The changing nature of Israeli politics

in Israel is always a messy affair. Thanks to the country’s extreme proportional-representation system for elections, no party has ever won an outright majority in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Intense haggling between the prospective prime minister and the parties wishing to join a coalition always follows an election. In the words of , an Israeli prime minister assassinated by a Jewish supremacist 27 years ago this week: “In every coalition there’s also some co-loathing.” His adage rings true today.Some of the parties hoping to form a coalition government with ’s Likud party, which won easily the most seats in an election on November 1st, are widely loathed. The most prominent is (portrayed above left), the leader of the Jewish Power party within a far-right bloc called Religious Zionism. He once declared, when Mr Rabin was prime minister, that he would “get to him”.