Netanyahu Holds Breath as Israel Goes to the Polls

Israeli voters will cast their ballots on March 17 in a parliamentary election that doubles as a referendum on three-term Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s close: most polls show Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party running just behind the Zionist Union, a hybrid of the center-left Labor and the centrist Hatnua party run by Tzipi Livni, who was Justice Minister under Netanyahu until December. But what will victory look like? Neither major party is polling more than 25 seats in a Knesset that holds 120, which means that election day might be just the starting point for weeks of bargaining to assemble a majority coalition. The question is who gets to build it.

In close elections, it’s not always the party with the most votes. In 2009, Netanyahu crafted a majority and sealed a second term as Prime Minister even after Likud finished in second place. The key is being able to gather like-minded parties, an easier task for Netanyahu in recent years, given Israel’s rightward drift. But the incumbent, who called for early elections in December after collapsing his centrist coalition, has run a lackluster campaign, talking nonstop in Israel, as he did in the U.S. Congress on March 3, about the danger of a nuclear Iran. Most voters are more preoccupied with the economy, especially high housing costs and rising income inequality. Those issues nearly cost Netanyahu the 2013 election, when centrist voters surged to the newly formed Yesh Atid party. The electorate seems just as volatile now, says Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at Hebrew University. “I would venture to say if Netanyahu could go back 90 days, he would think twice about calling this election.”

If Netanyahu wins a fourth term, security wreathed in nationalism would likely remain his signature issue. Emphasizing the rise of Islamist extremists on Israel’s borders, his campaign declared that talks with the Palestinians would be pointless, vowing “no concessions or withdrawals; they are simply irrelevant.” In a television ad featuring a Monopoly game, Netanyahu piles houses and hotels on Jerusalem, the city Palestinians also claim as their capital. “Forget it,” he says. “Jerusalem stays ours. Forever.”

Should the Zionist Union attract enough support to form a center-left coalition, the premiership would rotate between Livni and Labor Party chair Isaac Herzog; the two agreed to share the job as Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir did from 1984 to ’88. The party has pledged to resume talks with the Palestinians, but its platform prioritizes solutions to rising costs of living in Israel. The unknown quantity is Herzog, a son of Israel’s sixth President, who has failed to leave a strong impression on voters during the campaign. Still, his skill as a backroom operator might be useful if voters decide someone other than Netanyahu should be given a chance to form a government, even one unlikely to exist any longer than the last one.

“The only thing that is clear,” says Hazan, “is that the largest party is going to be somewhere in the vicinity of 20% of the seats, and that is a recipe for instability.”

BRAZIL

‘Stiffer penalties will be applied to this heinous crime.’

PRESIDENT DILMA ROUSSEFF, announcing on March 8, International Women’s Day, strict new punishments for the killing of women and girls in a country where an average of 15 women are killed every day; the femicide law sets out sentences of up to 30 years for murder linked to domestic violence

DATA

DANGER ZONES FOR DISEASE

Save the Children ranked 72 developing countries by the strength of their health systems and found that many fell below the nations worst hit by Ebola. Here are the five most vulnerable:

[This article consists of 5 illustrations. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]

1

Somalia

2

Chad

3

Nigeria

4

Afghanistan

5

Haiti

Excessive Force

BURMA

Police strike a protester during a crackdown on student demonstrators on March 10 after a weeklong standoff in the town of Letpadan, about 90 miles (145 km) north of Rangoon. Students and their supporters were protesting a new education law introduced by the postjunta government that they say stifles academic freedom. Police arrested more than 120 people, including 65 students, and chanted “Victory!” afterward.

THE EXPLAINER

The High Cost of Living in Venezuela

In recession-stricken Venezuela, where inflation runs at 68%, extreme shortages of imported goods have combined with stifling currency controls to drive the official price of everyday household items into the stratosphere.

The Official Rate

The government controls the prices for imported essentials like food and medicine using an official exchange rate of 6.3 bolivares to $1. At this rate, the minimum wage is approximately $890 a month.

$14,127

An unopened iPhone 5

The Black Market

To buy most other goods, locals without dollars rely on the currency black market, where around 250 bolivares will buy you $1. That same minimum wage is a paltry $22 a month on this market, roughly equal to minimum pay in Ethiopia.

$316

A bag of dog food

The Result

The disconnect means many products are out of reach for ordinary Venezuelans. An iPhone 5, available at online retailer MercadoLibre for 88,999 bolivares, costs $14,127 at the official rate (or $356 in black-market dollars).

$190

A jar of instant coffee

SYRIA

83%

Share of the lights in Syria that have gone out since the civil war began four years ago this month, according to new satellite data

Trending In

TRANSPORTATION

A solar-powered airplane landed in India on March 10, completing the second leg of its bid to become the first aircraft to circle the world by solar energy alone. Solar Impulse 2, which launched in Abu Dhabi, will make 12 stops on its 22,000-mile (35,000 km) journey.

PROBES

French prosecutors are investigating a helicopter collision in Argentina that killed two Argentine pilots and eight French citizens on March 9, including sailor Florence Arthaud and two French Olympians. The collision came during filming for a reality-TV show in a remote part of the country.

SPORTS

The New York Cosmos will play Cuba’s national soccer team in Havana on June 2, the first time in 16 years that a professional U.S. sports team will play on the island. The U.S. and Cuba announced plans in December to restore diplomatic relations.