Election in Israel

Snap elections to the Knesset, Israel’s unicameral Parliament, were held on 17 March 2015. No party won an overall majority, but Likud – the centre-right party of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu – remained the largest party. A new coalition administration is expected to be formed in the coming weeks, with Netanyahu remaining as Prime Minister.

International reaction to the result has not been positive, largely because of comments made by Netanyahu during the campaign. On the day before the election, he explicitly ruled out the notion of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his premiership. This was unexpected: Netanyahu had not previously ruled out a two-state solution, and indeed appears to have revised his position slightly in the days since the election.

This note provides further details on these developments.