Israel is sometimes described as “democracy on steroids.” That has never been more evident than now, as a recordbreaking 47 parties take part in the upcoming national election. Thirty-six of those parties are newly-established, including frontrunner “Blue and White,” a merger of the new Israel Resilience faction of former IDF chief Benny Gantz and the centrist Yesh Atid party of Yair Lapid. Recent polls predict Blue and White will win 35 seats and become the Knesset’s largest faction. Following Blue and White will be Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud with 29 seats. Lagging far behind the two lead parties are Labor, The New Right, Shas, United Torah Judaism, the Arab parties (HadashTa’al and Ra’am-Balad), a new right-wing conglomeration consisting of Jewish Home and the controversial Otzma Yehudit, Meretz, Yisrael Beiteinu and Kulanu. These are the 12 parties that polls suggest are all but certain to pass the electoral threshold. But polls are notoriously unreliable, meaning there could always be surprises and unexpected faces in the 21st Knesset. Here are some of the more interesting parties vying for those seats, and...
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