Third elections, four outcomes
Photos: Flash90
In three weeks, Israelis will head to the polls for the third time in 12 months. As of this writing, neither the right nor the left-wing seems capable of breaking the political stalemate that has plagued Israel for the last year.
Most of the parties are running surprisingly low-key campaigns. For the Blue and White Party, that’s a strategy: the center-left party led by Benny Gantz intends to concentrate all of its resources on the last two weeks of the race, a lesson they claim to have learned from the previous two campaigns.
According to sources inside the party, Blue and White intends to focus on the poor performance of Israel’s national health service: elderly patients sleep in the hallways due to overcrowding, waiting times for specialist care are endless, and doctors work impossible shifts. Their negative campaign will also focus on the indictment facing Likud party leader Binyamin Netanyahu, of course, and question his ability to carry out his duties while under a legal cloud.
Meanwhile, the Likud is pouring all its resources into the ground game. Netanyahu is expected to hold campaign rallies in cities across Israel, while attempting to focus national attention on the annexation of West Bank settlements and improvement in relations with Arab neighbors. His central message: Victory is within our grasp.
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