  Gantz.

This election is extremely important, as President Trump as aligned himself closely with Israel and Netanyahu, so this election will be influential in America’s involvement in not only Israel, but the entire Middle East.

Many Bothell students recognize the importance of this election. As Paige Patterson (‘19) explains the election is “I think this is one of the most influential elections in global politics in my lifetime, considering all the controversy surrounding Netanyahu and Israel’s political proximity to America.”