With 99.5% of all votes counted, the final results are in, and it turns out the right and the left are absolutely even. Some changes are still possible after the soldier votes are counted.

5,656,705 people had the right to vote.
3,616,947 (63.31%) voted.
3,579,115 votes were good.
37,832 votes had to be thrown out.

The following parties made it into the Knesset:

Likud-Beitenu – 31 (42)

Yesh Atid (Yair lapid) – 19 (new)

Labor – 15 (13)

Jewish Home – 11 (7)

Shas – 11 (11)

Torah Judaism – 7 (5)

The Movement (Livni) – 6 (new)

Meretz – 6 (3)

Arabs – 12 (11)

Kadima – 2 (28)

Power for Israel did not make it into the Knesset, although it is the nearest a full 2-seats, with 1.68% of the votes. It is followed by Rabbi Amsalem (1.21%).

Right wing block – 60, Left wing with Arabs – 60

Some are still predicting that Likud will go up to 33, HaBayiy HaYehudi will go up to 12, Yesh Atid will drop to 18, and the Arab parties will also drop, once the soldier’s votes have been counted.

For the list of all the individual candidates that made it in, click here.

There are Israeli voters making some surprising and rather unexpected choices for political candidates on Tuesday, January 22.

Yair Hizni, who grew up in a settler family in Hebron, is casting his vote for Shelly Yachimovich, the leader of Israel’s Labor Party. Hizni, a teacher who lived in the settlement community of Nokdim in Judea before recently moving to Jerusalem, spoke with Tazpit News Agency about his decision to support Yachimovich.

“It’s less about the political parties and more about who Shelley is for me,” said Hizni.

“I believe that Shelly speaks a language that people can respect – she is a very ethical and honest person,” Hizni told Tazpit News Agency.

“Shelly doesn’t take the typical left-wing stance on certain issues and has the ability to bridge between the different sectors of Israeli society and solve the problems of this country,” he said.

“Take for example, the settlers,” said Hizni. “Shelly is probably one of the few politicians on the left who doesn’t speak with hate against the settlers – as well as the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel – she is someone who wants to talk with these groups. She doesn’t speak with the hatred that has characterized many leftist politicians over the years against the settlers.”

In an interview with Ha’aretz last year, Yachimovich stated that seeing the settlers join Israel’s summer social justice protests made her “unequivocally” happy. “There is a new language, a unifying language, a uniting language,” she stated in the interview.

“But for me,” said Hizni, “Shelly’s stances on economic and domestic issues are just as important. The economy, the weaker sectors of our society – for example, the elderly, Holocaust survivors – also need to be addressed.”

In a country where politics is taken very seriously, Hizni says that his parents, who live in Hebron, found it difficult in the beginning to accept his more liberal perspective.

“In the beginning, they were shocked,” he said laughing. “Politics is very important to them. But now we talk freely about politics and I love the dialogue – even with their right-wing neighbors.”

Another Israeli citizen, Khaled Mazared of Beit Zarzir, in northern Israel, is also looking for an “honest” politician. Mazared is casting his vote for the religious Zionist party, Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home.

A Bedouin who served as Captain in the IDF’s Givati brigade, Mazared believes that Bennett’s “stand on Israel’s security and his commitment to the spirit of the IDF and values of the army and soldiers’ moral is critical.”

For Mazared, who is Muslim, the fact that Bennett is religious and wears a kippa makes him trustworthy. “In the army, I served with men like Bennett, who were religious and had values. I know their word is good, and, based on my army experience, I trust Bennett,” Marazed told Tazpit.

“Bennett speaks in a simple and real way. He says that whoever is loyal to the country deserves to be acknowledged for their service and to be addressed. As a Bedouin, politicians have always made us promises and in the end, they didn’t do anything,” Mazared said.

Bedouin citizens are a minority within the Arab minority in Israel, and make up three percent of Israel’s population. Considered to be semi-nomadic tribes, most Bedouins originally came from Hejaz, a region in the northern Arabian peninsula, and immigrated to Israel between the 14th and 18th century. Some also arrived in Israel from the Syrian desert. Today Israel’s Bedouin tribes are found in the southern, central and northern regions of the country, with a significant number, especially those from northern Israel, serving in the IDF and identifying with the Jewish state.

