What to Make of Israel’s Ambiguous Election

It could be weeks until we know what kind of government will take shape in Israel and who will lead it. But here are two things we can already say: Turnout was the highest in almost three decades, in a week that also saw exceptional levels of turnout in Brazil and Serbia.

The other big surprise: Arab Israelis voted in record numbers, making two Arab parties potential kingmakers. Israel has always been two things: a Jewish state and a liberal democracy. Those two identities have sometimes been in tension.That tension is now in the spotlight after an election that underscored the reluctance of Jewish parties to form a coalition with Arab ones.

My colleague David Halbfinger, our Jerusalem bureau chief, has been covering the election. He breaks it down for us.

4 big thoughts on Israel’s incomplete election

By David Halbfinger

The results of Israel’s pivotal parliamentary election will not be finalized until at least Thursday. But some conclusions are already inescapable.

Arab citizens of Israel turned out to vote in record numbers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party gobbled up many votes that his right-wing and Orthodox Jewish coalition partners had expected would be theirs. And the pre-election polls failed to anticipate both phenomena.

Much could still change. But here are some initial takeaways.

1) Netanyahu didn’t win, but Eisenkot lost.

Netanyahu’s coalition appears to have shrunk considerably from the 64 parliamentary seats that it won in 2022: The latest results show it with around 53, well short of a majority in the 120-member Knesset, or Parliament. But he could wind up in a better position to form a government than his chief rival, Gadi Eisenkot.

Eisenkot, a former Israeli military chief of staff, had two goals in the election: to lead the Jewish opposition parties to an outright majority or at least get very close to one, and to make sure his own party, Yashar, got more votes than any other. He failed on both counts, the initial results indicate.

Reuven Hazan, a political science professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that it was hard to imagine better conditions for Eisenkot’s alliance ahead of the election. Netanyahu and his coalition were weighed down by anger over the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and their failure to do more to free Israeli hostages; by anger over ultra-Orthodox Jewish draft-dodging in wartime; and by outrage over the government’s efforts to neuter the judiciary and allow growing settler violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“The anti-Netanyahu camp had an election handed to them on a silver platter, and they still lost,” Hazan said. “Israelis have sent an ambiguous message: ‘We don’t really like the current government, but we don’t see a viable alternative.’”

2) Netanyahu’s coalition shrank — but he has options.

As votes were being counted yesterday, Likud was poised to be the largest party in the larger of the two blocs of Jewish-led parties, meaning Netanyahu could well be given the chance to form a government, Hazan said.

The long-serving Israeli prime minister may try to peel away some of Eisenkot’s putative partners in order to achieve a majority of 61 seats in Parliament. A number of them are as right-wing as Netanyahu is, though all have more or less ruled out entering a Netanyahu-led government.

He could also try to form a national unity government with Eisenkot — perhaps with the assistance of President Trump, who has praised Netanyahu as a “warrior prime minister” and has made clear he wants Israel to join the United States in another round of war against Iran.

Perhaps the most mind-bending option available to Netanyahu, given that he ran a scaremongering campaign that demonized Arab lawmakers and stoked fears of Arab voter turnout, would be to recruit an Arab party to join him in a government. He nearly did so once before, in 2022.

“It could very well be that they become indispensable,” Dahlia Scheindlin, a pollster and political analyst, said of Arab lawmakers. “And Netanyahu has certainly demonstrated his willingness to do anything to stay in power.”

3) The liberal camp still has a shot.

Speaking of Jewish opposition parties in isolation ignores the fact that, when Arab parties are included, Netanyahu’s rivals appeared headed toward a significant majority in Parliament, with about 67 seats to roughly 53 for the prime minister’s bloc.

“There is no need to go with the racist assumption that you need not count the Arabs,” said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who is advising the opposition.

That means the Knesset in effect will be controlled by the anti-Netanyahu opposition, regardless of who ends up being prime minister. If the vote breakdown roughly holds, Talshir said, she expects Eisenkot and his Jewish and Arab allies to elect a new parliamentary speaker, begin repealing unpopular laws and at least try to form a government — perhaps including some combination of Arab and ultra-Orthodox lawmakers.

“I’m not saying it’s a good scenario to take the Knesset and not be able to form the government,” Talshir said. “It’s a disaster. But this is the hand they’re dealt, and they have to play it.”

4) Arab voters broke records — but could face rejection.

Tuesday’s election appears to have had many losers. Netanyahu’s support shrank and Eisenkot came up short of his goal. The ultra-Orthodox parties were projected to lose seats, according to the latest returns, and two right-wing nationalist parties failed to make gains, despite four years during which they drove the Netanyahu government’s extreme policies in the West Bank.

The biggest ostensible winners were the Arab voters who turned out in record numbers. But they could well wind up the most disappointed citizens of all, if the Jewish opposition leaders prove unwilling or unable to form a majority in an alliance with the Arab parties.

“They’re saying, ‘We believe in Israeli democracy, we believe in the system, we want to be part of the system and we want to be treated better,’” Hazan said. “And if Netanyahu forms a government, they’ll get none of that.”

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