Israeli politics and political fragmentation, explained.

Why did the January 2025 ceasefire between Israel and Hamas take so long to reach? Israeli domestic politics – including the political, religious, and demographic changes that led to the rise and dominance of the political right in the 2000s – can help clarify the obstacles to the ceasefire and the broader challenges to Israeli-Palestinian peace.

What about Israel’s domestic politics matters? It is the election system that is most consequential in this context. Israel’s electoral rules and institutions shape political outcomes by maintaining a fragmented political party system, facilitating bargaining over the formation of governments. Since the 1980s this bargaining has given small, ideological parties – particularly on the right – the ability to impose parts of their political agenda on the government. At times, these parties can push the government to more extreme positions.

Many elections and many governments

Between April 2019 and November 2022, Israel held five national elections for representation in its unicameral parliament, the Knesset. Since 1992, there have been 13 elections in total – an average of one every 2.3 years. Governing coalitions can change even without an election, so Israel has had an even larger number of governments.

All of this change might lead one to question the stability of politics in Israel. But while the governing coalition has changed at a rapid rate, the electoral system – the rules governing how citizens select their representatives in government – is actually quite stable.

But Israel’s political camps have remained stable

Israel’s political party system, too, is relatively stable. Although there is no consensus on how to best measure party system stability, studies of elections in many countries show that voters generally remain within their own “ideological group.” This is because voters often see parties within that group as “owning” a particular issue of importance to that set of voters.

Most of Israel’s parties have changed over the years through mergers, separations, and outright disappearances, but they are divided into four or five camps that have remained more or less intact for much of Israel’s history.

It is the stability of Israel’s party camps that helps explain why the political right, with Benjamin Netanyahu at the head of it, has remained dominant since the late 2000s. That bloc’s hardline stance against the Palestinians and the prominence in it of those who see all of the Palestinian territories as belonging to Israel helps explain why, on the Israeli side, there has been resistance for so long to a ceasefire.

Israel’s electoral system

Israel does not have a written constitution. At the emergence of the Israeli state in 1948, there were too many other priorities. The new country was at war with several Arab countries. Israel also faced enormous economic problems, including absorbing hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Europe in the aftermath of the Holocaust, as well as immigrants from elsewhere in the Middle East. Religious, political, and ideological divisions also hampered negotiations over what a constitution should look like.

Instead, in 1950 the government adopted a proposal from Yitzhar Harari, one of the Knesset’s lawmakers. The Knesset would write a series of Basic Laws, each one covering a specific area of governance, that could eventually become chapters in a written constitution. More than a half century later, and Israel still has no constitution. In the interim, Israel’s Supreme Court elevated the Basic Laws to the status of constitutional law.

Elections are governed primarily by Basic Law: The Knesset, which was first adopted in 1958. This document draws on the tradition of voluntary governance in Jewish communities in Europe, the British parliamentary system, and the belief that as many Zionist parties should be included in the political system as possible.

In addition to Basic Law: The Knesset, elections are also regulated by Basic Law: The Government, and a set of other legislation dealing with specific aspects of the electoral process. Much of the process is similar to other parliamentary systems. For example, Basic Law: The Government explicitly states that Israel must hold elections every four years, though the Knesset can dissolve itself before then, which helps to explain why elections have been more frequent in recent years.

Israel’s Knesset is unlike other legislatures

Like many parliamentary systems, Israel uses proportional representation. The characteristics that set the Knesset apart from other legislatures lead some observers to call the Israeli system an “extreme electoral system.” First, the number of seats in the legislature – 120 – is quite small compared to most countries.

Second, there are no electoral constituencies in Israel; rather, the entire country is a single district. Voters select among a choice of lists (two or more parties can register on the same list), and Knesset seats are distributed in approximate proportionality of the total votes they receive.

Third, parties faced a low bar to enter the Knesset, among the lowest in the world. Initially, a party-list had to receive at least 1% of the vote to gain representation. Concerned that such a small threshold led to a proliferation of parties, which would make governing more difficult, the government raised that number three times. In 2014, the threshold reached its current level of 3.25%.

Many small parties emerged

To some extent, raising the electoral threshold did reduce the number of parties winning seats. But that was largely due to the fact that from 1949 through the 1988 election, it was not uncommon for parties to win just one seat in the Knesset. Some parties continued to win only two seats into the 2000s. The later efforts to raise the threshold was in part a move by the right to weaken the handful of parties that represented the Palestinian minority, as each party won a small number of seats.

But the actual number of parties obtaining seats in the Knesset has remained mostly the same. In Israel’s first election, in 1949, 12 parties gained representation in the Knesset. In its most recent election, in 2022, 10 parties won seats.

The small number of Knesset seats combined with the single electoral constituency and a low electoral threshold have exacerbated what by 1948 had already become a defining feature of politics in the pre-state period, in what was then called Mandatory Palestine – an area encompassing Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza that in 1922 the League of Nations gave to Britain to govern. The Zionist movement that first emerged in the 1880s was comprised of numerous organizations divided from each other on ideology, policy preferences, and sometimes personality. In order to obtain as much support as possible across the world, and later to present a united front against the Palestinian Arabs and the British, the movement decided early on to be as inclusive of all Zionist parties as possible.

