Engraving politics: antagonisms of social protest and peace in 2015; Israeli legislative elections

Abstract

Israeli politics has undergone radical changes as a result of both geopolitical contingencies and domestic developments. These have influenced Israel's perception of its national and social security, its political discourse and leadership. Moreover, the political erosion of some topics and the revival of others present alterations in content but also salient trends in the larger arena of Israeli politics. These features dynamically compose what we may consider the Israeli "state of mind" which is shaped by the stratification of the country's geopolitical history and nation-building process. This paper aims to analyze this Israeli political "state of mind" in light of the last legislative elections. The concept serves as a magnifying glass to outline main trends and complexities crossing both Israeli society and its party politics at the electoral moment. In spite of the vast field of party politics and electoral studies little has been written on the socio-cultural elements in Israeli politics per sé. Three issues seem to be of great importance: security, discourse leadership. The article reconstructs the political dynamics of the 2015 legislative election in Israel, while providing a new reading of the dialectics between the sociocultural “state of mind” and its inevitable politicization during the electoral competition.