TEL AVIV — There were plenty of tea bags around: Wissotzky, the Israeli brand. But the inaugural event of the Israeli version of the Tea Party, organized by the right flank of Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative Likud Party in this Mediterranean city on Sunday night, felt less like the start of a popular rebellion and more like a tepid political stunt.
Mr. Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, has been under heavy American pressure to renew a moratorium on the construction of settlement homes, a step aimed at getting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks back on track. Amid fears that the pressure would intensify after the midterm elections in the United States, the Tea Partiers had gathered under the slogan: “Say No to Obama.”
They said they wanted to strengthen Mr. Netanyahu’s resolve to withstand the pressure. And there was an underlying threat of political consequences should he not.
But neither the meager display of red and black balloons, nor the handwritten signs on the walls saying no to the American president in Hebrew, English and Russian, nor even the refreshments, seemed to energize the crowd of a little over 100.
In Tel Aviv, famed as a city that never sleeps, the Tea Party inaugural event was over by 8:45 p.m., not two hours past its scheduled 7 p.m. start time, and most of the audience looked ready for bed.
The event was organized by Michael Kleiner, a former Likud legislator. He was joined on the podium by a trio of current Likud parliamentarians, Danny Danon, Tzipi Hotovely and Ayoob Kara, as well as by two hard-line party members, Moshe Feiglin and Gershon Mesika, the leader of a West Bank regional settler council.
“The people of Israel voted right and they want to see right,” Ms. Hotovely said from the stage. She proposed countering any possible unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence with an Israeli declaration of sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria, using the biblical names for the West Bank — drawing applause.
A young female soloist provided a musical interlude between the speeches, singing traditional songs to the accompaniment of mournful violins.
Asked why the organizers chose to inaugurate the Tea Party in downtown Tel Aviv, the Israeli capital of hip, Mr. Dannon said they did not want just the regular “captive crowd” that frequents events in Jerusalem, but wanted to attract Israelis from all over the country.
While the Tea Party may show few signs of catching on here, its limited appeal may hold important clues for the Obama administration as it tries to push Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations forward. In resisting the pressure from Washington, Mr. Netanyahu has long cited political constraints at home. If anything, the modest turnout of local Tea Partiers seemed to suggest that he may be facing less domestic opposition than was commonly thought.
Israeli political scientists say that Mr. Netanyahu, as the unrivaled leader of the right, has displayed a talent for maintaining a potentially fractious coalition while keeping his conservative Likud Party in check.
“I do not see any opposition,” said Shmuel Sandler a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University, near Tel Aviv. “He has quite enough maneuvering space.” As a result, Mr. Sandler said, Mr. Netanyahu “can go quite far.”
Others, however, say that Mr. Netanyahu’s government will survive only so long as he stalls.
“The right wing has nothing to complain about,” said Gadi Wolfsfeld, a professor of political science and communications at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, dismissing the Tea Party as “a gimmick” and “a joke.”
“Basically this is the same Bibi we have known,” he said, referring to the prime minister by his popular nickname. “Delay, delay, delay.”
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