The results of Israel’s elections are due to be certified on Wednesday, but with the two main blocs failing to obtain a parliamentary majority, negotiations remain deadlocked.
As it stands, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition secured 53 seats in the Oct. 27 vote, while the self-described Zionist opposition alliance led by former army chief Gadi Eisenkot had 48. A majority requires 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. The remaining 19 seats went to the two Arab-led lists – the Joint List and Raam, or Joint Arab List.
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Netanyahu’s camp was accused of seeking to delegitimize the results after issuing a series of widely disproven claims that the vote for Arab parties, which recorded their best electoral result ever, was manipulated by foreign interference.
Despite their historic performance, bolstered by an unprecedented increase in voter turnout, the two Arab-led lists remain politically isolated. And while it appears they would be willing to support, or at least not oppose, a government led by Eisenkot, their support remains controversial within the opposition – a broad and increasingly divisive alliance that also includes parties led by former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, left-winger Yair Golan and right-winger Avigdor Lieberman.
After a meeting on Tuesday, top opposition leaders issued a statement announcing they were preparing to “act immediately” to replace Netanyahu’s governing coalition “with an emergency national government and translate the Knesset’s clear parliamentary majority into action.” However, the statement did not specify how they would reach the majority which would ultimately depend on their alliance with the Arab-led lists or with two ultra-Orthodox parties, which have historically supported Netanyahu in exchange for protection of some of their military service members.
“Essentially, we are both on track to form a government, and we are far from being able to form one,” Israeli pollster Mitchell Barak told Al Jazeera.
“It is not clear who is talking to whom”
Although informal negotiations have apparently begun, formal talks on creating a governing coalition will not begin until after the results are certified on Wednesday. Netanyahu’s Likud party has already spoken out about its refusal to recognize the results, citing its continued allegations of irregularities in the Arab vote. The allegations were investigated and dismissed by police, while a separate investigation by the domestic security service, the Shin Bet, remains ongoing.
Once the results are certified, President Isaac Herzog will begin consultations with all parties to determine which Knesset member, not necessarily a party leader, is best suited to form a government.
Herzog, who lost to Netanyahu after a particularly bitter fight in 2015, found himself in the unusual position of having to decide who should get the first opportunity to form a government, while simultaneously considering the prime minister’s long-standing request for a pardon in his ongoing corruption trial.
One of Herzog’s options is to ask Arab parties to recommend Eisenkot. If selected, the leader of the centrist Yashar party will initially have 28 days to form a coalition, a period which can be extended by 14 days. If he fails, Herzog can then invite another candidate to try his luck.
For his part, Netanyahu said Monday that Likud’s first place, with 27 seats, gives him a mandate to lead the next government. “We aim to form an enlarged government with our partners and with any other party that wishes to join us, provided that they do not support terrorism,” he said.
However, he is unlikely to achieve a majority without striking an alliance with the Arab parties he has consistently defamed, or without a wave of large-scale defections from within the opposition.
Regardless of the state of negotiations, the new Knesset must be sworn in on November 10.
Barak said coordination within the opposition appeared minimal, while personal animosities between Netanyahu and Herzog further complicated already tense negotiations.
“We really don’t know who is talking to whom,” he added.
“Earlier this week, they named Lapid (Bennett’s running mate) as their president of choice, which was apparently a novelty for both Eisenkot and Bennett. Likewise, Netanyahu must now appeal to his political rival, Herzog, both to be given the responsibility of forming a government and to be pardoned before any sentencing,” Barak continued.
“Meanwhile, he claims that Arab parties cannot be considered legitimate partners in government, making it almost impossible to form a coalition with them.”
Clear as mud
However, the extent to which efforts to delegitimize Arab parties can succeed remains unclear. Raam served as the centerpiece of the Bennett-Lapid coalition in 2021-2022, marking the first time an independent Arab party had officially joined an Israeli government, with growing public pressure to do so again.
Over the weekend, thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv to call on Eisenkot to reach a deal with Arab parties that reflects the overwhelming number of votes cast against Netanyahu’s governing coalition. However, following the meeting between opposition leaders on Tuesday, sources within the Joint List told Al Jazeera that they did not expect to be asked to support the bloc in the near future.
Instead, speculation has turned to the possibility that one of the two ultra-Orthodox parties – Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ), particularly the latter – would defect to the opposition and support Eisenkot.
Neither Shas nor UTJ has had open relations with Netanyahu’s governing coalition. In fact, it was the withdrawal of their parliamentary support in May, following what they saw as the coalition’s failure to pass a bill exempting some of its ultra-Orthodox members from military service, that fundamentally weakened its majority in Parliament.
“There are rumors that the Ashkenazim (Jews, who make up the majority of UTJ members) are ready to break with Netanyahu and go to Eisenkot,” political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg told Al Jazeera.
“I’m skeptical, but even that would still leave them short of an overall majority, and so they would still need the support of one of the Arab parties, even if it is Ra’am supporting them outside of a formal coalition,” he said of the parliamentary arithmetic.
Spoilers
However, developments related to the deep and long-standing alliance between Israel and the United States weigh on all of this.
Barak said the entire government formation process risks being disrupted by the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections in the United States, which could weaken Israel’s main ally, President Donald Trump, or be completely overtaken by a new war with Iran.
Netanyahu, in particular, went to great lengths on the campaign trail to emphasize his relationship with Trump, whose Republican Party faces a tough race to retain Congress.
Likewise, Trump’s rhetoric as well as the new buildup of US forces in the region could signal the start of a new conflict with Israel’s regional enemy, Iran.
“Netanyahu cannot form a coalition,” Yossi Mekelberg, a senior fellow at Chatham House, told Al Jazeera. “It’s a question of numbers, and he simply doesn’t have the numbers – no amount of talking or planning can change that, but an emergency could, and in Israel there is no emergency more popular than an emergency involving Iran. »
In such a case, he speculated that the outgoing president could ask the opposition to get behind him, but that would raise the possibility of a former captain dictating war policy to former generals.
“There is also the possibility that, however you want to define it, Israel wages a successful war against Iran. This leads to a surge in popularity for Netanyahu when coalition negotiations resume, or (him) calls new unnecessary elections,” Mekelberg said.
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