About an hour after polls closed in Israel yesterday, I caught up with longtime Israeli politics analyst Joel Braunold, Managing Director of The Center Project, for a wide-ranging conversation about the implications of the election results.
We kick off with a summary of where things stand (which has not changed much since the polls closed). To that end, Joel argues that the results represent a profound rebuke of the coalition government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, including its explicit policy of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
He then takes us deep into the complex parliamentary politics that will play out over the next few weeks as a new government seeks to form, including the implications of the strongest showing ever by Arab-Israeli parties. We then discuss what this vote means for Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza.
I think you will find this timely conversation to be an accessible but nuanced take on how to make sense of these historically significant elections.