Yesh Atid shares women’s platform, amid projected dearth of women in next Knesset
Number of female lawmakers is expected to drop, with few named so far to party lists; Lapid accuses right-wing religious parties of wanting to keep women away from power
Carrie Keller-Lynn is a former political and legal correspondent for The Times of Israel
The Yesh Atid party unveiled its platform for advancing women’s issues as part of its campaign for November’s Knesset elections, amid a growing public conversation about the low number of female candidates placed on party lists.
The platform includes fighting violence against women, improving the standing of women in the workforce, and increasing female representation in positions of power.
Speaking at his party’s women’s event on Thursday in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Yair Lapid said that the platform is part of Yesh Atid’s gender parity vision.
“There’s no more time, the year is 2022. If someone isn’t ready to hear a woman singing, he should leave. If someone hits his wife, he should leave the home. If someone doesn’t want to see women combat soldiers in the IDF, then he shouldn’t be one,” said Lapid, referring to complaints by religious Jewish Israelis about women in public spaces and current policy that forces abused women to cede their space to their partners to be protected.
The platform launch and campaign event come in the midst of a public debate about the expected low numbers of female lawmakers in the next Knesset.
Party lists need to be finalized by next Thursday and so far only 19 female candidates occupy realistic spots to enter the Knesset on announced candidate lists.
Yesh Atid has not announced its list, and party sources said its four-person selection committee has not yet finalized the roster.
There could still be a slight rise in the number of female candidates, depending on a number of factors.
Both Yesh Atid and Yisrael Beytenu will announce their candidate lists early next week, representing the final two major parties that run mixed-gender candidates to unveil their rosters. Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu may bow to pressure to bump existing female lawmakers into realistic spots by using his three discretionary reserved slots, ahead of next Thursday’s final candidate roster deadline.
And, once a government forms, coalition parties can utilize the so-called Norwegian Law to swap some of their ministers with replacement lawmakers from further down their lists, possibly enabling more women to enter the Knesset.
The problem is more pronounced in the Netanyahu-led right-religious bloc, which includes Likud, Religious Zionism and two ultra-Orthodox parties, which never run female candidates. The ultra-Orthodox are polling around 15 seats.
Right-wing Likud, currently polling between 31 and 33 seats, only has four women on its list below slot 30 and five under 33. Although the Knesset’s largest party runs a primary for the majority of its list, the paltry number of women chosen has put pressure on Netanyahu to use some of his discretionary choices to advance female candidates. These spots are generally used for augmenting the list to political advantage, and Netanyahu has yet to announce who he will slot into the spaces, three of which are considered likely to enter the 25th Knesset.
Far-right Religious Zionism also ran a primary in late August, which returned its two sitting female lawmakers, Orit Strock and Michal Waldinger, to realistic spots. Despite polling between 11 and 13 seats, no other women are expected to enter. Religious Zionism is a merger between Bezalel Smotrich’s party and Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, running together under a Netanyahu-brokered deal to unite the far-right.
“There is a reason that there are only seven women in the entire second bloc,” Lapid said about the current number of realistic candidates held by his political rivals.
“Likud, Religious Zionism, United Torah Judaism, Shas, together – only seven women. Because politics is a center of power, and they want to keep women away from centers of power,” Lapid continued.
Within parties in the current government, the centrist National Unity party — an alliance between Blue and White and New Hope — is running four women within realistic spots, currently polling between 12 and 14. Despite touting the addition of two female candidates to its slate last month, the party failed to place them — and a number of sitting lawmakers — in realistic positions.
Center-left Labor has three women in the first five it is expected to get, ironically knocking another female candidate into the sixth spot by enforcing its alternating gender roster.
Left-wing Meretz has two in the first five, and polls between four and five seats for the party.
The Islamist Arab Ra’am placed one woman within its realistic four candidates. The right-wing Zionist Spirit — formed out of the remnants of Yamina and New Hope breakaway party Derech Eretz and open to sitting with Likud — only touts one woman: its leader Ayelet Shaked. However, Zionist Spirit is currently polling below the four-seat threshold to enter Knesset.
The majority Arab Joint List faction, not expected to join any government, is only expected to place one woman on its to-be-solidified roster, sitting MK Aida Touma-Suleiman.
Centrist Yesh Atid, projected to carry between 22 and 24 seats, will only release its ordered candidate roster on Tuesday. Right-wing Yisrael Beytenu, which won’t join a Netanyahu-led government, polls between five and six seats, and will unveil its list on Monday.
Currently sitting at 36 women out of 120 lawmakers, the outgoing Knesset only has a paltry 30% female lawmakers. This is below the 2021 OECD average of 32% women parliamentarians in government.
When it formed in June 2021, the outgoing government sported the highest number of female cabinet members, 9 of the then-27 ministers. It also was a record-breaking percentage of female ministers, which never before had more than a quarter of the high-powered positions.
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