Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - Special Episode: "Taking the 5th" - Scenarios for Israel's next government

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

We join the team at Commentary Magazine for a discussion on scenarios for Israel's next government coming out of this election (the 5th in 44 months!). Subscribe to commentary magazine by going to: commentary.org

Happy 5th Israeli Election Day. This morning I participated in a conversation on the Commentary podcast with John Podhortz, Noah Rothman, Abe Greenwald, and Christine Rosen, where we dissected these Israeli elections and really went through the different scenarios for the formation of a new Israeli government. So it's a good crash course on all the different permutations we can expect as the Israeli elected leaders head into negotiations after the election for the formation of a new government. And we even explore a scenario where there is a sixth Israeli election next spring. At the end of our conversation,

we also have a quick debrief on the latest state of play in the U.S. congressional and gubernatorial midterm elections, so stick around for that as well. This is Call Me Back. Welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily Podcast. Today is Tuesday, November 1st, 2022. I'm Jon Podhortz, the editor of Commentary Magazine. With me, as always, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe. Hi, Jon. Media Commentary Columnist and American Enterprise Institute Fellow Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine. Hi, Jon. Associate Editor and Author of Rise of the New Puritans, Noah Rothman. Hi, Christine. Hi, John. Associate editor and author of Rise of the New Puritans, Noah Rothman. Hi, Noah. Hi, John. And joining us today, my old friend, Commentary Inc. board member, author of Startup Nation, expert on all things

Israeli and American political, Dan Seenor. Hi, Dan. Good morning, John. How are you? I'm good. So we are here this morning with you in part because Israel is going is right now. Israelis, as we speak, are voting in the. Is it the fifth or the sixth election? Fifth election in 44 months. In 40, okay, so it's more than, so I'm being very unfair. You are. That's actually three and a half years.

I was shorting them. Yeah, I would say, John, I was in Tel Aviv last week and I was on a panel with Tom Nides, who's the US ambassador to Israel, and he was pointing out how much more simple his life would U.S. ambassador to Israel. And he was pointing out how simple, how much more simple his life would be if he were ambassador to the UK instead of ambassador to Israel, trying to manage all this crazy politics. And I pointed out to him that since 2015,

the UK has had five prime ministers. Israel's only had three. So, yeah, it could be much worse in the sweepstakes for, you know, broken electoral systems. That's so surprising because there's always a lot of apocalyptic talk among disappointed liberals, particularly Jewish liberals, about the direction of Israeli politics in general with the strength of – the kind of deciding strength factor of Haredi and other ultra-Orthodox Jews and settlers and people that they tend not to like so here here's where we are we have five scenarios I think we came up with last night five scenarios to offer you to explain what is going on in the Israeli elections but first before we do the five scenarios we need to just lay out a few factors for people who don't know that much about Israeli politics. So Israeli politics has decided there is no general election for the leader of the country, as is true in most, there was briefly a moment when you could vote for the prime minister, but that moment came and went and the law was changed. So you vote for party. And the Knesset, the parliament, has 120 seats. So whoever controls 61 seats is the prime minister.

Whichever party dominates in the coalition that runs up to 61 seats ends up controlling the prime ministership. But it's a proportional system so unlike parliamentary systems say in the uk or canada which uh members of parliament have individual constituencies or ridings that they represent in israel it's a single district the whole country so there are no individual members of the knesset of the parliament that represent specific regions of the country. So all that's done, it's all which parties get which seats or how many seats is determined by the proportion of the vote. So just for simplicity's sake, if your party gets 10 percent of the overall national vote, your party gets 12 seats in the Knesset. It's actually that simple, one would think. The problem is, and we're going to get into this because this is what really

is creating a lot of confusion with this election, is one would say, okay, well, that's simple, right? 10%. If your party gets 10% of the vote, you get 12 seats. And if you get 1% of the vote, then you get 1.2, so call it one seat. So and there are something like 39 or 40 parties running in this election. Now, only 10 to 12 of them will actually wind up in government. But there are all these other parties and all these other parties. All they have to do is get 1% of the vote. If they just get 1% of the vote, they get a seat.

And in fact, with that one seat, enough of them could become kingmakers as as coalitions are formed but there is a law that that has a threshold mandate which is yes it's proportional but you have your party has to get a minimum of 3.25 percent of the vote in order for you to get represented in parliament which is about in the canada state which is about four seats so if you're competitive enough to get represented in parliament, which is about in the Knesset, which is about four seats. So if you're competitive enough to get, say, in that range, but you don't get 3.25%, not only do your votes disappear, but even your sort of ideological allies don't get to benefit from them. So you have a bunch of parties running now that both blocks need the BB led block and the anti BB led block. There are a bunch of small parties that each of them need. And what is

coming up in a lot of the polling is a number of these parties are dangerously close to falling behind that threshold, which means you could have tens of thousands of votes be totally wasted. So here's, this system is so crazy that this government that just, that fell and is now supposedly going to be replaced in the current election. The person who at first ended up becoming the prime minister, excuse me, this is not this government. Anyway, the. Yeah, in the last election.

Yeah, this is no, no, no, it is this government. It's just there was a rotation relationship. Yeah, right. There was I'm sorry, there was a rotation. Right. So it is this it is this government. It is the same government. And Bennett, even though even though he's no longer prime minister,

his party is still a member of the government okay so so the first prime minister in this rotation uh was naftali bennett and naftali bennett was a member of bb's party likud and in fact a deputy to bb began his political career as a deputy chief chief of staff to bb when he was in the opposition ran his uh yeah and like everybody who gets close to bb when he was in the opposition ran his yeah and like everybody who gets close to bb uh you know now hates him like poison except ron dermer except ron dermer that's right um so uh bennett ends up because of the incredibly complex system that dan sort of laid out and which votes to sit all this ended up becoming prime minister of the country when his party scored a total of seven seats and the reason this is interesting is that bibin et niyahu's likud party uh which is the which got 30 seats, I believe, in that election.