“Most of my community want to give Bennett a chance – he is new and it seems that he will be able to appreciate the Bedouin people and help us, especially with education, government employment and public transportation. My Bedouin community has always supported politicians like General Raful Eitan and Rehavam Ze’evi in the past, and Bennett seems to follow their path.”

“I hope that Bennett does well on Tuesday,” concluded Marazed. “ I’ve done everything I can to encourage other Bedouins to vote for him.”

It was bound to happen: Traditional Likud-Beitenu voters have been shopping around for better options, such as Jewish Home, not because they don’t identify with the Likud’s platform, but because they fear that Prime Minister Netanyahu might turn his back on the same platform, as he has been known to do. That mistrust was only enhanced by the fact that Netanyahu’s partner, Avigdor Liberman, is also not particularly committed to the vision of a greater Israel and the rejection of a Palestinian state. (Liberman’s legal woes couldn’t have helped, either).

But in the end, as the threats of a resurgence of the left-wing parties was becoming a reality, and the possibility of a left-led coalition government was being bandied about, many Likud-Beitenu are coming back to the mother ship. Much like American voters being forced to vote for the lesser of evils, rather than for a “shining city on the hill” candidate, the majority of right-wing Israelis will dig up a laundry clip to affix to their noses, and vote Likud-Beitenu.

Or so it turns out from the poll conducted for the news and public affairs radio channel Reshet Bet by Maagar Mochot (The name literally means “a collection of brains” and can be loosely translated as “think tank”), with a sample of 706 likely voters, with a 4.5% margin of error.

This margin of error translates into more than 5 Knesset seats, which could mean that parties that did not cross the two-seat blocking percentage will make it, while others that appear here to have squeezed through will end up outside. So this poll, like every poll, is but a snapshot of voter sentiment today – except that the closer we get to next Tuesday, Election Day, the more these numbers will start getting nailed in place.

So, with all of that in mind, here are the numbers:

Likud-Beitenu – 37

Labor – 16

Jewish Home – 13

Shas – 11

Yair Lapid – 9

Torah Judaism – 6

Meretz – 6

Tzipi Livni – 5

Kadima – 3

Power for Israel – 3

3 Arab lists – 10

Rabbi Amsalem – 1 (fails the blocking percentage)

These numbers confirm that the left wing Jewish parties are on their way out, amounting to a mere 39 seats, or 32.5% of the overall population. The Arabs, with 10 seats, or just over 8% of the population. That makes right wing and Haredi parties a seemingly insurmountable, 71-seat block, accounting for better than 59% of the overall population, and a staggering 65%, give or take, of the Jewish adult population.

It is safe to say that Israel has never been more right wing or more religious in its history, and such percentages would take more than a generation to reverse.

So, Bibi will be the next prime minister, and from these figures he should be able to cobble together a solid right-wing coalition in half and hour, even without having to invite the “bad boys” of Israel’s right wing politics from Power for Israel, Aryeh Eldad and Michael Ben Ari.

The only winner from this severe drop in the power of the left is Meretz, which, unlike the rest of the Jewish leftist parties has never denied its leftist identity. And it paid off: as soon as left wing voters realized the right will stay in charge next Tuesday, they abandoned Labor, Livni and Lapid, who have been denying their leftist agenda, describing themselves as “centrist” – in favor of a truly leftist party.

Sadly, his renewed strength (although Likud-Beitenu is still going to receive fewer seats than its current 42) would also enable Bibi to avoid Bennett and Jewish Home, partnering instead with Shas, Torah Judaism and Yair Lapid.

And the fact that Yair Lapid is the Haredi-hater’s Haredi hater should not keep everybody involved from living long and prospering together. Because, in the end, politics is about jobs and money. Ideology is merely the way you get them…

While most polls in the last week have shown the Likud-Beitenu stabilizing at 34 mandates, a poll published tonight (Wednesday) by Channel 10 shows the Likud-Beitenu garnering only 32 mandates.

The Channel 10 report included the fact that none of the Likud’s district candidates would get in and even MK Carmel Shama could be on the chopping bloc. Not mentioned is the fact that current MK Ayoub Kara (number 39 on the joint list, but the 25th ranking Likud candidate) would also not get in the Knesset.

Also, apparently Gideon Sa’ar who chairs the campaign department (mateh behirot) and Gilad Erdan who chairs the public relations department (mateh hasbarah) are not even speaking.

