The Israeli elections do not signal a shift to the right, as many commentators are saying. Actually, it is more a shift to the center of Israeli society, which disdains ideology but condones opportunism and corruption. There are criminal investigations against central figures in all three leading parties, with strong evidence in every case. The differences among the parties are not so deep.
Many of the so-called Zionist left gave their votes to the center party, Kadima, because they wished to block Likud’s Benyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu himself was not interested in his party’s getting too many votes because that would have meant that the most radical right-wingers on his list would have to be seated in the Knesset and this would have made his position vis a vis President Barack Obama even harder.