He's by far and away the most popular politician in Israel, and Likud is maybe not far and away, but is the most popular party in the country. And for the past all of those elections, Beebe could not assemble, could not take his party and then assemble a coalition that got to 61 seats. And then there was an election after election after election. coalition made up of bennett uh former uh military man named benny gantz and then a kind of telegenic tv personality moderate named yayir lapid who is now the prime minister sort of and and some defectors from bb's lik Gideon Starr, who was who was in previously Likud governments under Bibi. He broke. He founded a new party. Obviously, Ayelet Shaked had her own party.

She's on the right. Right. So Ayelet Shaked's party is one of the parties that is. She's interior minister now. She is. But OK, but she is not. All the polling suggests her party will not make the three and three point two five percent threshold. And it's possible that Bennett's party. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think Bennett's party is gone. Prime Minister.

It's gone. So I think Bennett's party is gone. Guy who two years ago. Or a year ago, a year ago, excuse me, a year ago, became the prime minister. His party cannot get three point two five% of the vote in the country. Yeah, and Gideon Saar, who was a Likud member in Bibi's government, who formed his own party and had his own power center, is in the current government, is worried about not meeting the threshold.

So he merged with Benny Gz former defense the current defense minister to kind of create a bigger block um yeah so there are there are these there are these wild card situations where okay so let's let's get into the scenarios yeah because again bb most popular politician in the country the polling shows that likud will get the most seats as it has gotten in every single one of these elections likud gets the most seats but it has gotten in every single one of these elections who gets the most seats but it's dropped from its high water mark i don't know eight years ago of 35 or 36 seats down to 30 yeah and bb kept assembling coalitions that would get to 59 seats or 60 seats and she just couldn't get that last seat to to to get to 61 and be in these in these elections so nothing has changed even though bb's under indictment and everything like

that he all the polling suggests he's around 30 seats and lapid's party lapid being the sitting prime minister is polling at around 25 26 seats they're like for purpose of the discussion let's just call lapid the the head of the anti bb block so bb is the head of the bb block and lapid is the head of the anti bb block right so uh all the election analysts say that at this moment, based on polling, although it's also weird because you can't. Israeli law forbids polling in the last week or is it? By the way, this is fantastic. No poll can be published three days before the election under Israeli law, which means every news organization polls like crazy right up until, in this case, Friday. So on Friday night, just before Shabbat, you had 15 polls published, 15 polls, like reputable

polls published. So if you think of an Israel like the Shabbat dinner is like our Thanksgiving, like all these families get together every Friday night, multiple three generations. It's like it's not it's like 70 plus percent of the country does some kind of multigenerational family gathering every Friday night, multiple three generations. It's like it's not it's like 70 plus percent of the country does some kind of multigenerational family gathering every Friday night. So just imagine how crazy political discussions get around our Thanksgiving table. Now, imagine Friday night, all these families are still assembling a few days before the election with 15 polls just published.

They all read it on their phones, then shut down their phones, and they're loaded for bear to like, you know, get into brutal arguments over their over their friday night dinner it's fantastic we actually we don't have an up-to-the-minute picture right uh and so i mean all the likud all the you know the polling has the netanyahu led block it like anywhere from 59 to 62 63 seats that's kind of the range if you look so of course it needs they need 61 to be back in power. But there are all these scenarios that show them just at 60 or at 59 or something like that. So now we should run through what might happen in the next six weeks with the proviso that if no government is formed in the next six weeks, guess what happens? Election number six. Election number six. With the proviso that if no government is formed in the next six weeks, guess what happens? Another election.

Election number six. Can I just say it's incredible to see the turnout in these frequent elections? It's quite high, correct? Yeah, it's high. Exactly. I mean, how they don't have election fatigue. It's actually a very, it's something to aspire to as a mayor. So first of all, it's a national holiday, Election Day.

So people are, but you're right. I mean, voting is not compulsory. So the fact that they get this turnout is is extraordinary although certain communities are i think are going to see lower turnout than usual because i think some of them but i think there was some one of these many elections where there was election fatigue and there was all there was a lot of there was a lot of crying and wailing about about election fatigue and israelis can't take it anymore all this and i think what happened is the turnout fell to like 77 that's election fatigue in israel is like turnout that's just around 80 just around 8 out of 10 voters actually turns out okay so the scenario so remember uh bb netanyahu the head of the likud party was prime minister for

was the longest serving prime minister in israel's continuously serving prime minister in israel's history also the longest serving prime minister in history discontinuously because he had a two-year term in the 1990s um is is currently uh in an incredibly long trial it's going to take another year just to continue hearing the witnesses three charges corruption charges against him which are by the way nonsense but we won't go into that it's a it's a it's a preposterous political uh moment that he's being he's even having to face the legal system with these three cases against him. Nonetheless. So he's,

so he is the, he is the, the sole issue in the campaign, meaning is there, are there disagreements about how to handle Iran? Not really. No. Are there, is there are there disagreements about how to handle iran not really are there does anybody not like the abraham accords not really is there much disagreement on what to do about the palestinian authority or the hamas and the gaza and gaza very little you saw lapid take you know military action against Hamas and Gaza in August.

And Netanyahu was very supportive. I mean, yeah, yeah. I mean, the irony is everyone talks about the polarization of Israeli politics. And that's the perception over here and what kind of shapes the press coverage of Israeli politics. The reality is it's not that polarized. I mean, ideologically, it's all it's all people have very strong views about Bibi on one side of the other. But on the actual issues, there's actually pretty broad consensus. And, you know, there is now a very serious and interesting, complicated

policy dispute involving a deal struck with Lebanon over oil fields in the Mediterranean. And it's interesting and it's complicated. And I think on balance, Dan and I, and a lot of people who think the way people on this podcast think, don't think it's a very good deal. And that Lapid was too eager for a win and agreed to this so that he could rack something up and have a good moment with the Americans and look like he had made a major foreign policy move. But it's still a policy. It's still, despite efforts and things you may read about how this is catastrophic and it's disastrous and, you it is real is doing something absolutely you know horrible it just isn't like it is and and there are many on the right who basically think if i mean not to know who's been critical of lapid and i think there's plenty to be critical about but there are also you know plenty on the right who think that if nothing yeah who were prime minister