As for the other parties, the poll shows the right-wing-religious bloc garnering 65 mandates. That includes Power for Israel which would pass the voting threshold and garner two mandates, but would not likely join nor be included in a coalition headed by Netanyahu.

The Jewish Home party would garner 14 seats, keeping with the 13-14 shown by other polls over the past week.

Shas would garner 11 mandates, and Torah Judaism six. Am Shalem would only garner one, not passing the voting threshold.

On the Left, Labor would only garner 16, Yesh Atid 11, the Movement nine, Meretz six. The three Arab parties would receive a total of 11 mandates. Kadima would pass the voting threshold with two mandates. The Green Leaf party and the New Country parties each would only receive one mandate and would fail to pass the voting threshold by only tens of thousands of votes each.

The poll was conducted by the Dahaf Institute. Seven-hundred and sixty five people were interviewed by phone, including cell phone. (Many Israeli polling firms interview only 500 potential voters).

Originally published at Rubin Reports.

The Israeli election set for January 22 and the coverage thereof is very strange in several respects. It is a contest in which his opponents seek to beat centrist Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu, of the Likud party, in a remarkably inept manner and in which international understanding of the issues is at the low level we’ve become used to seeing.

Here’s a simple way to understand the situation. The right-wing parties and the left-wing parties are each likely to get roughly the same number of seats that they received in the 1999 election. The difference is that in 1999 the rightist parties divided their vote among three parties and today have largely united into one. The moderate left in 1999 gave their votes mainly to one party and now are dividing it among four.

In addition, viewing the actual electioneering by the left makes one appreciate just how fraudulent political consultants are. They claim that they are going to help the candidate win but have no idea of how to do so. And in Israel they borrow childishly from the latest fads in American politics without regard to the differences. Here are the themes pushed by the moderate left opposition:

–Bibi is for the rich. This slogan is unlikely to work in a country where lower income generally corresponds with more conservative voting. The idea is obviously stolen from Barack Obama’s campaign. But Obama was going for large African-American, Hispanic, and student blocs plus some middle class sectors that could be stirred up over hatred of the rich. This has no relevance for Israel.

–Bibi will get you killed. This theme is accompanied by a picture of a mushroom cloud. But is the idea that he will get you nuked by attacking Iran or by not attacking Iran? It isn’t clear. And since Netanyahu has the best claim to preserve the country’s security that approach is likely to be counterproductive.

–Bibi doesn’t want your vote. This is the newest poster to appear though it isn’t clear who’s promoting it. That makes no sense at all.

–The choice of photographs. Former Prime Minister Tsipi Livni, the candidate of her own party—and one of the quartet seeking moderate/moderate left voters—has a photograph on her poster that looks as if it were selected by her worst enemy. In it she appears ugly, angry, and confused.

–Livni’s ad has several shots of Obama and one of her standing with new Secretary of State John Kerry. They seem to argue that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas really wants peace but Netanyahu blocked it. Perhaps this ad was designed by left-liberal American Jewish political consultants. It won’t go over well in Israel.

Shaul Mofaz, candidate of Kadima, Livni’s former party that is expected to collapse completely in the election, has a terrible photograph of himself with former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. That relates to Kadima’s founder but is unlikely to win any votes. Rather than projecting leadership, the other left-of-center party leaders seem to be seeking anonymity.

What’s astonishing is the obtuseness of the opposition, especially Labor. Netanyahu is going to win but the way to get the largest vote, becoming the official opposition and possibly his coalition partner, is to run on an energetic program of domestic improvements. The obvious opposition approach should be that it is the time to improve schools, the infrastructure, and reduce housing and food prices.

People are waiting to be told that their living standards can be improved without threatening their security. A winning theme would be to say Netanyahu has neglected these domestic issues. True, the economy has done very well but the price of relatively high employment, rapid growth, and low inflation has been high prices.

For breakfast just now I paid $3 for a croissant and $3 for a coffee in a country where income levels average half those in the United States. Young people can’t afford an apartment in a country where rentals are relatively rare and there is not a strong mortgage system or tax deductions for paying one.

