Meet the New Knesset

Stand for Israel  |  April 12, 2019

Israeli officials have finalized this week’s election results, which did more than just ensure that Benjamin Netanyahu will serve his fifth term as Prime Minister. The Times of Israel’s Raoul Wootliff tells us about the 21st Knesset (Israel’s parliament) which was elected, including 9 major generals of the IDF, 29 women, and 49 newcomers:

With the complete results from Tuesday’s election announced on Thursday night after two days of tense vote counting, we now finally know how many seats each party will have in the 21st Knesset, and the identities of the 120 people who will fill them.

While a record 39 parties ran in the election, with 14 mounting credible challenges to cross the electoral threshold, the final results gave seats to just 11. That’s one more than the 20th Knesset but well short of the 15 elected in 1999 to the most thinly-spread parliament in Israel’s history.

According to the final tally, however, a record-breaking 49 new MKs will be sworn in on April 30, overtaking the 48 fresh faces elected in 2013, making it the most rookie Knesset since Israel’s first ever elections which saw, somewhat obviously, 120 new lawmakers elected.

Of the rookies, nearly half hail from the recently formed Blue and White party helmed by Benny Gantz, only 11 of whose 35 incoming MKs served in the previous Knesset. The situation is almost exactly reversed for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, which sees 12 new MKs out of its haul of 36.

Amid the high turnover, 13 new female MKs were elected, contributing to a matched-record high of 2015’s 29 women elected…