he probably would have cut the same deal or similar similar yeah so anyway the point is that there isn't a lot the policy whereas until really the mid-2000s i mean the political situation the middle east has changed so radically that until the middle 2000s there were deep profound disagreements about existential matters of policy in Israeli politics, how to deal with the Palestinian Authority, how to deal with Gaza, how to deal with the militarization of the Palestinians, how to deal with Lebanon, the northern border, how to deal with the united states there was a lot of and really in the last 10 years things have changed so much that those central existential issues have kind of fallen by the wayside and and so uh you were really are talking about bb versus not bb and bb is a an incredibly controversial figure because on the one hand he is inarguably the most successful democratic leader of the last pretty much of the 21st century in terms of his ability to make to help his country progress in ways that are really staggering, both diplomatically and

economically and in all kinds of ways. And on the other hand, he's very untrustworthy. He mistreats people. He behaves very high-handedly. And as I said, everybody around him ends up somehow becoming his enemy. He cannot keep people around him because he is disloyal to them but expects total loyalty from them so he is the hinge figure here okay five scenarios so let's start with scenario number one which is bbibi forms a government. He goes into coalition, or we'll take two scenarios. Bibi goes into government. There are two scenarios in which he forms a coalition that helps him return to the prime minister's office.

So, Dan, coalition number one. Coalition number one is Bibi. The Bibi-led bloc wins an outright majority, 61-plus seats. That consists of Likud, his party. It consists of the two ultra-Orthodox parties, the Shas party and the Natatora Judaism party, which have, you know, more often than not, stuck with him. kind of big story of this election is this national religious party uh led by two very provocative uh figures uh inamar ben ben vir and uh and smoltrich these two individuals who are you know um they're hardcore the the most generous description of them is they're hardcore uh pretty extreme right-wing leaders the less generate generous description of them is they're hardcore uh pretty extreme right-wing leaders the less generate

generous description of them is they're like mayor kahanist uh figures who are advocating positions that no one in mainstream israeli politics has advocated for uh total annexation of the west bank um i mean you can go i mean-Gvir himself is like he's defined himself by stirring up trouble at the Temple Mount, you know, which is always a flashpoint between Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews on the anniversary of Israel's unification of Jerusalem. That's often when you see I'm not saying he's directly responsible, but he definitely stirs things up. He he's famous or infamous for when he was much younger. He says he's took it down. But, you know, twenty five, twenty seven years ago, there was that horrendous tragedy where a settler, deranged settler, Baruch Goldstein, you know, was in the West Bank and slaughtered twenty five or thirty Palestinians. It was like a mass, mass, mass casualty attack. He he was he was infamous

Ben Gvir for having a picture of Baruch Goldstein hanging in his home or his office. I mean, he kind of lionizing Baruch Goldstein. I mean, this is the kind of politics that he's trafficked in. And he's always been kind of a bit player and he's no longer a bit player. So it seems not only is he not a bit player, but he and his partner who he's merged with merged parties with Smoltrich, they they may be key to the scenario that you just described, John, which is Netanyahu getting to 61 plus seats and being able to form a government because Netanyahu was clever in getting them to merge their parties. So going back to what I said earlier about parties not falling below the

mandate, he was concerned that one of them could fall below the mandate and lose a lot of right leaning votes. So he wanted to he got them to merge. So they're there. So they basically capture they don't lose any votes. That's the that's the that's the reason to do these these mergers. They happen on both sides or historically have happened on both sides. And and two, he's basically, you know, locked arms with them. I mean, he doesn't really appear with them, but he he's he's conveyed that Ben Gvir will serve in his government. Ben Gvir will be a minister. He said that as recently as the last couple of days.

Keep in mind, a year ago, Netanyahu said Ben Gvir was unfit to be a minister in government. So he's he's totally. Built these guys up and they are polling, you know, very competitively, they could get, you know, well north of 10 seats, which would would put them in a very powerful position in a in a right of center government and the where their votes are coming from is that that's the tricky part, like no one there. So, A a they could be taking votes from the ultra Orthodox parties. The ultra Orthodox parties are worried about that.

There's there's a sense that among particularly some of the younger ultra Orthodox male voters, they have become much more nationalist and they and they Ben Gvir's kind of charisma and provocations is like attractive to them there uh they could potentially be taking votes from those two right-wing parties that you and i john talked about it earlier which is yamina bennett's party and the new hope party which is the the gideon formerly could get on our party they could be taking votes from a yellow chick head small party which probably won't make the mandate so that could be where some of the strength is coming from and then the other big question that analysts in israel are asking is sort of like what we've dealt with in our politics here in the u.s is is ben virgen to just pull out

a bunch of voters that we just haven't seen before is is the the exact is is it you know the old it's a feature not above trump in wisconsin yeah trump in wisconsin that suddenly he's appealing to people that pollsters aren't capturing and um this this sort of national religious charisma very right-wing national nationalist religious charisma is appealing to voters who may have historically sat in that small minority that actually didn't turn out to elections and now they're turning out and could that be enough to buy them another couple seats so that's right there one one interesting wrinkle here is that um israeli politics uh religious parties have been hinge figures and coalitions forever

um these guys are different because most religious parties are are go get into government with the idea of getting governmental spoils and money for their people uh they want to control the education ministry so that they can get money for you know through their school subsidies for the communities yeah right yeah and and they want some guarantees on not weakening the role of Jewish law in the state. So no public transportation on the Sabbath. You know, we can go on and on. But they are they are very transactional. I mean, so transactional that it is routine for politicians from Israeli religious parties to go to jail or to get a rent you know or i mean they're they're they're

hyper machiavelli like realistic they want things from government that's why they're in power and they want to maintain certain privileges that religious people have these guys are different they are they are uh ideologically driven uh in a way that is probably more familiar to American voters at the national level than the kind of politics I'm talking about from other religious parties. parties have a history of corruption and Ben Gavir and Smotrick are different kinds of figures, that's also where they might get votes from from religious voters who are disappointed in the parties for which they have voted because they think that the people who run them are are crooks. Yeah. I mean, what's amazing, there was an ad I saw when I was in Israel. So the Shas party, which is one of these ultra-Orthodox parties, they are running an ad, I've never seen this before,

