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There is a tendency to wave away Israeli electoral outcomes as a consequence of a strange and fractured political system with dozens of fringe parties that become overly powerful because they're needed to complete the majority coalition. Under this analysis, the influence of extremists like Avignor Lieberman is akin to the influence of centrists like Ben Nelson: They're a function of coalition politics rather than majority opinion. But that is not, as far as I can tell, true. Matt Yglesias's capsule history of Israeli politics makes the point nicely:
Israel has normally been governed by coalitions dominated by a large centrist party—first Labor then Kadima—which is precisely the virtue of these kind of electoral systems. Unfortunately, underlying Israeli public opinion has shifted sharply to the right over the past ten years. Likud used to be the main rightwing party. Then, under the government of Ariel Sharon in fragmented into a more pragmatic Kadima faction and a hardline-nationalist faction led by Bibi Netanyahu. Now, Israeli opinion has shifted so far to the right that Kadima, which was founded as a center-right party just a few years ago is now left of the public opinion’s center. And the far-right Yisrael Beitanu party is bigger than center-left Labor and dramatically bigger than left-wing Meretz. Meanwhile, Labor has itself shifted right. A politics dominated, on both sides, by nationalists—ranging from pragmatic nationalists to not-so-pragmatic nationalists to frothing-at-the-mouth-racist nationalists—is not so promising for the cause of peace. But that’s because of public opinion not electoral systems.It's a dangerous illusion to deny the agency of the Israeli public in their electoral outcomes. They know full well how their political system works. Voting is explicitly strategic and, as you'd expect, the political press in Israel covers elections in context of the likely governing coalitions, and so no one was confused about the fact that Netanyahu would likely enter into alliance with Lieberman, or that a strong Kadima win represented the likeliest alternative to that coalition. For better or worse, this is the government the Israelis have chosen, and as far as anyone knows, it's a fairly authentic expression of the preferences of the Israeli center.
