Talk:1992 Israeli legislative election

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The claim that "though their win was at least partially due to several small right-wing parties narrowly failing to cross the electoral threshold and thus effectively wasting votes for the right." in the introduction is without basis in the article linked or the facts.

The claim is taken from the following aside in Haaretz:

"As opposed to the accepted view in the right, which holds that the multiplicity of parties weakens the right and increases the risk that right-wing votes will be lost due to parties not reaching the minimum threshold levels necessary for entry into the Knesset (as happened when Tehiya, Moshe Levinger's Torah and Aretz and Eliezer Mizrachi's Geulat Israel all ran), there is a sense in Herut that in their case, things will turn out otherwise."

This does not claim that "their win was at least partially due to several small right-wing parties". It claims that the right lost votes - to be precise, they lost 1.8 seats from the three parties named. By contrast, the left lost 1.5 seats due to the Progressive List for Peace and New Liberal Party alone. The margin of the Labor victory over Likud was 12 seats.

Including the above claim in the lede is misleading at the least. Rxtreme (talk) 03:46, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that several of the smaller right-wing parties failed to cross the threshold, costing the right victory is one of the best known aspects of the 1992 elections. If you want further proof, see:

• The 1992 Knesset Elections Revisited: Implications for the Future: "But the splinters on the right were more harmful to the national camp than those among the Arab camp. In addition to the lost Tehiya votes, ballots cast for lists headed by two right-wing rabbis, Levinger and Mizrahi, went down the drain. Together these votes could have added two MKs to the Right, and given them the margin they needed over the Left."
• Israeli Politics and the Middle East Peace Process, 1988-2002: Though the Labour block gained fewer votes tan the Likud block, the Labour block had the blocking majority of 61 seats. Efraim Inbar argued that Labour's victory was a technical one and was due to the fragmentation of the Likud block rather than the unity of the Labour block... But as a result of the fragmentation of the right, many lists that contested the election just failed to pass the electoral threshold (Tehiya was an example. Hence the votes they received were wasted."

Additionally, the New Liberal Party was right-wing (it was part of the previous Likud-led government), and the fact that Labour won 12 more seats than Likud is irrelevant – what matters is the size of the blocs. Number 57 08:44, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. I miscounted the size of the blocs (scanning Moledet as another small Arab party), so the 59 seat right wing bloc is relevant.

I'd put something like "The election resulted in the formation of a Labor government, lead by Yitzchak Rabin, helped by the failure of several small right wing parties to pass the electoral threshold." and link the first of your two articles (unless you can find something better.) I would then mention both the raised electoral threshold and the size of the blocs in the article itself.

How does that sound? (Also, do you want to edit or should I?) Rxtreme (talk) 17:55, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Upon looking at the numbers, I'm hesitant about even that. Regardless of whether your claim is "one of the best known aspects of the 1992 elections" (and two article are not enough to back that up), it remains false. The Likud had the smallest ratio of votes to seats in the Knesset (20,350 votes/seat), followed by the Arab Democratic Party (20,394 votes/seat. If the threshold was lowered, Likud would have lost a seat to Tehiya, and the Arab Democratic Party to the Progressive List for Peace, yielding no change in the bloc sizes. (No other party would have enough votes for a seat.)

In any case, the current, far too strong, wording (and reference) need to be replaced. Rxtreme (talk) 02:24, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Someone should fix the incorrect use of bold face in the opening sentence. Very strangely, all Israeli election articles had arbitrary text bolded in the first sentence, in contravention of MOS:BOLDAVOID. I have fixed many of them but this article is locked. 164.134.2.50 (talk) 10:55, 8 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Johshh (talk) 05:39, 27 January 2024 (UTC) [reply]