where they have a young ultra-Orthodox male going into the voting booth to vote, and he's actually choosing between a Shas party, checking off the Shas party checking off likud and checking off the religious zionist party the smoltrich ben vir photo and he's like deciding between the three and then they beam in footage from the deceased founder of the shas movement rabbi ovedia yosef who is like they just use past clips of him. But like the way they edited it, it's like him admonishing this young, you know, lost ultra orthodox Shas voter or should be would would be Shas voter from even contemplating

voting for another one of these parties, which tells you how worried they are. They are worried exactly about what you're describing, John, is that these young voters who have historically just done what the elders have told them to do to go vote for United Torah Judaism and vote for Shas are going to start dancing with this other party. Yosef, by the way, has been dead a decade. So just to give you an idea of how desperate they are, they have to reach back to a dead holy man to try to get people to fall back in line. It's fascinating anyway. So that's scenario number one in which, uh, BB goes into coalition with the national religious

parties with, with this national religious coalition, which is causing in North. This is the, oh my God, this is the end of Israeli democracy. We're lining up with these racist anti-Arabs whoabs who um are following in the footsteps of mayor kahana by the way himself now dead 30 odd years killed by a terrorist in a hotel on lexington avenue in new york city the first as andy mccarthy says the first actual act of jihad unless you want to count robert kennedy's assassination the first act of the modern jihad, Muslim terrorism in the United States was, was the,

was the murder of Kahana. And, you know, oh my God, this is it. This is the end of everything. And this is a big, and all that.

One thing I should mention before we go on is that every election season in Israel, every election has a party that comes out of nowhere and everybody goes, ooh, this could change everything. And often those parts, it's all a sugar high. And when people actually go to the polls, it doesn't happen. The last one was a kind of right wing pot lover whose name I can't remember. Yeah. wing uh pot lover whose name i can't remember yeah but who uh you know like there was he was basically a mix of legalization of marijuana uh and and like super libertarian on markets like right and markets and but also like an interesting guy yeah or wanted to annex

the west bank or something anyway but there was this whole like i met various people on the right and we're like i'm voting for him that's really and there and he scored in the polls and stuff and then he didn't even make the threshold so so his party disappeared but like there is this thing it's like every every every season and that's where you have to be cautious about you know these yeah but i do think this there's something real going on with this one i'm not i you know i don't think they're just going to... And it's generational, because Smotrick and Ben-Gvir are young. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're in their 40s, both of them, and they're professionals. That's the interesting thing. lawyer um who defends uh israel who's like defended israelis who get you know who get accused of beating up uh you know like israeli hooligans who end up you know accused of beating up arabs or doing something like that um and ben gvir i can't is he also a lawyer anyway they're they're professionals they're not yeah they don't like sit around studying Talmud all day. And they're not professional politicians either. So it's an interesting moment. Okay.

So that's scenario number one. We need to speed up a little. Scenario number two, not the coalition with the religious parties. Yeah. So there's two versions of that, actually. So one is if some if if Gauntz, which is he's running as kind of center center right, current defense minister overperforms, let's say he gets I'm picking a number here, 14 plus seats, unlikely, but not impossible. If Ayelet Shaked doesn't get wiped out because she doesn't meet the mandate, there's four plus seats.

Suddenly, Netanyahu has options. Netanyahu can say, wait a minute, Ben-Gvir and Smoltrich, not sure I need you. I've got Gantz and Ayelet Shaked over here, and I can actually cobble together 61 without you. So that's one way a government is formed without the Zionist nationalist party in the coalition. And then the next scenario where a Netanyahu government is formed would actually not be a Netanyahu government. It would be a national unity government where no party can actually form a government, or it seems difficult.

Herzog, Chaim Herzog, who's the current president of Israel, whose job it is. Bougie Herzog. Bougie Herzog. Sorry, Isaac Herzog. Sorry. I'm going to get... Bougie Herzog. Bougie Herzog. Sorry, Isaac Herzog. Sorry, I'm going to get to Bougie's father in a second. Bougie Herzog, the current president, it's his job to work with the different parties after the election to negotiate how a government is formed.

And he wants a national unity government. That's what he wants. He thinks it's the healthiest for Israeli democracy. It would actually keep the extreme right out of the coalition and um he's he's very proud of the role he played in forming this current government which we talked about early which was earlier which was which was like was included many firsts for israel including an arab muslim party in the government um and uh so national unity government would be basically a government of netanyahu lapid and gantz in some kind of rotation and what i was saying about isaac

herzog which uh bougie herzog's father is he negotiated the the a national unity government with the rotation in the mid-80s then the Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir uh and uh and Shimon Peres the labor leader and Bougie wants to you know he's very proud of his father's legacy it was a very important moment Israeli politics was deadlocked back then and I think Herzog thinks it could be part of his legacy to kind of continue his father's work and avoid uh this this very extreme right-wing party having a more prominent role in israeli politics than it already does so that's another way bb could wind up back okay so these these three these three bb scenarios religious party uh coalition without the religious

party with the national religious party and a national unity government. The last two, I think it is fair to say that in his heart of hearts, the scenario that Bibi would like best is number two. He would like to be able to go into coalition with Gantz and avoid the National Religious Party. This is the secret of Bibi when you get down to it he is a very he is a very non-ideological politician uh in a very ideological coalition governing a very ideological coalition and he would prefer not to have this pressure placed on him by the right to do things that would uh alienate um the relationship with the united states and various other things but it's the but it's a hard lift

and it's a hard lift for benny gantz who is a who is kind of be a little like lucy in the football for him to go into coalition with BB with promises and guarantees of things because he knows BB will screw him he's done it before they were in a coalition together it was supposed to be rotation BB negotiated the first slot Gantz was supposed to take over in like a year later and lo and behold the government fell apart six months in and they went to a new election and Gantz never got to be prime minister. So. Right. And by the way, the stuff they're saying about each other. I mean, I know politics gets heated and people work past it once they get. I got to tell you, the last few days, Gantz and Bibi are saying about each other the idea that these guys are going to be in a government together.

