Israel’s upcoming election: A referendum on the handling of the coronavirus
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a visit to Leumit Health Care Services vaccination facility in Jerusalem where he meets the 4,000,000 person who had been vaccinated in Israel, February 16, 2021. Alex Kolomoisky/Pool via REUTERS
March 23 will see Israelis trek to the polls—for the fourth time since April 2019—after the close of an election campaign that has, thus far, entertained discussion of little else other than the coronavirus and its ramifications.
COVID-19 has earned singular status as a potential game-changer in Israeli political life. In a recent Israel Democracy Institute survey, only 24 percent of Israelis awarded a positive score to the incumbent government’s handling of the public health crisis, voicing even lesser approval for its measures to mitigate economic and social fallout from the pandemic. These numbers contrast markedly with the 57 percent and 48 percent of Israelis who praised their government’s performance in the realms of foreign policy and national security, respectively. Failure to curb the deleterious effects of the virus could deliver a coup de grâce to the career of Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest reigning prime minister in Israel’s history.