The money quote comes from a Reuters article on the CNBC website, it concerns elections among the argumentative citizens of that tiny state.
No party has ever won an outright majority in Israel's 67-year history, and it may be weeks before the country has a new government.Of what does Bibi's "victory" consist? Winning an estimated 30 seats in a 120 seat parliament called the Knesset. Imagine how divided Israel is when the winning party can only garner 25% of the votes cast - every other party got an even smaller slice of the pie.
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Israel and the U.S. do party politics in opposite fashions. We do "big tent" politics with only two meaningful parties whereas in Israel there is a separate party for almost every possible combination of voter preferences, so the "tents" tend to be quite narrow. The Jerusalem Post reports ten parties will earn enough votes to place four or more members in the Knesset.
In the U.S. many voters find there are policy planks in their own party's platform with which they disagree. Example: union member blue collar Democrats hate their President's immigration policies. Not all Republicans are pro-life. A big tent party cannot completely please most of its voters. We vote for the party that is, on balance, less offensive to us.
In Israel, people probably can find a party with which they agree. However, that means the party often represents less than 10% of the citizenry.
All Israeli governments are coalitions of competing interests, the seats of several parties cobbled together to form a slender majority. Such governments can be fragile, if a needed action offends a coalition member party and it withdraws.
