Netanyahu wins Israel elections, but his coalition falls short of a majority

Benjamin Netanyahu’s party won the legislative elections held Tuesday in Israel, but even with the support of his ultra-nationalist and religious allies, the prime minister will not secure the majority of seats in parliament needed to continue governing.

At 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, with more than 66% of the votes counted, the prime minister’s right-wing party, Likud, was gradually increasing its lead and was projected to win 28 seats out of a total of 120. Yashar (center-right), led by his opponent Gadi Eisenkot, was projected to win 21 seats — fewer than predicted by pre-election polls, which had placed it as the leading force.

Netanyahu may have won the legislative elections, but he has also lost. His party received the most votes, but fell short of the 32 seats it won four years ago. Furthermore, his ultra-nationalist and religious coalition partners have not expanded their electoral base either. This makes it impossible for the bloc to reach 61 seats — the majority needed to form a government. The current coalition government is expected to win about 56 seats, down from the 63 it currently holds in the Knesset. The anti-Netanyahu bloc, led by Eisenkot and his allies (a diverse mix of Jewish parties, mainly from the center-right and right), stands at 48 seats, according to these partial results. The two Arab electoral lists would hold a combined 16 seats and would be indispensable for forming a future government and thus avoiding new elections.

These elections — the first since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel in 2023 that triggered a series of wars in the Middle East — saw a 77% voter turnout, an exceptionally high figure not seen in more than 25 years.

“We must form a strong, national, right-wing government,” Netanyahu declared in the early hours of the morning before dozens of supporters waiting for him in Jerusalem. “Two things have become clear here. The first is unequivocal: Likud is the largest party in Israel,” asserted the prime minister, who has once again demonstrated that he should never be underestimated, as he is capable of turning around months of unfavorable poll results. “And the second thing that has become clear is that the right-wing bloc has a clear, decisive majority among the Zionist public, among the Jewish public and all those who support the Jewish state.”

But it seems clear that, after 19 years in power across three separate terms since the 1990s, Netanyahu is beginning to pay the price at the polls for a legislative term marked by the radicalism of his government partners, the bloody attack by Hamas, and mounting domestic problems — starting with the rising cost of living and the refusal to compel the ultra-Orthodox population to perform mandatory military service at a time when Israel faces a shortage of soldiers and an abundance of conflict zones, such as Gaza and Lebanon.

The prime minister’s refusal to establish an independent commission of inquiry into the serious security failures that occurred on October 7, 2023, also weighed on Israeli voters’ decisions. Furthermore, voters have not forgotten his apparent desire to evade justice — the very justice system that seeks to put him on trial for corruption — which is another issue that deeply outrages his critics.

However, the message sent by the polls is that voters reject Netanyahu’s coalition partners more than they reject the prime minister himself. For example, within his coalition, the ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party Shas dropped from 11 seats to eight. Added to this is the apparent backlash against his two far-right religious coalition partners. Jewish Power, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, faces a bleak outlook with seven seats, despite the ultra-right leader boasting during the campaign that he could secure as many as 15 seats. And Religious Zionism, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, will have to settle for another seven seats.

A new, stable, Zionist government

Eisenkot, who served as army chief of staff while Netanyahu was in power from 2015 to 2019, stated early Tuesday morning that he would devote “all his efforts” to building a “Zionist, stable government that is good for all citizens of Israel.” Furthermore, in response to reports of a possible attack on Iran during the negotiations to form a government — prompted by Netanyahu’s coalition — Eisenkot issued a message to the prime minister: “Don’t you dare use Israel’s security for your own political gain.”

Within the coalition opposing Netanyahu, the Democrats — a left-wing list that brings together the historic Labor Party and the pacifist Meretz grouping — has won seven seats, according to the partial results. “We have been given a historic opportunity to form a genuine government of change in Israel, and we have no intention whatsoever of letting it slip away,” said Yair Golan, the party’s leader. “The mandate we have received today from the public is a call to action to rebuild the country — one that leaves no room for hesitation, ego clashes, or political maneuvering.”

In addition, the coalition against Netanyahu includes Israel Beitenu, the secular right-wing party led by former finance minister Avigdor Lieberman, which could increase its seats from six to eight, and the center-right Beyahad coalition, which is projected to win 11 seats, according to the partial results, and would thus become the third-largest political force in the Knesset. It is led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, who took turns as prime minister in 2021–2022 — the only legislative term without Netanyahu since 2009.

The indispensable Arab parties

If the trend indicated by these preliminary results holds, Israel faces weeks of political negotiations in which Arab parties will play a crucial role. Once all votes have been counted, President Isaac Herzog will task a member of the Knesset (typically the leader of the party with the most votes) with attempting to form a government. The candidate will have 28 days to negotiate, with a 14-day extension if needed. If he secures the necessary majority and presents a proposal that parliament approves by a simple majority, the government is formed. If he fails, the president may choose another candidate and, as a last resort, a third. If all these attempts come to nothing, new elections will be held.

The two Arab lists are the big winners of the election. The Joint List, a three-party coalition, is reported to have won 12 seats, and the moderate Islamist Ra’am party, four. This is all thanks to an unprecedented mobilization of their voters, who feel discriminated against and treated as second-class citizens in Israel, especially since the Hamas-led attacks of 2023.

These parties primarily represent Palestinians with Israeli citizenship — that is, one-fifth of the population — but they also receive support from Jewish voters, who view them as the true opposition in Israel at this time.

It is out of the question that Netanyahu’s bloc would form a coalition with the Arab parties. “It is simply forbidden to endanger Israel and form a government that rests on anti-Zionist Arab parties. Parties that oppose our very existence, that see Hamas as a charitable organization, that call our soldiers war criminals,” he said.

If he wants the prime minister’s seat, Eisenkot will have to accept a pact with one of the Arab lists — or perhaps both — even though during the campaign he insisted he was unwilling to negotiate with them unless they accept Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and designate Hamas as a terrorist group. In a society traumatized by October 7, 2023, the opposite stance would have cost him support. Only the Democrats said they were willing to accept Ra’am — the party led by Mansour Abbas — in a future government.

On Tuesday, this leader reached out to the opposition to Netanyahu in an effort to build a majority. “I hope the numbers work out and we can ensure there are 61 seats in the Knesset,” Abbas said. In 2021, Ra’am became the first Arab party to join an Israeli government, in this case led by Bennett and Lapid. The government lasted only a few months due to deep internal ideological differences. The Joint List, led by Yousef Jabareen, has always been more reluctant to support a Zionist government because of its policies against Palestinians.

On election day, the prime minister posted several messages on social media suggesting that the Arab parties were “stealing the election,” without explaining what he was basing this claim on. On Tuesday night, one of the government’s most hardline ministers, Bezalel Smotrich, said he would not let the Arab parties celebrate their historic gains at the polls. “They are celebrating because they think they will be able to reverse our settlement revolution in Judea and Samaria (the biblical name for the West Bank). I am telling them: they will not succeed,” he declared.

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