Takeaways from Israel’s inconclusive election

Is­raelis faced po­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty Wednes­day af­ter no clear win­ner ap­peared to have emerged from a high-turnout elec­tion. The path to form­ing a gov­ern­ment is fraught for Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu and his main op­po­nent, and an­oth­er round of elec­tions can­not be ruled out.

The first elec­tions since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, at­tack were seen as a piv­otal mo­ment in Is­rael’s his­to­ry, serv­ing both as a ref­er­en­dum on Ne­tanyahu’s near­ly un­bro­ken 17-year rule and a choice be­tween dif­fer­ent vi­sions for the coun­try’s fu­ture.

The ini­tial re­sults show a deeply di­vid­ed elec­torate with mul­ti­ple fault lines.

Ne­tanyahu lost sup­port but still has a fair chance at re­main­ing in of­fice. His main op­po­nents, led by for­mer mil­i­tary chief Ga­di Eisenkot, would most like­ly have to part­ner with Arab-led par­ties to un­seat him, a po­lit­i­cal­ly cost­ly move that could alien­ate oth­er op­po­si­tion fac­tions.

They could al­so part­ner with Ne­tanyahu in a broad-based uni­ty gov­ern­ment, but that would be seen as a ma­jor be­tray­al by many of their vot­ers af­ter they put his ouster at the heart of their cam­paigns.

Fi­nal, of­fi­cial re­sults are ex­pect­ed on Thurs­day or Fri­day, but there will like­ly be weeks of ne­go­ti­a­tions be­fore a prime min­is­ter is de­clared — or new elec­tions are called.

Here are the main take­aways:

Ne­tanyahu is down but not out

Ini­tial re­sults show Ne­tanyahu’s re­li­gious and ul­tra­na­tion­al­ist coali­tion falling short of a par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty of 61 seats, af­ter reach­ing a peak of 68 seats in the pre­vi­ous par­lia­ment. Ne­tanyahu’s right-wing Likud al­so ap­pears to have been whit­tled down from 32 seats to around 27.

That could re­flect grow­ing dis­il­lu­sion­ment with his long rule, anger at his han­dling of the Oct. 7 at­tacks and their af­ter­math, and his sup­port for the ex­emp­tion of ul­tra-Or­tho­dox Jews from mil­i­tary ser­vice, an in­tense­ly di­vi­sive is­sue as the coun­try is em­broiled in mul­ti­ple wars.

But Likud still ap­pears to have emerged as the largest par­ty, putting Ne­tanyahu in the best po­si­tion to be tasked first with form­ing a gov­ern­ment.

He would need sup­port from at least one op­po­si­tion par­ty, or sev­er­al de­fec­tors from that side, to rule. Most have promised not to part­ner with Ne­tanyahu, but the Is­raeli leader, a savvy po­lit­i­cal op­er­a­tor, could of­fer them con­ces­sions. He is al­so like­ly to ar­gue that a broad-based gov­ern­ment un­der his lead­er­ship is prefer­able to one re­ly­ing on Arab-led par­ties — or an­oth­er round of elec­tions.

He can al­ready claim a vic­to­ry of sorts by hav­ing re­tained much of his sup­port even af­ter the dead­liest se­cu­ri­ty break­down in Is­rael’s his­to­ry un­fold­ed on his watch.

Ne­tanyahu “man­ages to over­come sit­u­a­tions that I can’t see any­one else man­ag­ing to over­come,” said Tamar Her­mann, se­nior re­search fel­low at the Is­rael Democ­ra­cy In­sti­tute, a Jerusalem think tank. “Po­lit­i­cal­ly, he is a ma­gi­cian.”

The op­po­si­tion faces an up­hill bat­tle

Ini­tial re­sults in­di­cate that par­ties op­posed to Ne­tanyahu won a par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty. But they in­clude Arab-led fac­tions that have long been po­lit­i­cal­ly side­lined, and which some Jew­ish-led par­ties have re­fused to part­ner with.

In the face of “a pol­i­tics of su­prema­cy, racism and ex­clu­sion, we are of­fer­ing a to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent al­ter­na­tive,” Yousef Jaba­reen, the head of the Arab Joint List, said on X. “The change comes through Jew­ish-Arab part­ner­ship, a true and equal part­ner­ship. Noth­ing more, noth­ing less.”

