Get audio access with any FP subscription. Subscribe Now ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

Get audio access with any FP subscription.

ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

May 29 will mark 30 years since Benjamin Netanyahu first became prime minister of Israel. Israelis born around the 1996 elections have grown up, completed their education, served in the military, and started families of their own—all while Netanyahu has remained the dominant figure in Israeli politics.

Netanyahu’s contested and troubled legacy will be discussed by scholars of world politics for years to come—whether the focus is Iran, the Palestinians, the Abraham Accords, or the long arc of Israel’s international standing. But this is also a useful moment to examine a narrower but no less consequential aspect: how Netanyahu fundamentally reshaped Israeli society and the electoral logic driving its politics.

May 29 will mark 30 years since Benjamin Netanyahu first became prime minister of Israel. Israelis born around the 1996 elections have grown up, completed their education, served in the military, and started families of their own—all while Netanyahu has remained the dominant figure in Israeli politics.

Netanyahu’s contested and troubled legacy will be discussed by scholars of world politics for years to come—whether the focus is Iran, the Palestinians, the Abraham Accords, or the long arc of Israel’s international standing. But this is also a useful moment to examine a narrower but no less consequential aspect: how Netanyahu fundamentally reshaped Israeli society and the electoral logic driving its politics.

The core of the transformation was this: It is often assumed that to build an electoral majority politicians must capture the median voter—that is, the centrist voter located in the middle of the ideological spectrum. That was largely Netanyahu’s approach in the mid-1990s. Yet, over the years, his political strategy shifted. Instead of aiming to position himself closer to the ideological center, he now seeks to obliterate the center—leaving only two opposing camps with such deep animosity between them that no voter can even conceive of switching to the other side.

An ultra-Orthodox Jew passes by electoral posters for Netanyahu in a central market in Jerusalem on April 29, 1996. Manoocher Deghati/AFP via Getty Images

The usual explanations for Netanyahu’s long-term dominance of Israeli politics are familiar enough. According to one version, he simply surfed into office time and again on a wave of demographic change, as higher birth rates among ultra-Orthodox Jews gradually tilted the electorate toward the right. An alternative story suggests that “King Bibi” endured because Israelis have come to admire Netanyahu. Both accounts contain some truth. Neither gets to the heart of the matter.

The electoral share of ultra-Orthodox parties was higher in the late 1990s than it is today, suggesting that demography matters. But this is far from political destiny. And Netanyahu did not remain in power because the overwhelming majority of Israelis loved him. Polls show they didn’t in the 1990s and they don’t today.

Our analyses of Israel National Election Studies data collected since the early 1990s reveal a country not steadily falling in love with Netanyahu, but rather one........

© Foreign Policy