Retro: April 2030

Following the death of Benjamin Netanyahu in 2026 at the age of 77, Israeli politics settled in a place that could be called thoroughly centrist. Likud, now led by former IDF Spokesperson, Minister of Culture and Sport, Acting Prime Minister, and Minister of Transportation Miri Regev, entered into a centrist unity government consisting of Likud, Blue and White (and former Blue and White partners Yesh Atid-Telem and Derekh Eretz), and Haredi political party Shas (who took some cajoling to support a female Prime Minister, considering Shas bars women from running for office under their banner).

Miri Regev's tenure as Prime Minister saw substantial rhetorical progress made on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process, though this did not materialize is substantial action. While the Regev administration did not saber-rattle for further annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which the Netanyahu government had fallen back on from time to time, it made little effort to block the creation of new settlements and outposts within the region.

This alliance remained in power until early 2030, when disagreements over the scale of Israel's response to renewed attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah led the more liberally-minded members of Blue and White and Yesh Atid-Telem to revoke their support for the government, forcing an early election in mid-2030. This was viewed by many commentators as the final fracturing of the alliance along fault lines that had existed ever since Iran's successful ICBM tests in 2027, and was worsened by Israel's failure to respond to the blatant nuclear ambitions.

This leadership crisis was not limited to the ruling coalition, either: following immense pressure from within Likud, Miri Regev was forced to hold a leadership election in 2030. Though several Likudniks from the right wing of the party floated the idea of throwing their hat into the ring, the anti-Regev forces ultimately coalesced behind Gideon Sa'ar, a former Education and Interior Minister who had previously challenged Netanyahu for leadership of Likud in 2019. While some thought he might leave the party following this failure, he ultimately elected to remain in Likud's parliamentary bloc, becoming one of the leaders of the party's right wing. Sa'ar would go on to win a decisive victory over Regev, securing over 60 percent of the vote.

Compared to Regev, Sa'ar took a hardline stance on the Palestinian issue. In 2012, he came out against the prospect of a two-state solution, claiming that "there is no two-state solution; there is at most a two-state slogan"--a view which he has continued to hold. He is an advocate for continued Israeli settlement in the West Bank, even going so far as to call for the region's annexation to Israel during the 2019 Leadership Election and again during the 2030 race.

The 2030 Knesset election in Israel can be regarded as nothing less than a total victory for the Israeli right, and a right-populist pushback in response to the threat of a resurgent Iran and recent attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah. Left wing parties like Labor and Meretz continued their decline into electoral irrelevance, with their traditional ally Gesher failing to win any seats in the Knesset. Due to a concerted media campaign blaming the weakness of the centrist members of the previous coalition for the difficult geopolitical situation Israel now found itself in, the Centrist parties had similar poor results, with Blue and White and Yesh Atid-Telem losing several seats to Likud and more right-wing parties like Yisrael Beiteinu, Yamina, and Jewish Home.

With centrist and left-wing parties performing at historic lows at the ballot box, it fell to center-right and right-wing parties to form a government. This coalition--the so-called "Coalition for National Defense"--consists of Likud (the largest party in the Knesset), Derekh Eretz (an erstwhile member and the right flank of 2019's Blue and White coalition, which broke off in protest of that electoral alliance's centrist), Yisrael Beiteinu (a secular nationalist political party known for its anti-clericalism and revisionist Zionism), and Yamina (an alliance of right-wing parties that supports settlers interests and, increasingly over the past decades, a more secular Zionism). Interestingly, traditional allies of Likud, such as the religious conservative parties of Shas and United Torah Judaism, were eschewed in favor of parties of a more secular and nationalist conservative bent. Commentators believe that this represents a renewed commitment to Israeli expansionism in the West Bank, with Sa'ar stating in multiple public appearances that "...the peace process, if it can even be called that, has been a disaster for Israel and the Jewish people."

Despite being excluded from the government, the 2030 election also highlighted the growing demographic divides in Israel. Joint List (a minority rights party that earns most of the Arab votes in Israel) and Shas (a Haredi religious-political party) both grew their power in the Knesset, owing to the above average population growth of the Arab and Haredi populations over the past decade.