This is a rough conception of the important dimensions of Israeli politics, for issues that come up in the Knesset. The debates are over whether Israel should be a religious or secular society, and how tough Israel should be on the question of Arab lands and rights. The latter includes compromise on the Golan and a Palestinian homeland, civil liberties versus harsh security measures, and an Israel that attends to world opinion rather than acts on its own. There are other dimensions, of course, like the place of the Sephardic or Russian populations and these would generate further dimensions.

The positions of the parties are my own impressions, determined by where they stood on debates, who supported which candidate for prime minister, who joined in the government coalition and who left, who made certain pre-election deals, and also which parties have received migrants from which other parties.

Of the 33 parties that ran, 15 got seats. The diagram’s suggestion is that there are two kinds of parties. Some remain on the perimeter of the issue-diamond, and some move towards the center. The ones in the center are mainly the three that ran realistic presidential candidates, Center (Mordechai), Likud (Netanyahu) and One Israel (Barak). The Russian party Ba’aliya is in the center too, but that party is the result of a recent split, and may find another place.

The parties at the edge have taken stronger stands on one or both of the issues. They tend not to take an extreme stand on both – the perimeter is a diamond – since many of them have hopes of joining in a government, which would generally force them to trade off one goal or the other. Many other single-issue parties ran, on casinos, fathers’ rights, women’s rights, and so on, but it is notable that those running on these other issues got no seats.

When Barak set up his initial coalition in July 1999, he chose parties vertically. This reflected an expectation that the coming vote would be on peace rather than on the religious/secular division. He could expect the votes of all parties more dovish than his group so he did not need to include One Nation or the Communist Party, plus there would be a reaction against a peace deal worked out by a government including Arab parties.

(United Torah Judaism is listed as in the coalition – but their policy is not to accept cabinet seats, to avoid responsibility for the secular decisions of the government. They agreed to vote with the coalition, but fell away in their policies, around the time of the Camp David meetings, around the time that Shas, the NRP and Ba’aliya formally quit.)

It is interesting that two sides of the diagram are mostly vacant. There is no party in the Knesset for secular hawks. Such a party ran – Tsomet – but it received no seats. Likewise there is no group of very religious doves.