Sderot Junction: In a city accustomed to voting Likud, there are thousands of new residents. Has anything changed?

The August sun beats down on the old commercial center in Sderot. The smell of fresh hummus, roasted nuts, and falafel shops mixes in the air. Outwardly, the city presents a story of recovery after the terrible massacre and the great evacuation, alongside impressive growth. In the last elections, there were 23,403 eligible voters, and although official data for the upcoming elections has not yet been published, it can be estimated that it has grown significantly - as the number of residents in the city has increased by about 5,000 people, standing at about 40,000. New families have been absorbed, new neighborhoods have been established, and the streets are bustling with people again after long months of evacuation and stays in hotels.

In two and a half months, Israel will go to the polls again. The city, which is traditionally considered one of the Likud's strongholds, is emerging this year as one of the most courted on the political map in Israel: following the October 7 massacre, which left deep scars and a difficult sense of abandonment in Sderot and the Gaza envelope, the residents who experienced the collapse of the defense lines firsthand are no longer willing to be a taken-for-granted vote at the ballot box. Thus, in the right-wing wing of the "change bloc," they are expected to try and convince potential voters to choose a new political home. This, of course, will not be simple: in the last elections held in 2022, about 41.5% of voters in the city voted for Likud. The second largest party in the city was the joint list of "Religious Zionism" and "Otzma Yehudit," which received about a quarter of the votes, followed by Shas with about 12%. In fact, all the opposition parties together received less than 20% of the votes.

A year later, however, the October 7 attack occurred, the city was evacuated, its residents scattered in hotels across the country, and the national popularity of Likud plummeted. But since then, water has flowed in the river, the rocket threat from the Gaza Strip has been removed - at least as of today - and the residents have returned to the city in the midst of a rehabilitation process, in which they also received financial compensation from the state. So will the voting patterns in the Likud city change following the events? The answer, at least on the street, is much more complex. On one hand, it is evident that the Likud base still exists, and the deep political affinity and deep-rooted loyalty have not disappeared. But alongside that loyalty, it is impossible to ignore the daily hardships expressed by many residents, and also the anger over the issue of the exemption from military service for the ultra-Orthodox. This gap, between uncompromising loyalty and sharp criticism, makes Sderot an electoral puzzle.

"Likud is in my blood"

The first stop was with Danny Suissa, owner of the old and well-known nut shop in the city. He does not hide his political identity for a moment. "I am a Likudnik from birth. There is nothing to do. It is impossible to change. A galloping horse - you don't change it for a dead horse," he says. He places the map of responsibility for the failures on the country's leadership as a whole, at the security level and also the political level. "I have lived here for 71 years. For 22 years our lives have not been normal. I blame everyone. The Shin Bet, the IDF officers, also the Prime Minister. Whoever made a mistake - let them pay the price." When we ask him how he can both demand responsibility and vote for the same party again, he does not try to resolve the contradiction. "I am voting for them again because I am a staunch Likud person. There is nothing to do, it is in my blood," he concludes.

Suissa is of course not alone: in fact, the figure that Likud received in the 2022 elections was not even unusual. In 2021, Likud won about 41.15% of the votes, and in the elections before that - 51.15%. While wandering in the city, we also encountered what has almost become a constant ritual in street polls in Israel conducted by one media outlet or another near one of the kiosks, around the local "parliaments," the shouts were heard: "Leftists" and "Only Bibi." We offered everyone who wanted to say their opinion - without censorship, in front of the camera and microphone - but none of them agreed to be interviewed. Instead, they settled for shouts of "Bibi the King" and "It won't help you, you Tel Avivians." The undersigned, it should be noted, arrived to film the report in the city after years of living in Sderot, and only a few months ago left it for a nearby kibbutz.

Not just Likud

At the entrance to "Hummus Shel Tahina," the well-known hummus place in the city, we meet Omri Rotstein, the kitchen manager. Last time he voted for Yair Lapid. This time he is debating between Bennett and Eisenkot. From his point of view, the two burning issues are security and unity. "The current government does not understand this," he says. But the subject that elicits the most decisive answer from him is actually the conscription of the ultra-Orthodox: "The law that the government is promoting is very bad. Everyone needs to be drafted, either national service or mandatory conscription for everyone. Let's hope for a better country in the next elections."

Hadar, a Sderot resident who finished a degree in psychology, also supports conscription for everyone. She shares that she intends to vote for Itamar Ben Gvir. "He caused all sorts of weapons distributions and things that can help us here, for the residents of Sderot in particular. It improved the security situation. In my opinion, every citizen must have a weapon here, it is impossible to manage without a weapon," she explains. She is asked what she would change in the country, if she could: "Bring more rights to citizens who served the country, empower them, give them, fund them degrees, so they can advance, give them more mental support." In this context, she is asked if it doesn't bother her to vote for Ben Gvir, who voted in favor of the draft evasion laws and is a member of the government that promoted the exemption law for the ultra-Orthodox. "Everyone needs to serve the country, I don't support that," she answers.

Hadar touches on an important point, perhaps the Achilles' heel of the coalition: the national tension around the exemption law, which comes up again and again in casual conversations, meets a unique demographic reality in Sderot. On one hand, it is a city where military service and reserves are considered a supreme value, especially in light of the fact that many of its sons found themselves on the front line. On the other hand, this is a city with large traditional, religious, and ultra-Orthodox communities, with a solid base of Shas voters. Beyond that, a significant electoral unknown hovers over the upcoming election campaign: the thousands of new residents who have joined Sderot in recent years, whether due to the convenient housing prices, the nearby college, or the removal of the rocket threat and the tax benefits that the residents enjoy. These new voices may, perhaps, change the delicate balance. The big question is whether the new neighborhoods will strengthen the city's traditional voting patterns, or whether it is there, far from the familiar "parliaments," that political forces will grow that will tip the scales.

"It's hard for me to believe that something will change"

Just on the way to the car, when we were longing for a little air conditioning, one young man stops us. "Can I be interviewed?", he asks without even knowing what we will interview him about. Amit Maman, 24 from Sderot, tells about the cost of living, about the difficulty of young people to start a family, and about the difficulty in creating opportunities in the periphery: "The security situation has already become some kind of habit. But we are also fighting in a daily war of the economy." In his answer, Amit reflects the line of thought of many young people ahead of the upcoming elections - first of all the economy. In the previous elections, he voted for the Likud party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spread promises to significantly ease the cost of living. This time, according to him, he will vote for Prof. Yaron Zelekha, who is not yet clear in which framework he will run in the upcoming elections. "It's hard for me to believe that something will change here," he concludes.

Aviv Amoyal, owner of a real estate marketing company in Sderot, is not at all sure that he will go to the ballot box on election day. "If after October 7 we return to the same point, then what is it worth?", he says. After a few hours of conversations in the streets of Sderot, it was difficult to find one answer to the question of how the city will vote. Alongside Likud voters who remain loyal despite extremely sharp criticism of the government, we also found right-wingers who want change, centrist voters who are debating, and young people who talk first of all about the economy. But more than anything, we found a city that has not yet decided if it is mainly angry, tired, or still believing. When we fold the camera and return to the car, we remember the conversation with Danny Suissa. Perhaps it is precisely in the sentence he said that the complexity of Sderot is hidden more than any poll or graph: "Whoever made a mistake, let them pay. But I am a Likud person. It is in my blood."