Electoral Reform Has Given Israeli Extremists a Shot at the Knesset

In the Israeli system, seats in the Knesset are divided proportionally among those parties that received a minimum of 3.25 percent of the national vote. Votes for any party that does not meet the 3.25-percent threshold are thus “wasted” since they don’t translate into potential members of a governing coalition. Thus, in order to ensure that both parties would pass the threshold, the religious Zionist Jewish Home party, at Prime Minister Netanyahu’s urging, merged with the Kahanist party Otzma, creating much handwringing about a supposed rising tide of chauvinism in Israel. Evelyn Gordon argues that, whatever Otzma’s defects, the real problem isn’t a change in attitudes but a 2014 decision to raise the electoral threshold from 2 percent: