The Israeli left has a problem more fundamental even than its everyday political incompetence.
The left cannot win a majority in Israel without the backing of parties representing Israel’s Arab minority. This has not happened since the 1970s, just as the right needs the religious Jewish parties.
But what has emerged as the left’s defining argument – other than opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu – is a bad fit with this dependence on the country’s Arabs. That is the argument stating that unless Israel gives up the occupied territories it will saddle itself with too many Arabs for something called the Jewish state. This surfeit of Arabs includes the 2 million Israeli Arab citizens whom the left needs to flock to the polls on its behalf every election day. Awkward.