It’s been a week since the elections to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, were held. But the installation of a government, albeit a coalition, is nowhere in sight. This is one of the big ironies of Israeli society. A nation, which has faced only hostility from its neighbours ever since it was born in 1948 and which has successfully warded off efforts from Islamic governments and non-state terrorist actors to wipe out its very existence, is unable to arrive at a consensus over the formation of the next government. In fact, coalition politics has been the hallmark of Israeli society.

October 7 Attack Exposes Deep Divisions

The massacre of over 1,200 innocent Jewish youths by the jihadist Hamas near the Gaza border on October 7, 2023, ought to have united the Jews solidly so that there is no repetition of the horrors of that day. A visit to the site of the musical event, a couple of kilometres from the Gaza border, where a memorial of the slain youths with their photographs has been erected, and interaction with the survivors vividly bring out the horror of that night. But, ironically, that bloody event has only brought the deep fault lines beneath Israeli society to the surface, which was apparent when the counting of the ballot papers threw up a fractured verdict.

Many Israelis were more keen on an enquiry into the “massive failure of intelligence” than taking steps to prevent a recurrence of the Hamas-led terror strike. Many Israelis want to know how the intelligence agencies, who have been carrying out precision decapitation of leaders and generals of Iran in their offices and streets, got no........

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