I mean, I guess, you know, never say never. But wow. OK. And the National Unity government has some of the same difficulties because then you would basically have got and lapid and lapid the current his entire political definition is that he's not bb he has no and that he would never serve with bb he served with bb briefly as finance minister in 2013 2014 but since then he's like his whole political persona has been in in opposition to bb right okay and let me let me just say one other thing here because it's you mentioned these legal problems that bb has i mean it's it's left unsaid that you know by bb and the people around him but it's understood that you know he wants by being prime minister and having his own government

somehow these legal challenges be relieved. The sitting prime minister, you can't be prosecuting a sitting prime minister and a sitting prime minister can't be bogged down in a trial. And so it's understood that the National Religious Party, as part of a coalition, would help him achieve that. It's not clear that Lapid or even Gantz, but let's just say Lapid could, could live in a world where he formed a government that resulted in BB getting off the hook on, on the legal stuff for all the reasons we just said, because his whole persona is so anti BB.

The question is, could Herzog the president basically say to Lapid in the national interest, you guys all have to be in a government together. We've got to keep the extremists out. And in order to do this, we've got to come up with some mechanism to take the legal pressure off Bibi. It's the only way it'll work. The threat to our country, Herzog would argue, and apparently he has said, you know, to other

officials, the threat to our country is far greater. The threat of these guys, the Smolt and Ben-Gvir joining the government, that's the threat to the country. Seeing a successful end to the legal pressure on Bibi is not. Okay, so, and let's go to the last scenarios, which are,

Bibi doesn't become prime minister. Right, so those are two. are two so that's lapid gets north of 60 and he just is able to form a form of government i it feels very unlikely uh because a he's already i mean if you add up all his um all the the anti-bb block parties it's it's all winds up 55, 56 seats. So he's got a much bigger jump, his block, from like the mid-50s to 61 than Bibi has, if you believe all the polling, from 60 to 61.

And the other issue, if you look at the parties that are at biggest risk of losing, falling beneath the threshold, almost all of them are on the anti-Bibi block, right? It's labor, it's merits, it's a couple of the Arab parties. It's Ram, which is the Arab Muslim party that's in the current government. I think they'll make it. It's it's Avigdor Lieberman's party, Israel Batenu. So these, you know, now I don't think all of them will fall behind, but if like one or two of them do, it completely screws up Lapid's calculus so much. So this was

also I talked about that Shas TV ad another extraordinary site Lapid was campaigning I think last week in labor and merit strongholds encouraging voters to vote for labor or merits so now why because he he he worries he'd be a victim of his own success if he convinces enough of them to vote for him, that's good news because his net vote increases. But if it's just enough that it actually brings those parties below the threshold, but still many of those voters stick with those parties, he's screwed.

So he was actually in labor and merit strongholds campaigning for parties that aren't his own. So there we are. No, no, but we haven't gotten to the last one. We have his own. So there we are. No, no, but we haven't gotten to the last one. We have one more. We have one more. The last is no government is formed and they go to elections again

in the spring or summer of next year. And I actually think that's not a bad scenario for Lapid because he gets to be prime minister for another year. For another year. And one thing BB did to great effect with great, it was very effective at was those multiple elections we've just described, which began in 2019, basically continue to now for,

for a big chunk of that time, BB, even though he's going from election to election election, he was always the incumbent prime minister. He was the incumbent prime minister that was going into an election, but he was still on Balfour street in the prime minister's residence in charge of the government, dealing with national security crises on television every day, managing the COVID pandemic, whatever, pick your crisis du jour. He was large and in charge. And it meant that all he

was able to hold his coalition together because all these other parties felt like, OK, we're not winning elections with Bibi. We're not losing elections, though. And he's still in power and he controls all the patronage and resources we need access to. So we can't abandon him. He's now been a year in the opposition without that power. He's done OK. He's obviously held this coalition together. Can he hang on to it for two years? Like at some point, Lapid is going to be looking like the guy who's in charge. And that that I think is a pretty good scenario for Lapid. So that is that's the Israeli election portrait. Amazingly informative. Let's move on to the American election, which is a week from ends a week from today people have

been voting all over the country 23 million votes apparently have already been cast uh in the in this election um and uh so a a major milestone occurred yesterday for people who are insane granular followers of politics i mentioned this before the 5 538 the nate silver's website uh runs this uh uh simulation of elections uh it's a it's a probability index that is called a casino in like statistics, 40,000 different scenarios are run by a computer. And, and then they, they offer, you know,

in, in, in these 40,000 scenarios, Democrats prevail in the house by this many thousands of times versus Republicans and the same in the senate so three or four weeks ago if you ran the model the 538 model democrats had a 69 chance of maintaining control of the Senate. And yesterday afternoon, the model hit 50-50, that Republicans and Democrats have an equal chance of winning the Senate. So the model has moved in the Republican direction by 20 points or whatever that what whatever that is that's like uh however many simulations

that is in the in the thing and so um my guess is that among people who watch this stuff you know like hysterically um we are now moving into the elizabeth kler-Ross stages of grief for Democrats, which are anger, denial, bargaining, acceptance, and I can't remember what the fifth is. Even though I think that was all crap, that this is actually not what the stages of grief are. Nonetheless, using it for this purpose. Dan, you spent a lot of time talking to people uh behind the scenes um uh but we were talking last night and uh you i would not say that despite what i'm saying that democrats have every reason to start you know uh uh ordering bagels for the shiva and you know getting the scissors ready to cut their um to slash their clothing uh that republicans are acting like they either that they have this in the bag where that everything is just like oh my god this is so

great like everything's moving our way emotionally yeah i think in the i think there are two things going on one in the house uh you know there's there's already some some bickering between different factions among house republicans but um but basically they think they're fine the senate um look for all the reasons you're saying it looks and feels like this the republicans are going to win 51 plus seats but you know it's so i mean you just go race by race and you're like well is there a scenario even though um you know for all the reasons you're saying it looks like it's baked is there a reason it's not baked so let's start pennsylvania right so i i heard of two internal polls one campaign and one from one of the uh republican affiliated packs that has has Oz up by two, basically a two point race between Oz and Fetterman.