Many parties – but few party camps

Since 1948, it has been common for dozens of parties to compete in elections, and for 10 to 12 parties to win representation. This political fragmentation has prevented any party from attaining a majority – 61 seats – in the Knesset. This means that every government in Israel has been a coalition of two or more parties. These governments typically form only after an intense period of bargaining among the parties to determine which of them will form the coalition.

At the same time, this fragmentation of individual parties has coalesced into a handful of party blocs or camps.

Traditionally, Israeli political parties have been divided into four camps, or clusters: left, right, religious, and “Arab.” Parties that advocate for socialist policies comprised the left-wing bloc. To some extent they were more pragmatic in foreign policy, although until the 1980s this distinction was less sharp. At that point, they became more oriented toward diplomacy in the Arab-Israeli conflict and, by the 1990s, were increasingly willing to concede at least some territory to a Palestinian state. The primary party in this camp has been the Labor Party, which has existed since 1948 in the form of Mapai and then the Alignment.

Israel’s right-wing camp bloc has traditionally included parties that advocate for a more free-market economy and an aggressive foreign policy. These parties tended to be more nationalist, and some held maximalist demands regarding what they refer to as the Land of Israel – the biblical and historical area that at different times encompassed what is today Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Since the 1980s, this camp has generally rejected territorial compromise and, based on its suspicion of all Palestinian factions, viewed the use of force as the most appropriate foreign policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since its formation in 1973, Likud has been the main party around which smaller ones in this bloc revolve.

Israel’s other two blocs have been much smaller. The religious camp includes the Jewish Orthodox parties, some of which have been as committed to the Land of Israel aspiration as the right-wing bloc. The “Arab” bloc has encompassed parties that represent the Palestinian minority in Israel, although parties with a Marxist or Communist orientation have also included some Jewish members. Neither camp has seen a primary party emerge within the bloc.

There might be a fifth camp of “centrist parties.” Though they claim to occupy a middle ground between Labor and Likud – and are perceived as doing so – these parties have tended to draw their leadership from Labor and, especially, Likud. They have mostly leaned right on issues related to the peace process and security policy. Most of these parties have not lasted more than one election, however. In the 2022 election, only one party – Yesh Atid – claimed to occupy the center and won representation.

The emergence of the political right

From 1948 to 1977 Israel was characterized as a dominant party system, in which Mapai/Alignment/Labor always won the highest number of Knesset seats and always served as the senior coalition partner. Observers quipped that elections were held to determine who would be Mapai’s coalition partners. Israel’s elections also set the domestic and foreign policy agendas, and party-affiliated bureaucrats formed the bulk of the civil service.

In the 1977 election, a political “earthquake” occurred. The Labor Party went from 51 seats after the 1973 election to just 32, while Likud rose from 39 to 43. Labor’s precipitous drop encouraged other parties – particularly those in the right-wing and religious camps – to see Likud as a serious contender for senior coalition partner.

The 1977 election initiated a period of competitive elections, in which Labor and Likud fought for control over the government. Despite this competition, Likud was the leading party. In the Israeli system, the President decides which party gets a mandate to try and form a government. Although Likud and Labor won a similar amount of seats in this period, smaller parties on the right and in the religious camp increasingly viewed it as a more attractive partner to Labor.

In 2006, for the first time in Israel’s history, a third party, Kadima, won the election and a party other than Labor or Likud formed the government. Although it claimed to be a centrist party, on foreign and security policy Kadima leaned right (its founder, Ariel Sharon, had already served as prime minister as head of Likud).

In the 2009 election, Kadima won one more seat than Likud. But Benjamin Netanyahu was able to garner more support in the Knesset, and Israeli President Shimon Peres gave Netanyahu the mandate to form a government. Netanyahu became prime minister for the first time since 1996-1999. Likud and Netanyahu have been in control since 2009, with a brief interruption from June 2021 to December 2022.

The major parties lose ground

Israel’s two largest parties – Labor and Likud – have shrunk over time, both in absolute numbers of Knesset seats and relative to smaller parties within their camps and centrist parties. This has weakened their ability to control bargaining over coalitions.

A short-lived experiment from 1996 to 2001 exacerbated this process. There was a longstanding concern that Israel’s small parties held considerable bargaining power over big parties and the prime minister, allowing them to impose their narrow ideological agendas on the government.

In 1992 the Knesset voted to create a split-ticket system. The electorate could now vote directly for a prime minister at the same time they voted for a party to represent them in the Knesset. Lawmakers expected this would empower the prime minister, who would have a mandate directly from the people and who would not be beholden to small parties.

