The Intelligence Review | volume 3 | issue 6 |

Analysis
The two biggest threats that could cause Prime Minister Netanyahu
to lose the upcoming elections are bribery charges and his very slim
majority hold on seats in the Knesset. There are three sets of corruption
allegations against Prime Minister Netanyahu. The first corruption
investigation took place from 2014-2017 and focused on the fact that
the prime minister also oversaw the Office of Communications. Netanyahu
allegedly influenced regulators “so that Bezeq, an Israeli telecom company
owned by his friend Shaul Elovitch, benefitted financially” (Nota 2018).
The second set of allegations center of claims “that the prime minister
received unlawfully expensive gifts from friends” (Nota 2018). The third
allegation is that Netanyahu “secretly attempted to negotiate a deal
with the publisher of one of Israel’s daily newspapers in which
negative news coverage was reduced in exchange for limiting of the
distribution of a rival paper” (Nota 2018).
Prime Minister Netanyahu has denied all allegations. A further threat
to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government is the current hold on seats
in the Knesset by his coalition parties. They currently hold 61 out of
the 120 seats. If the government loses the majority of seats then the
opposition can enact Article 28 of Basic Law, which “determines that
the expression of no-confidence in the Government shall be done by
means of a resolution of the Knesset” (The Knesset n.d.). The Prime
Minister almost lost his majority in November of last year, when
Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett threatened to leave the
coalition if he was not given the Defense Minister position. He
recanted after a meeting with Netanyahu and was quoted at a press
conference saying “[i]t’s better that the prime minister beats me in a
political battle than [the Hamas leader, Ismail] Haniya beats Israel”
(Holmes 2018).
The potential threat to Netanyahu’s bid to win a fourth term as Prime
Minister comes in the form of a merger of the two main opposition
parties to his Likud Party. The two parties that merged together are
Yesh Atid (There Is a Future) and the new Hosen L'Yisrael (Israel
Resilience). The two men who will be heading up the ticket, known
as the “Blue and White Ticket” are Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid.
Both of these parties can be described as center-left. The Yesh Atid
platform states that the party seeks to “fight against political
corruption, advocate for the sharing of the national burden, support
the right and responsibilities of all Israeli citizens, to bring down the
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