Israeli Knesset Elections Who? When? How? Want to find out more about Israeli Elections? Visit the Knesset Website at:

Who is being elected? The Knesset is the governing body or the Parliament of Israel It has 120 members of different political parties that come together to vote about decisions for the state of Israel. The Knesset is reelected every four years The Knesset building in Jerusalem

Who is voting? Israeli citizens over the age of 18 are registered to vote automatically Including the Israeli- Arabs that have Israeli citizenship The state provides free transportation for citizens living away from their registered polling place in order for them to vote on Election Day.

When? Election day in Israel is Tuesday March 28th. It is a holiday for everyone which means no school and no work. Normally around 70% of Israelis vote –While in the United States only 40% of the citizens vote

How? Israel has an electoral system based on proportional representation in the Knesset. Israelis go to the polling stations on election day and vote for a single party not candidates like in the US The number of seats a party receives in the Knesset is proportionally connected to the number of votes that party received in the election. A party must receive 2% of the votes to receive one seat in the Knesset and additional seats are added according to the percentage of votes the party receives.

How continued… There are 12 parties running in the elections that represent all different kinds of opinions on foreign policy, and domestic affairs The party that receives the most seats now has to form a government coalition to gain a majority in the Knesset In the example on the next slide, Kadima gained 40 seats and must now find 21 more seats to form a government with them The opposition will be made of the other parties with seats that do not join the coalitional government

A few of the Parties and what they stand for Kadima- Headed by Ehud Olmert is a centralist party that formally supports a two state solution with unilateral pullout from the territories Labor- Headed by Amir Peretz is a Social democratic party that supports a two state solution but has social and economic policy in the front of their agenda Likud-Headed By Benjamin Netanyahu is a right wing party that believes a two state solution is not possible because there is no official government to negotiate with on the Palestinian side National religious party is an orthodox party that completely opposes the pullout from the territories along with maintaining the religious status quo in Israel WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE POLITICAL PARTIES? VISIT: