The results of Israel’s crucial parliamentary elections will not be known until at least Thursday and it could take weeks until it is clear what kind of government will be formed and who will lead it. But some conclusions are already inescapable. Israel’s Arab citizens turned out to vote in record numbers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party gobbled up many votes that his right-wing coalition partners and Orthodox Jews hoped would be theirs. And pre-election polls failed to anticipate both phenomena. There are still many things that could change. But with most votes counted Wednesday afternoon, here are some initial takeaways. Netanyahu did not win, but Eisenkot lost. Netanyahu’s coalition appears to have shrunk considerably from the 64 parliamentary seats it won in 2022: the latest results show it with around 54, well short of a majority in the 120-member Knesset, or Parliament. But he could end up in a better position to form a government than his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot. Eisenkot, the former chief of staff of the Israeli army, had two goals in the elections: to bring the Jewish opposition parties to an absolute majority or at least very close to it, and to ensure that his own party, Yashar, got more votes than any other. It failed on both counts, initial results indicate. Reuven Hazan, a political science professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said it had been difficult to imagine better conditions for Eisenkot’s alliance before the election. Netanyahu and his coalition were overcome with anger over the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023 and their failure to do more to free the Israeli hostages; by anger over wartime evasion of conscription by ultra-Orthodox Jews; and by outrage over the government’s efforts to neutralize the judiciary and enable growing settler violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, he said. “The anti-Netanyahu camp was handed an election on a silver platter, and they still lost,” Hazan said. “The Israelis have sent an ambiguous message: ‘We really don’t like the current government, but we don’t see a viable alternative.’” Netanyahu’s coalition has shrunk, but he has options. As votes were counted Wednesday afternoon, Likud was poised to be the largest party in the larger of the two Jewish-led party blocs, meaning Netanyahu could well be given the chance to form a government, Hazan said. Israel’s long-serving prime minister could try to remove some of Eisenkot’s alleged associates to gain a 61-seat majority in Parliament. Several of them are as right-wing as he is, although 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 help of President Trump, who has praised Netanyahu as a “warrior prime minister” and has made clear that he wants Israel to join the United States in another round of war against Iran. Perhaps the most mind-boggling option available to Netanyahu, given that he ran an alarmist campaign that demonized Arab lawmakers and stoked fears about Arab voter turnout, would be to recruit an Arab party to join him in a government. They have already come close to doing so once, in 2022. “It is very possible that they will 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.” The liberal camp still has a chance. Talking about Jewish opposition parties in isolation ignores the fact that, when Arab parties are included, Netanyahu’s rivals appeared to be heading toward a significant majority in Parliament, with about 66 seats to about 54 for the prime minister’s bloc. “There is no need to accept the racist assumption that Arabs do not need to be counted,” said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who advises the opposition. That means that, in practice, the Knesset will be controlled by the anti-Netanyahu opposition, regardless of who ends up being prime minister. If the vote breakdown broadly holds, Talshir said he expected 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 over the Knesset and not be able to form a government,” Talshir said. “It’s a disaster. But this is the hand they’re dealt and they have to play it.” Support for Netanyahu declined and Eisenkot fell short of his goal. Ultra-Orthodox parties were projected to lose seats, according to the latest results, and two right-wing nationalist parties failed to make gains, despite four years in which they pushed the Netanyahu government’s extreme policies in the West Bank. The biggest apparent winners were Arab voters who voted in record numbers. But they could well end up being the most disappointed citizens of all, if Jewish opposition leaders prove unwilling or unable to form a majority in an alliance with 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 won’t get any of that.”
