Israel Election Focus: Bernard Moerdler Breaks It Down on JM in the AM

Uh, Bernie Muerdler, Muerdler is with us live via telephone. And he did everyone a big favor for those who were trying to follow follow the activities of the Israeli electorate or at least the the thoughts in advance of the election of what people might be thinking, where they might be voting in terms of which party, etc. And now that the vote is over, now that election day is passed he on the same website called the Petek.com, the Petek p e t e k dot com has all the results 80 almost 85% of the vote has been counted so far about 4.4 million um votes have already been counted. And as we said the uh as we said earlier the results that we were given la- late afternoon and last night very different from what we're seeing right now. Um Bernie grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, now lives outside of Tel Aviv, built the Petek.com, the English guide to every party on Israel's ballot. Over a quarter of a million people used it in the past week. And he is with us live via telephone from Israel. Bernie Muerdler, a pleasure to welcome you to JM in the AM. >> It's an honor to be here and to speak with you. >> I assume you voted yesterday. >> [snorts] >> Yes, I did. Um and I have to say >> You've done it before? >> It's the first time and the lines were not as bad when I came in the evening, but in the morning people were waiting some told me 30 minutes plus. So >> So that might explain what we were hearing all day long cuz all day long they were talking about a uh turnout that could rival 1973 and 1977, 1981. And at the end of the day, it was one of the larger turnouts but didn't come close to the historic ones that they were uh thinking it might. And again, as you just said, during the early part of the day it looked to you like there was a lot of enthusiasm to get out there and vote. And it waned as the day went on. Maybe because of the day off, people wanted to get the voting out of the way and start their day off. You ever think of that? >> [snorts] >> Part of the big issue with the amount of people who came was also the weather. Um down south, for example, we had extreme flash flooding. A lot of people were actually standing on top of their cars in order to not get flooded. So, um that really did put a damper on things. But we still saw a huge historical turnout. For example, in the Arab communities, we saw a count of 80% of the Arab sector come to vote. And that's never been seen before in the history of the country. >> And I know there's a lot of uh speculation about that and a lot of skepticism about it. Um certainly uh the Arab vote, it seems, was uh motivated to come on out that we saw. And of course, all these different um theories about how those numbers on the Arab side got to be so large. I'm sure those will be uh argued about for the next many months. So, yesterday we hear the results and you're posting results, obviously. And it really looks like uh you know, Eisenkot will get an opportunity to form a government. And that Netanyahu uh did not perform nearly as well as uh as he anticipated. Then we wake up here on this side of the world this morning and basically see that the numbers, I wouldn't say are completely different, but now it is a a reality that Netanyahu will likely be offered to form a government first. That's what the numbers are are telling us. And that Eisenkot, even though he's declaring victory, in reality, uh it's got to be seen as a loss for his side. Anything that I said that you disagree with? >> I think um the important thing to say is yes, although Netanyahu will get the opportunity, most likely, to create a coalition first, it's unlikely that he'll be able to unless we see both uh people who jump ship from the other side and or him following along and and working with the Arab parties, which by the way, we did hear last night that uh from Mansour Abbas, the head of Ra'am, the uh Bedouin Islamic party, that they did get contacted by members of the Likud. So, it's entirely possible that that does happen. >> Yeah, I don't think that's unusual that somebody from Likud would contact them. Uh the theory is that the small parties didn't do well because uh as much as people worry about {quote} {unquote} wasting a vote, cuz obviously you need a certain percentage to get to the threshold, uh this time around, they were really concerned about wasting a vote because again, there were so many implications um in this election. Would Would you think that that's accurate, that the larger parties and the ones that had the real shot of getting seats benefited from that attitude? >> Yeah, I think so. Uh I mean, we're seeing an interesting shift. A lot of people's mentality going into the election was uh if I'm not voting Netanyahu, who do I want to see as uh prime minister? And keep in mind, on the change block side, there are three candidates, three main ones, Lieberman, Bennett, and Eisenkot. And a lot of people I've spoken to said, I would love to vote for the smaller parties. I'd love to see the reservists, for example, get past. But I'm thinking to myself, who's going to have the best plan? So, in the end, I voted for Bennett. And I think that's what happened to a lot of people. They They said to themselves, if I'm not voting for Netanyahu, who's going to be the prime minister, and who do I want to see taking that office. >> Yeah, I hear that. I'm