Whatever one's politics, there is always something deeply satisfying when an election result turns out to be a surprise. It shows democracy at its best, with voters doing their own thing, for their own reasons, in their own way.

Israeli elections can too often be taken for granted - and always are by the anti-Israel brigade, who gloss over Israel's thriving and heated (sometimes overheated) democracy as if it were an irrelevance rather than being the heart of the nation. Tuesday's result was certainly unexpected; even Likud did not really hope for more than level pegging with the Zionist Union.

Given the almost total failure of outside (and most inside) observers to read the campaign properly, only a fool would draw conclusions from its result before the next coalition's personnel have even been agreed, let alone its policies.

But we do know at least one thing: that Mr Netanyahu's focus on security trumped Mr Herzog's concentration on social issues. And that should never be forgotten when analysing the implications of this week's result.