Published: 19 March 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
ANALYSIS: Mansour Abbas - From pariah to powerful? (Jerusalem Post)
United Arab List (Ra’am) head Mansour Abbas took a great risk six weeks ago, when he left the Joint List after his demand to seek a partnership with the Right was rejected.
But if all the latest polls are correct, Abbas’s gamble has paid off. They all predict that Ra’am will cross the 3.25% electoral threshold and win four seats.
Those four seats could make Abbas the kingmaker after the election, because he is a political free agent.
He could facilitate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forming a government, join a coalition led by opposition leader Yair Lapid, cooperate with Gideon Sa’ar or stay in the opposition.
Anyone but Ben Gvir: One man’s mission to keep a Kahanist out of the Knesset (Times of Israel)
TAL SCHNEIDER: Spooked by the thought of the right-wing extremist becoming an MK, Yaniv Carmel is going door-to-door in right-wing strongholds to convince people to vote for anybody else
Netanyahu versus Abu Yair (Ynet)
An uninformed visitor to Israel on eve of elections could be forgiven for thinking the PM is was running as head of an Arab party due to his efforts to present himself as a lover of the sector, despite 12 years of race-baiting, discriminatory laws
Israel election: high voter turnout could be a nightmare for small parties – and boon for Netanyahu (Haaretz)
Voter turnout will determine whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can form a coalition and whether a slew of smaller parties will make it into the Knesset at all
A week to election, poll records boost for Likud, predicts deadlock after vote (Times of Israel)
TV survey says neither the PM nor his rivals have clear path to forming coalition; approval of government’s handling of pandemic grows
'If we don’t pass, there won’t be a Left in the Knesset' (Haaretz)
Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz dreads the possibility of his party vanishing in next week's election. In an interview with Haaretz, he tells about his disgust with homophobic statements made inside and outside his party, and says identity politics is used by conservatives to destroy the left
Cartoon: From left, Itamar Ben Gvir, Benjamin Netanyahu and Mansour Abbas (Amos Biderman)