just trying to see, you know, you Again, we're at the petek.com. That's your website where you're going through the results, and almost 85% of the results are in. And on your list, you have Likud at 27 seats, Yasha Eisenkot at 22. That That really is one of the major differences between today and last night. Cuz last night that was either much closer or Eisenkot actually had a lead. Bennett, Lapid, the Yachad are at 12. UTJ at seven. Yisrael Beiteinu, which is Lieberman, at seven. Otzma Yehudit, Ben-Gvir, at seven. Shas at seven. And the Religious Zionism, Zehut with Smotrich and Feiglin at six. I I was wondering if there's a possibility of Eisenkot forming a government with Lieberman and Bennett and Lapid, of course, and with the religious parties. Now, I'd have to do the math. You probably have done the math already. Does that even get them close to 60 if they would have Lieberman, the Yachad, and the religious parties together? >> Well, if you go on our website, there's a page called the coalition builder at the bottom. And on there, you can actually do the math. And if if you put in the parties, let's say Yasha, Yachad, Democrats, Yisrael Beiteinu. Right? We can say those are sure fire right now. You get to 49. Throwing in, for example, Ra'am, you only get to 55. So, it's still going to be very difficult. >> Yeah, but Shas and UTJ, although a lot of these candidates in that in the change block had said they won't deal with the religious parties, right? >> Yeah, exactly. But, I will say, we the response that I'm seeing right now from the Haredi parties, especially UTJ, is a disdain to Netanyahu. A lot of the parties, cuz if you remember, with UTJ's made up of factions, are saying, "Why don't we go and talk to Eisenkot and see if we can make a deal?" >> Wow. So, that would be it. That would be the the likelihood. The um the uh Sharabi group would need, in addition to the Democrats, they would need the Yisrael Beiteinu Liberman, and they would need uh a portion or the complete um religious uh parties. That would be the only way, right? There's no other way for them to get there. >> There is another way, which is it hasn't happened very often, which is called a minority government, where as long as the opposition doesn't have 61, then technically you could make a government, meaning you don't really have to get the 61, and it's happened before under Rabin. The thing is though is they're unstable and difficult to work as governments that way. So, it's unclear if it will be done, but if it's done, it would have to be that the joint list would have to support the the the change block from the outside. And through my conversations with them, I've spoken to the joint list actually quite a few times, uh they have a difficulty of working with any Israeli um coalition of any sort. They they don't believe in the you know, an Israeli Zionist government. >> And they must have their uh chest pumped out this morning because of how well they did at the polls. >> Exactly. That's what I've been telling people is that if if you need to declare a winner, because in Israeli elections there never really is a winner, the ones who won are the Arabs because the turnout has led to them seeing a huge huge success never seen before. >> And Liberman has declared that he wouldn't deal with the religious parties, but I think he's Did he also declare he wouldn't deal with the Arabs, or he didn't say anything about that? >> So, last night during his uh big speech, he actually didn't say he wouldn't sit with the Arabs. So it's entirely possible that he does. Um yesterday's speeches were fascinating to listen to because just to hear the different parties both say certain things but also not say other things, you know? A lot of them are willing to move forward with the Arabs and other ones are willing to reach across the aisle and potentially create a unity government. But these coalition talks are are usually very bloody and and long, but I think this year it's going to be even more so. >> It's very funny cuz in the United States half of the speeches on election night are concessions, and it seems in Israel 100% of the of these speeches on election night are victory speeches. >> Yeah, exactly. Although >> Everyone explaining all the >> Although I will I will say that some of the parties are disappointed with the counts. I mean, uh obviously the religious Zionism would have liked to have gotten more, and they still do believe that with the soldier votes that are going to be counted um very soon, hopefully before Friday, but it may take up to Friday, um that we'll see a boost on their side because um a lot of soldiers have voted for religious Zionism. And so it >> If you want to see a list of all the parties, including the ones that didn't make the threshold, but uh maybe have some uh type of hope for the future, it's all on the website the Petek uh the Petek p e t e k.com. That's where uh Bernie Bergler has uh at the list of all the parties, has the results of the uh election, which right now again stands at the 85% counted. With Lapid at 27 and Eisenkot at 22. And uh you can check out all the work that he's put into this uh election at that website. I appreciate you joining us this morning. Thank you for that. >> Thank you. >> Good luck to everybody as they try to form a government in the state of Israel. More coming up. It is a uh What is today? Wednesday morning edition of JM in the AM.