“The fourth quarter is a historical phenomenon common to many countries: They experience a social crisis in the fourth quarter of their existence (75-100 years). Countries that arose out of a background of adversity and out of a common goal begin to prosper. Precisely in times of abundance and in the absence of an external enemy, the various groups in society find it difficult to compromise among themselves. Jewish sovereignty was destroyed twice in the fourth quarter, and another 30 countries in history reached civil war during this period.”
Save perhaps for the external enemy absence factor, the quote above – from the website of a movement called the Fourth Quarter – seems to be an accurate description of Israel as it nears its 77th anniversary.
According to Yoav Heller, the movement’s chairman and one of its founders, the Fourth Quarter’s philosophy is based on a quote by Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. Asked after Israel’s founding whether he was pleased, Israel’s founding father said, “Ask me when the State of Israel is 75 years old. Or when the children born then no longer meet Holocaust survivors or the founding generation. At that point, assuring the righteousness of our path will require redefinition – based not on what was, but on what will be.”
Heller said, “This actually hints that there are moments in the life of a nation when the three things a state needs to provide – security, quality of life, and a sense of belonging – hit a wall, and big changes are needed.”
That time has come, Heller stated. He listed five major issues that need resolution in the near future: terror organizations on Israel’s borders; the divided education system; the economy, which required employment of Arab women and haredi men; rampant crime in the Arab sector, which Heller said will eventually spill over into the Jewish sector; and gaps between the country’s center versus its periphery.
However, these problems cannot be solved under the current climate of polarization. This situation needs to be changed from the bottom up – “the long way,” Heller said. The large Israeli mainstream agrees on a majority of issues but is far apart emotionally.
The way to deal with this is to begin with a grassroots movement. This would do three things: lower the level of emotional animosity simply by bringing together many Israelis; create new ideas that can receive large backing from people with different backgrounds; and create an effective, well-funded political mechanism with the ability to launch operations such as campaigns, events, and other grassroots initiatives.There were two events that shook him, Heller said: COVID-19 in 2019 and the riots in mixed Jewish-Arab cities during Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021. COVID-19 deepened the lack of trust between the mainstream Israeli public and the haredi community; and the riots did the same between the mainstream and the Israeli-Arab community. The growing polarization as a result of these events and of the five election cycles between 2019 and 2022 led Heller to the conclusion that the political reality in Israel needs to change.
Alongside chairing the Fourth Quarter, Heller is chairman of the Wingate Institute. The 51-year-old is a Holocaust historian, lecturer, and social entrepreneur who served as CEO of the Maoz organization and in a senior position in the Branco Weiss Institute, and was among the founders of the Ynet website. He also serves as an IDF reserve officer in the Strategic Planning division.
Heller spoke to The Jerusalem Post at the Fourth Quarter’s cozy yet state-of-the-art headquarters in Ramat Gan.
From parlor meetings to well-oiled machine
Heller said he began asking leaders in Maoz and other organizations what they thought Israel will look like in 20 years, and the answers he received differed from each other drastically. His conclusion was that there needed to be fundamental political change.
The Fourth Quarter movement began in March 2022 with parlor meetings – thousands of them. Today, there are over 60 parlor-meeting facilitators, he said.
The judicial reforms in 2023 created a “fire” that sparked the movement. The argument within the movement between pro- and anti-reformists forced it to begin developing ideas to attempt to bridge the divide.
But the movement exploded following the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas. The reason, according to Heller, was that the massacre was a stark reminder that Israel did not have the privilege of prolonged social and political polarization.The movement currently has 168,000 members. Some 39% are secular, 32% Religious Zionist, 21% traditional, 5-6% haredi, and 2% Arab.
To break into the political arena, an entity needs name recognition by 50% of the population; Fourth Quarter has only 23%.
The second requirement is big ideas. The Fourth Quarter has this – beginning with a written proposal for a constitution, Heller said. This wasn’t just an idea, though. The movement’s large numbers serve as an enormous focus group, which could serve as proof of its ability to develop large ideas that have broad support, he said.
The third requirement for political involvement was the political mechanism, which Heller defined as “well-oiled.” The Fourth Quarter has 172 operational locations across the country and has a pyramid structure – beginning with regional heads, then group leaders, “super-activists,” activists, and a database. This was something that no other movement in Israel has, Heller claimed.
The modus operandi involved two arms. The first is bringing in new members in order to continue lowering polarization. The goal, according to Heller, is to grow the movement to reach a million members. This will enable effective civilian pressure campaigns regarding specific issues. The second arm, he said, is to create new ideas.In order to change the entire system, however, the movement would ideally need to enter the political system.
According to Heller, “The large political solution for Israel will not be in the current election cycle but in the next one,” which ideally could include an “all-Israeli party” having 40-45 mandates – with representatives from every sector of Israeli society, including haredim and Israeli Arabs. Its core values would be a “Jewish, democratic, liberal, and traditional country,” which would “march Israel forward toward big changes with broad consensus.” This would be independent of the Fourth Quarter movement in any case, he said.
