Legislative elections were held in Israel on 23 July 1984 to elect the eleventh Knesset. Voter turnout was 78.8%. The results saw the Alignment return to being the largest party in the Knesset, a status it had lost in 1977. However, the party could not form a government with any of the smaller parties, resulting in a grand coalition government with Likud, with both party leaders, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir, holding the post of Prime Minister for two years each.
Since the previous election, hyperinflation increased to 350%. Up to election week, opinion polls (among those with telephones) showed a clear lead for the Alignment, scoring 42% over the Likud's 28%.
1984 became an important year for the Arab vote. Turnout went from 68% in 1981 to 76% in 1984, thanks to the rise of the Progressive List for Peace. The new party was especially successful in getting younger Arab voters to the ballot box. Hadash called for voters to 'eliminate' the Progressives. The Progressives claimed that the actions of Hadash were akin to 'fascism, Nazism, and the Gush Emunim'. Hadash accused the Progressives of being set up on the command of the PLO, as well as being CIA agents. The Electoral Commission briefly banned the Progressives from running due to the alleged ties to the PLO that Hadash had raised. Nayef Hawatmeh of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine condemned the Progressives for 'serving' the Likud and the Alignment.
Infighting also happened within the Jewish left. Ratz advised people not to vote for Aryeh Eliav's list, claiming it would fail to surpass the threshold, and that "several hundred, and perhaps, God forbid, several thousand votes from good people" would be burnt. Ratz had previously offered to place Eliav second on their list. This came after the disintegration of Eliav's Sheli party, which Ratz had absorbed many remnants of. When a poll was published showing Eliav over the electoral threshold, he wrote to Ratz leader Shulamit Aloni, “I’m glad we’re both clearing the electoral threshold; see you in the next Knesset". Eliav only received 0.74% of votes, which did not win him a seat in the Knesset.
Ratz and Shinui had a public spat when a report in Haaretz claimed that Ratz had received IS40,000 to support its election campaign in exchange for abstaining on a vote around the parliamentary immunity of Aharon Abuhatzira. David Zucker of Ratz denied this. Ratz then published a leaflet criticising Shinui for its surplus agreement with the centrist Yahad, and for supporting the government on the 1982 Lebanon War.
Morasha and Mafdal's conflict was also made public; the two parties enlisted the support of multiple rabbis to try and gain the upper hand over each other.
Party slogans
Party or alliance
Original slogan
English translation
Likud
"העם רוצה ליכוד"
"The people want Likud"
Alignment
"המערך הוא התקווה היחידה"
"The Alignment is the only hope"
"التجمع - هو الأمل"
Mafdal
"בלי אבל- הצבע מפד"ל!"
"No buts about it - vote for Mafdal!"
Hadash
"קו חד"ש לשלום"
"A new [Hadash] line for peace"
Tehiya-Tzomet
"התחייה-צומת: בראש כל המחנה הציוני-לאומי"
"Tehiya-Tzomet: at the head of the entire Nationalist Zionist camp"
Two parties could make an agreement so that they were considered to be running on a joint list when leftover seats were distributed. The Bader–Ofer method favors larger lists, meaning that a joint list is more likely to receive leftover seats than each list would individually. If such a joint list were to receive a leftover seat, the Bader–Ofer method would be applied a second time to determine which of the parties that make up the joint list would receive it. The following agreements were signed by parties prior to the election:
Note: Political blocs do not necessarily determine the exact makeup of post-election coalitions. Hadashot published most polls in percentages, which have been approximated into seat totals through the D'Hondt method, assuming surplus-vote agreements stay the same when possible.
A hypothetical poll was conducted on 14 May 1984, where people were asked who they would vote for in the event of Likud splitting back into Herut and the Liberals. 18.4% of people would have voted for Herut and 2.3% for the Liberals.
Hadash lost 4% of the Arab vote, going from 38.1% to 34.1%. The Alignment dropped from 29% to 22.5%, and the Likud from 7% to 4.6%. Yahad won 5.9% of Arab votes, Shinui won 5.2% (the same as in 1981), Mafdal won 4.2%, Yahad won 5.9% and the Progressives won 18.2%.
The Alignment won 19% of the Druze vote, a drop from 30% in 1981. Likud fell from 35.5% to 19.2%. Shinui won out, with 24.5% of Druze votes compared to 7.5% in 1981.
The Alignment and the Likud remained steady in the Bedouin community; they won 49.2 and 10.3% respectively, close to their 1981 vote totals. Hadash fell from 10.5% to 4.4%. The Progressives won 10.1%.
Due to the stalemate produced by the elections, it was decided to form a national unity government, with the Alignment and Likud holding the leadership for two years each. The Alignment's Shimon Peres formed the twenty-first government on 13 September 1984. Alongside the Alignment and Likud, the coalition government included the National Religious Party, Agudat Yisrael, Shas, Morasha, Shinui and Ometz. Outside national unity governments formed during wartime (notably the government formed during the Six-Day War in the term of the sixth Knesset, which had 111 MKs), it was the largest-ever coalition in Israeli political history, with 97 MKs.
The eleventh Knesset also contained two controversial parties, Kach and the Progressive List for Peace (PLFP). Kach was a far-right party that advocated the expulsion of most Israeli Arabs, and although it had run in previous elections, it had not passed the electoral threshold. Ultimately the party was banned after a law was passed barring parties that incited racism. The attempts made to stop Kach from competing in the next elections also affected the PLFP, as the addition of section 7a to the Basic Law dealing with the Knesset ("Prevention of Participation of Candidates List") included the banning of parties that denied Israel's existence as a Jewish state:
A candidates' list shall not participate in elections to the Knesset if its objects or actions, expressly or by implication, include one of the following... negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people.
On this basis, the Central Elections Committee initially banned the PLFP from running for the 1988 elections, arguing that its policies promoted the scrapping of Israel as a Jewish state. However, the decision was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court of Israel, and the party was able to compete in the elections, winning two seats. Nevertheless, the law was not overturned, the Supreme Court merely deciding it was impossible to determine if "the real, central and active purpose [of the PFLP] is to bring about the elimination of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people", and attempts were made to ban the Israeli Arab parties Balad (PFLP's partial successor) and Ta'al using the same law prior to the 2003 elections.
Ometz and Tami merged into Likud. Mordechai Virshubski defected from Shinui to Ratz. Rafael Eitan broke away from Tehiya to establish Tzomet. Haim Drukman defected from Morasha to the National Religious Party. Shimon Ben-Shlomo broke away from Shas to sit as an independent.
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