OK, that's great, because Fetterman had been way above Oz for in the court in the public polling for a while. You know, Oz is still below 50 percent. Right. In both those polls, I think it's like 48 percent, 47 percent, 49 percent. And and obviously the wild card is the gubernatorial race, this Mastriano. Like, what is that going to do to us? So Republicans, you know, in polling, you say the trend is your friend. It's not about vote share. It's about it's about the trend and the trend is

moving in Oz's direction. So and given the issue set, you know, that's dominating this last week, Republicans, you know, Oz should be fine. And yet, well, we're not sure what will Mastriano be a drag on us. So we can't totally bet on that one. And then you look at Georgia and you say, all right, look, can you imagine a Kemp? I mean, is it seems that this the abortion issue has not completely destroyed Walker and Kemp still so is overperforming Abrams, Stacey Abrams in the gubernatorial race that you can't imagine a world in which there there are Kemp Warnock voters. So Herschel will be fine. Right. And then, well, but is candidate quality really a big problem? And could you have a bunch of people voting for Kemp and then just not voting in the Senate race? They're not Kemp Warnock voters. They're just Kemp voters. And then they disappear from the rest of the ballot. And you and you systematically start, you know,

Kelly in Arizona is even though Masters has tightened the race, he's still he's the one guy who's been a Democrat who's been in these battleground states in these battleground races who's been consistently polling above 50 percent. He is a strong candidate. He's been consistently voting above polling against 50 percent. So, you know, maybe that's good. So you start. So on the one hand, you're right, John. On the other hand, Republican operatives are like going race by race and they're like, it's not that big. And basically we could easily be the 50 50 Senate and be back in Georgia for a, you know, another vote in a month. And oh, my gosh, this is stressful.

Yeah. Noah, we've been talking about this for weeks, but this discrepancy when they do this issue polling on what people are saying on issues, right? Inflation, the number one issue by at least 10% above abortion, at least in the recent Gallup poll. So if you ask people the most important issue, they say inflation, like 49%, something like that. And then you ask them who would be better to handle it, Republicans or Democrats. Republicans are 30 points up on an issue that half the electorate says is the most important, and yet the generic ballot, do you prefer a

Republican or a Democrat, is basically at 50-50. I don't understand how this computes. I continue to find this incredibly puzzling. I find it puzzling to a certain degree. I think the electorate generally isn't sold on Republicans. It's very apprehensive about Republicans. It's only two years ago, four years ago that they voted him out of Congress and voted him out of the White House two years ago. But at the same time, I'm at the risk of contradicting Dan. This cake is as baked as it gets. The movement in the polls in the last two months, or two weeks rather, has been pronounced. It's exactly what you would expect to see in a wave year where undecided voters are breaking in one direction and one direction only. Nate Cohen

over at New York Times has this little nugget. In our final wave of Senate and House polls the last few days, a hallmark of non-response bias looks like it's back. It's back. The non-response bias being among Republicans. Overall, white registered Democrats were 28% likelier to respond to our Senate polls than Republicans. A disparity that exceeds that from our polling in 2020, when Republicans gained, what, 13, 14 seats unexpectedly. I fully expect to see an R plus five environment, could be R plus six, could be R plus seven, but I expect an R plus five environment. And then both chambers fall. Maybe they get one seat margin, maybe they get two, three seat margin. And yes, intellectually, as I said before,

it's hard to square ticket splitting to the degree that you would need to see it in places like Pennsylvania, where the top of the ticket is a huge drag. But it's really only Pennsylvania. Cary Lake's not a drag. Kemp's going to drag Walker over the finish line. He may even get him over the 50% threshold. I would not be surprised to see it.

So yeah, I think we're going to see a pretty substantial wave race. By the way, just know I I'm projecting to you the the agita I'm hearing. I get it. I actually agree that I actually think Republicans are going to win the Senate and win the House well into the 230s. I admit that I'm relying on what is disparagingly called in among the kids vibes. But the vibes are pretty strong the vibes are all moving in one direction and yes i look at the same data not the internal polling obviously but the public polling and the public polling presents something of a mixed picture but

the picture is becoming clearer and clearer by the hour listen um the numbers that because it's sort of been assumed that Republicans would take the House, but because Democrats in the generic balloting were doing better than the atmosphere said that they should, people haven't been focusing on the wave possibilities in the House and what they mean. We are looking at a possibility of Republicans winning 25 to 30 seats, that would get them into the largest majority that Republicans have held in the House, I think, since 1946. And 1946 was itself an anomalous election because it was the first election after World War II and Roosevelt's death. And Truman, we were like- Strikes.

In a recession it was it was absolutely terrible right and there was a huge republican wave in 1946 that's all you know what is that that's 75 76 years ago we could be looking at republicans with over 240 seats in the house an r plus seven environment would be about 260 which is gigantic and yeah i mean i don't even know that that's possible because that would really mean like corpses would be beating democrats and some like i don't even know if there are enough competitive races that's the problem is that we that not the problem but republicans won a lot of races that no one expected them to win in 2020 because no one expected republicans to

win seats that they shouldn't win when trump was losing this is what rove you know rove made this point on on my podcast and others have made it so so we almost you almost have to view 2020 and 2022 as a combo like you know anyways because a lot of those 2020 wins would have happened in 2022. Nonetheless, you know, the the most friendly tracker for Democrats has been the CBS YouGov tracker. And they're at, I think, seven. They're at a minimum of a 17 seat game for Republicans, which itself brings them to the same level that they were at in 19 after 1994. Now, 1994, you know, they won 52 seats and had this, you know, huge wave and then took control. But again, the margin of control, if you need 218 to control the House, having 232 isn't that big a margin i want to bring 240 into this because

this there's more vibes here just because this just to if you read the lay of the land you can get a sense of this panic kathy hokal governor of new york who's in a little bit of trouble surprisingly governor of new york um nevertheless she's facing a tough election. She appears yesterday, or two days ago, rather, on MSNBC with Al Sharpton, where she is talking about crime. And she says that Republicans are essentially making up the crime issue. Quote, these are master manipulators. They have this conspiracy going all across America to convince people that Democratic states are not safe. Well, guess what? They're not only election deniers, they're data deniers. She's saying it doesn't exist. First of all, just take the message out of the way. Think of the venue. She's on MSNBC talking to Al Sharpton. How many registered Democrats are watching that show? How many of them are in New York? How many of them

are unenthused to vote? Who on earth are you trying to talk to here? Why would you even take this message, as insane as this message is, to this particular venue, unless you are just underwater, scrambling, drowning, and terrified? Well, she is.