That’s why there were social protests in 2011. While going into big debt and increasing subsidies—the trap into which most Western economies have fallen—would be a mistake there are certainly good shifts to be made. Instead, voters are being treated like idiots who will be won over by some silly slogan convincing them that either the prime minister is evil or will get them incinerated. That won’t win an election.

You may know Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak from his feisty appearances on You Tube before packed halls—and occasionally packed stadiums—in Israel and the U.S., dazzling his audiences into taking on a life of adherence to the commandments. But the Haredi Rabbi who prefers his ancestral Yemenite garb to the common Haredi attire, who has launched a Knesset list, “Power to Influence” to mixed reactions ranging from calling him delusional to accusing him of defying rabbinic authorities, is starting to make his mark in Israel’s election campaign.

A poll published Thursday by Reshet Bet of the Israel Broadcasting Authority, conducted by the Sarid Institute with a sample of 1000—double the accepted sample size—awarded Rabbi Yitzhak 4 seats in the next Knesset.

Both Rabbi Yitzhak and another Haredi Maverick, Rabbi Haim (Emile) Amsalem, are grabbing their votes from the largest Haredi party – Shas. But a third Haredi party, Torah Judaism, which has been polling at 6 seats for more than a month, has now increased to 7, also most likely from Shas.

The Sephardi Haredi party Shas, who had reached as many as 12 seats, are down to 9 in this survey.

Altogether, the right-wing parties’ combined force has increased to 71, while the left, including Arabs, sank to 49.

Part of the voter desertion on the left stems from the failure of Labor, Lapid and Livni to form a block this week. Of the three, Tzipi Livni is viewed by most leftist voters as responsible for the collapse of those talks.

Here are today’s results:

Likud-Beitenu – 34

Labor – 17

Jewish Home – 14

Yair Lapid – 9

Shas – 9

Tzipi Livni – 7

Torah Judaism – 7

Meretz – 4

Hadash – 4

Power to Influence – 4

Ra’am Ta’al – 3

Balad – 3.

If you add up these figures, you’ll get only 115 seats (out of 120). Yossi Sarid, whose institute conducted the survey, told the Jewish Press that the missing 5 seats are divided among Kadima (between 2 and 3), Power to Israel (2-3) and Rabbi Amsalem (1-2). Israel’s blocking percentage rule only awards seats to parties who have earned from two seats and up, and since all three small parties may not cross that baseline, Reshet Bet preferred to leave them out of their presentation.

The poll has a 3.1% margin of error.

Here are some videos from the first batch of Israeli election TV commercials produced by the various political parties. Election related TV commercials began running on Tuesday night.

Otzma L’Yisrael:

Jewish Home:

Shas:

Likud-Beytenu:

Hatnua (Livni):

Kadima:

Green Leaf:

Meretz:

The average of last week’s nine polls ( Dec 30 2012 – Jan 5 2012) (Channel 2/Yediot Achronot, Knesset Channel, Maariv, Yisrael Hayom, Haaretz, Walla, Reshet Bet, Jerusalem Post/Globes, Yisrael Post/Sof Shavua), with current Knesset seats in [brackets], and the average of the polls from two weeks ago in (brackets):

34.0 (34.8) [42] Likud Beitenu

17.1 (17.1) [08] Labor

14.5 (13.5) [05] Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home/National Union)

10.5 (11.2) [10] Shas

9.5 (9.2) [07] Movement (Livni)

9.4 (9.5) [---] Yesh Atid

5.7 (6.1) [05] Yahadut Hatorah/UTJ

4.4 (4.3) [03] Meretz

4.0 (4.0) [04] Hadash

3.8 (4.1) [04] Ra’am-Ta’al

3.3 (2.6) [03] Balad

1.6 (1.4) [02] Strong Israel

1.1 (0.4) [21] Kadima

0.6 (1.0) [01] Am Shalem

—- (0.0) [05] Independence (No longer running)

67.1 (68.1) [65] Right-Religious 52.8 (51.8) [55] Center-Left-Arab Changes from week 12 to week 13: Movement passes Yesh Atid for 5th place.

Hadash passes Ra’am-Ta’al for 9th place.

Kadima passes Am Shalem for 13th place.

Largest Gains: Bayit Yehudi gained 1 seats and Kadima gained 0.7 of a seat. Biggest Losses: Likud Beitenu lost .8 of a seat and Shas lost 0.7 of a seat.

Visit Knesset Jeremy.