Bedouin girls walk past campaign billboards for Israel's right-wing Likud party bearing a picture of its leader Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Bedouin town of Rahat near the southern Israeli city of Beersheba on March 10, 2021, ahead of the legislative election. (HAZEM BADER / AFP)
JERUSALEM - Israel's left wing is expected to shrink in the 120-seat parliament, or the Knesset, in the upcoming elections. The voting, scheduled for March 23, will reflect a ongoing process in which the left bloc has gradually dwindled.
Israel has been led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for over a decade. For many young people voting for the first time this year, there is not much memory about their country under a different leader.
Netanyahu and his supporters have branded his opponents as "left" and "weak," managing to create an almost unbreakable linkage between the two words.
Netanyahu and his supporters have branded his opponents as "left" and "weak," managing to create an almost unbreakable linkage between the two words
Years of conflict have left both Israelis and Palestinians jaded on the prospects for peace, which has been the main agenda of the left-wing parties.
The left now has three parties running in the election. The Labor party, Meretz and the United Arab List are expected to occupy approximately 20 seats.
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"A few elements led to this. Mainly it is the demographics -- the majority of the Israeli public has gone to the right. It is a marketing success of Netanyahu coupled with the developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," said Alon Liel, former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
When Netanyahu entered office in 2009, Israel was recovering from years of a violent conflict with the Palestinians which cost a great number of lives on both sides. For many Israelis, the trauma still remains.
And the violence that came after the Israelis and the Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords pushed many Israelis towards a more hawkish position.
"These events hugely weakened the left and have not allowed it to rehabilitate since," said Eran Vigoda-Gadot, a professor of political science and governance at the University of Haifa.
"As long as the conflict is present and the Israeli public still perceives the country as under threat, the public will continue to lean to the right," he added.
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Also, the threats from Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon have impacted the public opinion.
Netanyahu has been at the forefront of Israel's public battle against its arch enemy Iran for decades. On this matter, he has few opponents within the political map, making the left wing less relevant.
"The left-wing agenda cannot beat the worries and concerns of the public," Vigoda-Gadot explained.
As the message of the left wing has increasingly landed on deaf ears, many Israelis do not believe in dialogue with the Palestinians and the mutual distrust between the sides means negotiations are not possible in the near future.
In the past, the left favored giving the Palestinians territories in the West Bank currently occupied by Israel in return for cessation of violence, while the right wing was traditionally against any territorial concessions. But this argument has become almost mute.
"The expectations of the left wing have to be realistic," Liel said. "It functions as a lobby in the political sphere, not as a force, not part of a coalition or of the decision making process."
Israel's recent accords with some Gulf States, Morocco and Sudan showed the left wing that its calls for Israel to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict first were ineffective. The new geopolitical reality also reflects a change in the way the players in the region view the situation.
However, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not disappeared and will eventually need to be solved.
"This voice that calls for a solution to the conflict still needs to be heard," Liel added. "Even if it is a weaker voice."
