After more than ten consecutive years in power, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s luck may have finally run out. The country’s second election in five months appears to have set in motion the final chapter of his long and political career. But if this is the end for Netanyahu, it’s also proof that he has changed how Israelis think about major policy questions in a way that will ramify long after he’s gone.
The Israeli electoral system provides for confusing results in even the most clear-cut election outcomes. The system of electing a parliament — each citizen casts a single vote for one party of his choice, with the 120 seats in the Knesset allocated on a proportional basis among only those parties that get at least 3.25 percent of the total vote — makes it virtually impossible for any single party to win a majority on its own. This has created a system in which blocs of parties, whose components compete separately for seats in the Knesset, are widely understood to back a single candidate for prime minister…
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