On­ly one Arab par­ty has ever joined an Is­raeli gov­ern­ing coali­tion, in 2021, and that gov­ern­ment on­ly last­ed about 18 months. The lev­el of dis­trust is far high­er af­ter Oct. 7 and the re­sult­ing wars. Ne­tanyahu is like­ly to ex­ploit that by cast­ing any part­ner­ship with Arab-led par­ties as il­le­git­i­mate or trea­so­nous.

With­out the Arabs, Eisenkot and his Jew­ish al­lies have no clear path to form­ing a coali­tion to un­seat Ne­tanyahu, and an­oth­er round of elec­tions might fur­ther weak­en their hand.

Tens of thou­sands of Is­raelis who flew in for this elec­tion may not re­turn for an­oth­er one, and Ne­tanyahu would stay on as care­tak­er prime min­is­ter, giv­ing him a plat­form to at­tack his op­po­nents and try to ex­pand his own coali­tion.

That leaves the prospect of form­ing a gov­ern­ment with Ne­tanyahu — af­ter a cam­paign in which they blamed him for the fail­ures sur­round­ing the Oct. 7 at­tack, por­trayed him as a threat to Is­rael’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions and high­light­ed his on­go­ing cor­rup­tion tri­al.

Arab par­ties’ suc­cess could make it hard­er to part­ner with them

The Arab-led par­ties rep­re­sent Pales­tini­ans with Is­raeli cit­i­zen­ship, who make up about 20% of the coun­try’s pop­u­la­tion. De­scen­dants of Pales­tini­ans who re­mained in Is­rael af­ter its cre­ation in 1948, they are en­ti­tled to vote and serve in par­lia­ment.

While they hold se­nior roles in many sec­tors of Is­raeli so­ci­ety, they face dis­crim­i­na­tion, and many Jew­ish Is­raelis view them with sus­pi­cion be­cause of their gen­er­al sup­port for the Pales­tin­ian cause.

Surg­ing Arab turnout, dri­ven in part by dis­gust at Ne­tanyahu’s far-right al­lies, may have de­liv­ered a his­toric vic­to­ry for Arab-led par­ties, who could win around 19 seats in the 120-mem­ber Knes­set.

That would give them sig­nif­i­cant pow­er in any part­ner­ship with Eisenkot — po­ten­tial­ly mak­ing such an al­liance less like­ly. The op­po­si­tion might al­so have to part­ner with hard-line Arab fac­tions that are even more wide­ly re­ject­ed among Jew­ish Is­raelis.

“With these num­bers — there are too many Arabs to lean on, so to speak,” said Aviv Bushin­sky, a po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor and for­mer Ne­tanyahu ad­vis­er. “Is­raeli so­ci­ety is not ready for it, not be­fore Oct. 7 and cer­tain­ly not af­ter it.”

The re­sults do lit­tle to as­suage Is­rael’s in­ter­nal di­vi­sions

The elec­tions were an in­flec­tion point for Is­rael af­ter three years of war. But they al­so high­light­ed the same di­vi­sions that have roiled the coun­try for decades.

Ne­tanyahu’s coali­tion, made up of ul­tra­na­tion­al­ist and ul­tra-Or­tho­dox par­ties, sup­port­ed strength­en­ing Is­rael’s Jew­ish char­ac­ter. It pushed for more set­tle­ment con­struc­tion in the oc­cu­pied West Bank and al­lowed for mil­i­tary draft ex­emp­tions for ul­tra-Or­tho­dox Jews. It al­so at­tempt­ed to push through an over­haul of the coun­try’s ju­di­cia­ry in 2023 that drew mass protests.

Eisenkot’s camp pro­mot­ed a vi­sion where Is­rael’s Jew­ish char­ac­ter lives in har­mo­ny with its lib­er­al de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ideals. It promised hon­est lead­er­ship and ac­count­abil­i­ty for Is­rael’s Oct. 7 fail­ures, vowed to bol­ster the ju­di­cia­ry and end the mil­i­tary draft ex­emp­tions. They al­so promised to fix Is­rael’s in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ing, which has de­te­ri­o­rat­ed be­cause of the Gaza war and set­tler vi­o­lence in the West Bank.

The ap­par­ent­ly stale­mat­ed re­sults sug­gest Is­rael’s di­vi­sions are deep­er than ever. —JERUSALEM (AP)

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Sto­ry by TIA GOLD­EN­BERG | As­so­ci­at­ed Press