SOMETIMES even the best-hatched plans go awry. A year ago Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, pushed for a law to raise the threshold parties needed to enter the Knesset, from 2% to 3.25%. Mr Lieberman has long campaigned to reduce the presence of Arabs in Israel’s parliament and, like others on the right, hoped the move would sideline if not eliminate three small Arab parties each of which holds three or four seats.The ploy had the opposite effect. Fearing political purgatory in Israel’s March 17th elections, the three parties pulled off the impossible and joined forces to create a single bloc, the Joint List. It could become the fourth-largest party and determine Israel’s next government.Meanwhile Mr Lieberman’s party, Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel Our Home”), faces oblivion. Buffeted by a series of corruption scandals and its leader’s confusing flip-flops, it is fast slumping towards the minimal threshold. Many savour his comeuppance. “We won’t shed a tear,” chuckles Mtanes Shihadeh, an Arab pollster.Arabs form about 20% of Israel’s 8m population. Mainstream parties, both left and right, routinely field the odd Arab candidate and Arabic...
From The Economist: Middle East and Africa
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