She's been drowning, I mean, at least since the night of the debate, mean where she turned in this terrible performance and and and could never satisfactorily answer the crime issue um he talked i'm so sorry i just got pent up issues here but we talk about this conspiracy theories like republicans are only beholding to conspiracy theories this is a conspiracy theory she's peddling a conspiracy theory it's not not the last one. It's funny when John was talking about the stages of grief for Democrats. There's only going to be anger and denial here. You could forget the rest. There's not going to be bargaining and acceptance. And then we're going to first see Democratic conspiracy theories. The Hochul thing is particularly crazy because she and Mayor Adams made a major move last week. If you ride the New York City subways, there are now on subway platforms 24 hours a day and she's not going on tv to say help is on the way we have sent in the cavalry like she's saying no no no it's here

like not speaking to those that you know it's the white suburban women right now who she should be talking to they're worried about the economy and they are worried about crime. I don't know. Call them the Karen voter if you don't like them. But she is not speaking to them. And neither are a lot of these other Democrats in other states where crime and inflation are really top of mind for voters. See, the crime issue has has come into focus in a very bad way for her, for Democrats in New Yorkork which is that it has really come to center on transit crime it has come to center on the subway and this is something that is so eminently relatable for new yorkers and it is so identifiable and everyone has seen it and there is simply no

way to talk about it if you because yeah sure when you walk around the streets, you may not encounter that many scenarios. Well, if you live in Syosset, Long Island, or you live in Purchase, New York, there's not a lot of street crime. First of all, you're not on the streets that much. And second of all, that's not where it is the important thing about subway crime the important thing about new york city crime is that there is a threshold that any republican candidate in this case lee zeldin needs to meet statewide in order to be competitive because it is assumed that republicans will prevail uh upstate uh or outside of new york, which is about half the population of the state. Democrats need to rack up huge numbers in the city and have been in election after election.

So that the minimum that a Republican needs to get simply to even be in the conversation is 30%. And there's been very little polling in new york state we should talk about that a little bit but very little polling uh the last poll quinnipiac had zeldin at 37 in the city if he gets to 37 or 40 and that solidifies he probably wins i mean mean, you know, he's going to win Suffolk County, which is, I think the largest, well, Nassau is the larger County, but I mean, he might win Nassau. I think he will win Nassau.

And I was in upstate over the weekend. I think, did I mention this yesterday? I was in upstate yesterday. Right. I did. And they, yeah. And, and there was no, there was no street hokal had no presence john's become the the lawn the lawn sign yeah which is always bad it's always bad it's happened to the commentary it's always bad he's counting lawn signs and bumper stickers i'm sorry this is like this is like saying crowd this is the crowd size thing right now it's like romney's gonna win because he had a big rally in pennsylvania don't that or subject we were just i will say by the way the conversation we're having around about new york right now is the same conversation i had with our friend mike murphy who lives in la

about what's happening in the la mayorals oh talk talk where rick caruso he thinks with is within a couple points of beating karen bass now caruso is running as a democrat but everyone knows he's a republican because they don't they have the non-partisan election there so he and karen bass is within a couple of points of beating Karen Bass. Now, Caruso is running as a Democrat, but everyone knows he's a Republican because they have the nonpartisan election there. So he and Karen Bass, who's the longtime Democratic congresswoman, were the top two finishers. And he's a longtime Republican who switched his registration. He's running on this issue.

He's running on the city is a mess and crime is a problem. And there's, you know, drugs and syringes and a homeless situation that's gotten out of control. And, you know, it's I don't know if it'll win, but it's going to be really close. Oregon, the gubernatorial race. I think I think the Republicans are going to win that race. And that's it's a Portland story. Right. Which was like kind of ground zero in the craziness of 2020. And also in California, by the way, people aren't paying attention to this race, not the top of the ballot, down ballot.

There's a race for, it's a CFO, it's a controller's race, which a big statewide office, no Republican has held a statewide office in California in like, you know, since Jurassic times. And Lon He Chen, who parenthetically, I worked with on the Romney campaign, was the policy director for the Romney campaign.

He's at the Hoover Institute. He's running like a really competitive campaign for this statewide position. He's been endorsed by the L.A. Times. He's been endorsed by the Sacramento Bee. He's he's kind of a Republican, moderate Republican. I think that he's associated with Romney makes it easier for some of these establishment organs to to support him or at least not oppose him. But he's running hard on these law and order breakdown and civility issues. So I think this New York dynamic you're describing is exists all over in pockets of deep blue America. The question is, will Republicans win or just get really close? Right. That's you know what I mean? That's that is going to be like the Murphy, you know,

the New Jersey gubernatorial race where. Yeah, which went right where where where Cinelli got within three and had been polling. I think Murphy had been pulling what plus 16. The only reason I think this is going to be different is because Republicans were caught off guard in the Murphy situation nationally. I mean, the RGA was running ads, but whereas this one, the Republicans are paying attention.

There is mass that the RGA. I mean, just think about this. The RGA is now frantically blowing money in Oregon and New York. If you would have told them three months ago to start coming up with the New York and Oregon strategy, they would have laughed at you. And now it's like they're in it. So. What's interesting, Abe, it seems to me is that if Portland is the reason that the Republicans win a governor governor's mansion they haven't had in 40 years

and if crime is the reason that a republican wins the mayoralty in la which by the way happened has happened twice in the last 30 or 40 years yeah but yeah because it was reared in it was wrong right yeah sorry ryden is the author of the Percy Jackson series. And Riordan was literally in the early 90s. I mean, it's been three years. But again, same sort of situation, out of control, city out of control. You get like a businessman, manager. No nonsense. Yeah, ideological figure who is making a racial statement by being a politician.

If all of this is happening, imagine that the Democratic Party had taken seriously the portents of 2020. We keep talking about this, like Abigail Spanberger on this call after the 2020 elections, yelling at her fellow Democratic Congress members, saying, you cost us South Florida. We lost these seats because of you, because you started talking about defunding the police. Stop it. Are you crazy? And they did.