The experiment failed dramatically, which is why the Knesset repealed the law in 2001. Voters realized they could select their prime minister from among the two viable contenders (from the two biggest parties, Labor and Likud) to reflect their general political orientation. At the same time, they could vote for the party that represented their narrow political or ideological interests. The net effect weakened Labor and Likud.

Labor and Likud had been the largest parties since the 1970s, and every prime minister had come from their ranks – except for 2003, 2006, and 2021. After the 1992 election the two parties had a combined total of 76 seats. In 1996 that number dropped by 10, and in 1999 by another 21. Although at times their numbers have increased slightly since then, neither has regained the dominance they had prior to the early 1990s. This is because while voters have moved away from the big parties, they have tended to remain within their own ideological camps.

As part of this process, the decline of the left-wing Labor Party has been one of the most dramatic changes in Israeli politics. The party that led the creation of Israel and steered it through its formative first three decades won only four seats in the 2022 election – the lowest number for any party in the Knesset. There has not been a left-wing party that can serve as a genuine contender for government in many years, one that prioritizes diplomacy, negotiation, and compromise.

The rise of Benjamin Netanyahu and the political right

Netanyahu’s political wins required both compromise and considerable promises. As he sought to remain in power, fend off challengers, and avoid standing trial on charges of corruption, Netanyahu became increasingly desperate, courting smaller extremist far-right and religious parties as junior coalition partners. He has had to promise these parties extensive concessions, including a commitment to expand settlements in the West Bank, increased subsidies to Jewish Orthodox communities. Coalition partners also pushed Netanyahu to weaken the judicial system so that it cannot serve as a check on government power.

Demographic changes in Israel have also helped Netanyahu’s political survival. Younger Israelis have consistently leaned right in recent years. And since at least the 2000s, an increasing number of Israeli Jews identify as national-religious. Although it is not a monolithic community, the national-religious tend to be more traditional and conservative in their religious practice, vote for right-wing parties, and emphasize the importance of the Jewish character of the country. They view the Land of Israel as the the biblical heritage of the Jewish people, and believe the purpose of the state is to ensure Israeli control over the Land – to the point that some subgroups among the national-religious will challenge the state’s authority on issues related to settlement expansion.

Some of these changes reflect a natural shift in politics, as the country has moved away from its socialist origins. The core constituency of the Labor Party, Ashkenazi Jews (Jews with European ancestry), has declined as a percentage of the country’s Jewish population. The numbers of Mizrachi and Sephardi Jews (those with Middle Eastern and Spanish ancestry) have increased. These groups don’t share in the attachment to Labor among older Ashkenazim, and generally are closer to Likud, socially and religiously.

Additionally, the 2000-2005 Second Intifada and the Palestinian attacks after the Camp David negotiations failed to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, hardened attitudes among Israeli Jews, especially the youth. Public opinion studies have shown that security concerns, primarily regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, have become among the more salient issues for voters.

Coalition governments and foreign policy

Research on how coalitions affect foreign policy has highlighted how junior partners (that is, smaller parties) can shape the foreign policy agenda. This influence can increase when these parties are in charge of government departments.

Netanyahu’s decision to include members of the far-right Religious Zionism party in the cabinet he formed in 2022 is one example. He named Bezalel Smotrich as minister of finance and additional minister in the Ministry of National Defence, and Itamar Ben Gvir as minister of national Security. Ben Gvir resigned in protest in January 2025, after Netanyahu agreed to the ceasefire in the war with Hamas..

Both Smotrich and Ben Gvir have been members of the inner Security Cabinet, which plays the primary role in foreign and security policymaking within the government. Both are Jewish supremacists, who believe that Palestinian citizens of Israel “don’t belong” in Israel, that the West Bank should be incorporated into Israel. The two politicians have advocated for the use of violence against Palestinians and have regularly made racist and anti-LGBTQ comments Smotrich and Ben Gvir opposed the ceasefire with Hamas, arguing that the military campaign should not end until Hamas is destroyed. Smotrich has been public about his support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.

The legacy of Israel’s political fragmentation

The fragmented nature of Israeli politics, exacerbated by the electoral system, has contributed to the dominance of the political right. This has allowed Netanyahu to make promises to smaller parties from the right-wing and religious blocs, effectively limiting Israel’s foreign policy options, particularly when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The trend since the 2000s has been toward a stronger political right, both in the center right and the far right. That’s not likely to change any time soon. Israel’s five elections in the last five years is not because of a competition over left and right, but reflects the right-wing bloc’s inability to agree on the principles of a government.

If voters don’t see a serious alternative to a right-wing government, it is likely that Israel will continue to prioritize the same hardline stance toward Palestinians and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That’s because the far-right and religious parties will continue to determine the composition of Israel’s government. While the responsibility for ending the conflict does not lie with Israel only, the domestic politics of the county suggests that no major changes in Israeli-Palestinian relations will occur as a result of the Israel-Hamas war and the ceasefire.

Brent E. Sasley is a 2024-2025 Good Authority fellow.

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Good to Know: Israeli politics