After an unprecedented fifth election in three years on November 1, all indications are that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will return to power as head of a new far-right coalition government. Although official election results have not yet been released, the Netanyahu bloc is poised to hold a solid majority in the 120-seat Knesset. In addition to rehabilitating Netanyahu’s Likud Party, the elections have catapulted the far-right Religious Zionism bloc, led by Kahanist politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, into the third-largest bloc in the legislature as well as a key component of the new ruling coalition, with far-reaching implications for Israelis and Palestinians alike. Meanwhile, the left-wing Meretz Party along with at least one major Arab party, Balad, look unlikely to have passed the minimum threshold needed to enter the Knesset.
How stable will the new coalition be? How will the United States and other Western governments respond to the inclusion of Ben-Gvir and other Jewish supremacists in the new government? What will the new right-wing government mean for the future of Israeli society as well as for the millions of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza who have no say in the government that rules over them?
To help break down Israeli election results and their broader implications, the Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to invite you to join a virtual panel discussion featuring several long-time experts on Israeli politics.
Speakers
Shira Efron
Director of Research, Israel Policy Forum
Eran Etzion
Affiliated Scholar, Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs, Middle East Institute
Shibley Telhami
Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, University of Maryland; Non-resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
Khaled Elgindy, moderator
Senior Fellow and Director of the Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs, Middle East Institute
Detailed Speaker Biographies
Shira Efron
Shira Efron is the director of research at Israel Policy Forum, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and a member of the Deborah Forum, which promotes women in the security establishment. She is currently on sabbatical from the RAND Corporation, where she founded and led the Israel program between 2016-2022. Her research focus is U.S. Middle East policy and the nexus between climate change and national security. Her studies are featured regularly in Israeli and international media outlets. Previously, Efron served as a Middle East analyst at several think tanks in Washington, D.C., including the Center for American Progress and Middle East Institute.
Eran Etzion
Eran Etzion is a diplomat and strategist with more than 20 years of experience in senior government positions. He was head of policy planning at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and deputy head of the National Security Council in the Prime Minister's office. In 2014-2015, he was a visiting scholar at the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, and the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, both at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 2015, he founded the Israel Center for Strategic Futures (ICSF), a Think-Do NGO dedicated to introducing innovative foresight into the Israeli decision-making process and public discourse.
Shibley Telhami
Shibley Telhami is a distinguished scholar, professor of government and politics, and the director of the University of Maryland’s Critical Issues Poll. He is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has advised every U.S. administration from George H.W. Bush to Barack Obama and served as a senior advisor to the Obama Administration’s Special Middle East Envoy. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including The Stakes: America and the Middle East, selected by Foreign Affairs as one of the top five books on the Middle East in 2003. He has two forthcoming books: The One State Reality: What is Israel/Palestine? (co-edited, Cornell University Press); and a co-authored book on Obama and Trump policies toward the Middle East. In 2022, he was listed by the Washingtonian Magazine as one of the most influential people on foreign affairs.
Khaled Elgindy
Khaled Elgindy is the author of the book, Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump, published by Brookings Institution Press in April 2019. Elgindy previously served as a fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution from 2010 through 2018. Prior to arriving at Brookings, he served as an advisor to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah on permanent status negotiations with Israel from 2004 to 2009 and was a key participant in the Annapolis negotiations of 2007-08.
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