Still, forming a political party in the “spirit” of the Fourth Quarter for the upcoming election in October 2026 is also under consideration, the movement’s leader said. He stressed that such a political party would be completely independent of the Fourth Quarter movement.
The movement is already being courted by several politicians from the current opposition and others who are considering running in the upcoming election. Prior media reports included meetings with former prime minister Naftali Bennett, former communications minister Yoaz Hendel, Netivot Rabbi Haim Abergil, who is challenging Shas for the haredi-Sephardi constituency, and others.
Political backlash
The Fourth Quarter has also been sharply criticized by current politicians from both the coalition and opposition. Heller claimed that the reason for this was that they were viewed as a threat – many people from politicians’ close circles had joined the movement, he said.
Two prominent opposition politicians who criticized the Fourth Quarter were opposition leader MK Yair Lapid and chairman of the Democrats Party, Yair Golan. Their criticism stemmed from a large campaign that the movement launched in September 2024, calling for a unity government.
The campaign included giant billboards with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flanked by Lapid, Golan, or others on one hand, and far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other right-wing politicians on the other. Golan demanded that the movement remove his figure from the billboards, as he did not agree to be portrayed alongside Netanyahu and Smotrich. Lapid also criticized the movement for what he claimed was accepting controversial far-right politicians as being legitimate.
Heller shrugged off the criticism, arguing that both Netanyahu, who constantly put his political welfare before that of the country, and Lapid and Golan, who were opposed to a unity government, were part of the problem. According to Heller, Lapid was “afraid of the street” and was not willing to make a “courageous” decision to “put aside the boycott” of Netanyahu. Heller contrasted this with Winston Churchill’s entry into the UK government during World War II, Menachem Begin’s entry into a unity Israeli government ahead of the 1967 Six Day War, and the unity government in Israel during the financial crisis of the 1980s.
The Fourth Quarter CEO quickly presented solutions to some of the most polarizing issues in Israel. He contended that they are easily resolvable, citing well-known middle ground positions: He did not rule out a Netanyahu led-government, saying that prime ministers should not be prosecuted during their term (the “French Law”) but on the condition that a prime minister be limited to two terms. He did not categorically rule out the far Right, arguing that his “big tent” approach welcomed anyone who signed on to the Fourth Quarter’s constitutional proposal; and he demanded that Palestinians drop their demands for a right of return to Israel as a precondition for peace talks, among other positions.
HIS NEXT big flagship issue will be the Fourth Quarter’s constitution proposal, which lays out a detailed solution to problems at the center of the judicial reform. The core idea is that the Supreme Court’s power can be decreased but that the Knesset’s power should simultaneously be increased to ensure a balanced system of government.However, Heller refused the label of a “centrist” party and insisted on differentiating himself from the centrist National Unity party led by MK Benny Gantz, whose views are very similar.
There were three main differences, Heller said. First, Gantz, Lapid, and other leaders had parties that were built “top-down” on the persona of the leader as opposed to the movement. Second, the Fourth Quarter has succeeded, at least at the civil society level, in creating “impossible” alliances between people who voted for opposing camps. As opposed to Gantz, who belonged to the traditional center-left camp, the Fourth Quarter has succeeded in “breaking the sociological” barriers, Heller said. The third difference is the Fourth Quarter’s big ideas, which he claimed Gantz and others refrained from putting forward.
“We combine liberalism and traditionalism. Lapid is an ultra-liberal, and the others have not put ideas forward,” he said.
He also stressed the pluralistic character of the movement as being unique. For example, reports emerged during the judicial reforms that the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) spoke to a number of civil society organizations and warned the polarization it caused could harm national security. The severity of the situation led Heller to bring a proposal to the movement’s leadership to launch a campaign for an emergency government, but he lost the vote, and the proposal was rejected.
“The public wasn’t ready for it,” he said, adding that they weren’t aware of the urgency. Losing the vote was frustrating, but it was the kind of thing that “builds a movement” since it made members understand that their voice matters, and they have “agency” within the movement.
Asked about his personal motivation, Heller said that his “essence” was that he has “wandered” in many places and within different groups, both in childhood and adulthood. These included an Orthodox school in the US, spending time as a son of left-wing “Mapaianikim” in the mostly Mizrahi town of Menachamiaya, and commanding a mix of yeshiva students and secular ex-commandos in the IDF.
A SEMINAL moment came in 2002, when five soldiers under his command, including his best friend, were killed while on reserve duty.
“I remembered a dream – that’s what drives me. The dream is of an Israeli society, a model state, that is united. I want every Israeli to feel they belong to this place and every Jew to feel that they belong to the State of Israel,” he said.
“We must ensure the continued existence that binds the Jewish generations, and we must be a light unto the nations,” he said. “Not based on the idea that we are the chosen people, but on the idea of hard work to really be the best country we can be. I am driven by the idea that everyone will want to be brothers in the project: the wonderful project of Israeli Zionism.”
The Fourth Quarter may be the most organized grassroots movement to emerge into the national limelight after Oct. 7, but it has yet to enter the often ugly fray of Israeli politics. Whether or not it truly delivers political change or ends up being just another centrist initiative among many remains to be seen.