They've soft peddled a lot of that. But the cake was already baked. And well, they also have let them the media have created an atmosphere in which the Democrats have no feel for the fact that they are on the bad side of all these issues. It's like they have to wake up in the morning and say, I have to shut off the New York Times. I have to shut off what I'm hearing in order to understand my electorate. And it's too hard. Well, by November 2021, the Democratic politicians who were the mayors, whatnot, who were talking about defund

had changed their rhetoric. But what came next is you've got to try to reverse the result of the policies. And that is still what everyone has ended up living with oh they resent it yeah well that's why they're trying to impeach a prosecutor in in uh in philadelphia right i mean it's because that the rhetoric changed but the policies underlying that have not they've just that was another fantastic portent right which was that with the recall of chesa bud Boudin in what was arguably the most liberal city in the United States, which is turning neocon.

I mean, I don't want to overrate it, but San Francisco doesn't get better. It's going to be – San Francisco is going to be what it was in the 1950s, which is a rock-ribbed Republican city in a decade. Like, there is going to be no alternative but to turn away decisively from these policies. But look at inflation, and then we should sort of, like, wrap. But, you know, inflation is the most important issue, right? So you have Biden framing a spending bill as the inflation reduction act so that's like okay we know we need to deal with inflation somehow so we'll do something inflationary and say that it's anti-inflationary

like are they crazy or no by the way john yeah no democrat is running on the passage of that bill to me any competitive race where democrat now is running on the passage of that bill. I know. To me, any competitive race where a Democrat now is running on it. That's what the Democrats running on Biden's success as a president. That's the other interesting thing is there's this whole talking point among liberals that, you know, my God, Biden, look what he's done. He's like with this 50 50 Senate, they have gotten so much done. And it's like, yeah, congratulations. You're about congratulations you're about to you're about to you're probably going out into the wilderness you know uh and uh you're being exiled and uh and and this is what you want to say is we're really great it's like this

hogle thing again over the last week there were been people saying New York is the safest place. Oh, I can't tell you how much I resent the idea that being peddled now that you can't hand the keys to Republicans. They're crazy conspiracy theorists. All you do is try to gaslight me. All you do is invent narratives that are false, that are demonstrably false, that I know by looking out my window to be false. And you just, you dare call us master manipulators, conspiracy theorists peddling this garbage nonsense. You reoriented the social contract

around conspiracy theories for the last two years. And I've noticed. How dare you? Noah, can I just ask you one final question? I think Dan too too because i think you're um are you going to pay twenty dollars a month for your blue check there will be nothing lamer than being a blue check mark if you have to pay twenty dollars for it you might as well just keep an l to your forehead i think this is genius i think this is absolutely this is the smartest

move this is the one way you think maybe he can save it because, yes, every blue check now is going to be like, I'm offended that I have to pay. Buying a blue check is like joining Mensa. I'm sure there are a million people on Twitter who want that blue check and are willing to pay $240 a year to get it. And right there, that's a quarter billion dollars in revenue for Elon Musk that he can summon up with us. No. It's ongoing. It's a yearly thing. It's annual?

No, it's monthly. He's going to kill it. He's going to kill this place and we'll all be free. By the way, but forget whether or not I'm going to pay it. I think making blue checks lame is the greatest thing you can do. It is the greatest, but we're calling it lame because, look, I spent two years when I was on Twitter making jokes about how I didn't have a blue check. It was a whole like it was a routine that I that I sort of like an ongoing comedy routine. And then I got one, so I couldn't do it anymore. And then it became this whole thing.

The whole purpose of the blue check was to secure people's accounts so that people couldn't fake them, right? So now I just think a world in which you have to pay for the blue check is fed. It's great. It's, it's, it's,

and he's apparently going to defend it today. Elon Musk. He's going to explain his revenue system, how he intends to bolster revenue. But there are still people paying for AOL. I'm not going to comment on Twitter. I'm not going to comment on Twitter. I'm not going to comment on Twitter for business reasons, but I will say,

but I will say, John, you've come a long way from getting your blue check mark, bailing on Twitter, despite your blue check mark, and then just commenting on lawn signs. That's like the, I know I've gone on terrible,

terrible, terrible direction. You really have hit rock bottom.'s bad you know it's really bad um i'm i just imagining you driving like columbia can see i saw another zeldin sign write it down write it down that's number 12 okay you got your pad out like i just uh it's the visual that kills the first time the first time i went to the uh the rnc meeting i 30 years ago i started a board of my friend dan cast and i started a newsletter called the republican fax wire um and uh uh we went to cover the r the rnc and uh uh interestingly enough it was uh the race in which dan's future boss spence abraham tried to become head of the rnc and hayley barber won and um people were talking about complaining about what happened in 1992 with bush

there are 150 15, something like that, RNC members who choose who's the head of the RNC. And the amount of talk about how the Bush campaign hadn't provided them with lawn signs, that was like people, you couldn't get away from a conversation. It was like the ancient mariner, you know, like would fix you and tell you how terrible the lawn sign distribution was at the bush campaign so maybe i have ptsd from 28 years ago in the rnc meeting in st louis could could that be maybe anyway the best thing that ever happened to spence by the way because he lost the race he's like okay well i guess maybe i'll run for seven years later he's in the u.s

senate and then he's energy secretary yeah so guess maybe I'll run for Senate. Two years later he's in the U.S. Senate and then he's Energy Secretary so thank God he didn't win that race although Haley Barber did become Governor of Mississippi and Haley was a good RNC chair anyway Dan Seenorth thank you so much for joining us

we will maybe we'll talk again if Herschel Walker doesn't reach the 50 percent threshold and see. Or we can do a combo as we gear up as we gear up for the sixth Israeli election. Exactly. OK. And so for Abe, Christina, no, I'm John Podhoretz. Keep the candle burning. That's all for this special episode. Thanks again to the team at Commentary Magazine for this conversation.

Be sure to follow Commentary. Go to Commentary.org where you can subscribe to the magazine. You can also subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. It's a daily podcast from the team at Commentary. Highly recommend it. It's part of my daily bloodstream. And of course, you can follow Commentary on Twitter at Commentary. Call Me Back is produced by Alain Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.