Both sides have claimed victory. But as things stand there is no clear winner.
Netanyahu is doing better than the exit polls predicted. It may not be enough to secure a majority, but it leaves those who campaigned to remove him at all costs facing uncomfortable truths about the Israeli electorate.
A majority have chosen to reject him – but he still has a strong base, probably the strongest.
Likud is leading the count with about 21 per cent of the vote, but Netanyahu’s bloc remains short of the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.
Turnout is historically high at 77 per cent and there is still room for the numbers to move. None of the new smaller parties have passed the threshold.
More than 600,000 absentee ballots remain to be counted, and speaking to the Central Election Committee at the Knesset on Wednesday morning, it is understood that is enough to change the coalition maths.
Those votes include the double-envelope ballots (so-called because one sealed envelope goes inside another to ensure secrecy of remote votes) cast by soldiers serving in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, as well as prisoners and hospital workers, and are expected to be counted on Thursday.
For now, the change bloc faces a question its campaign pledges never planned to address: join Bibi or accept the Arab parties as partners in forming a government.
That would mean serving alongside the man many in the bloc blame for the security failure of October 7, or accept the Arab support – including from antizionist Palestinian nationalists – that are needed to remove him.
Neither is an easy sell.
Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, is a possible opening. The Islamist party has been willing to negotiate across the political divide to secure funding and better services for Arab communities in the past.
At a briefing with UK parliamentarians earlier this year, it is understood that Abbas suggested he would be willing to join either camp if it meant delivering key pledges on education and policing in Arab areas.
It’s being reported that both sides made an approach to his team during the night after the exit polls dropped.
There is a precedent: Ra’am joined the coalition led by Naftali Bennett in 2021, becoming the first independent Arab party to formally join a governing coalition. But whether Bennett would make that compromise again after October 7 is hard to say.
The Joint List would be a more difficult partner, with Palestinian nationalists part the bloc. A minority government relying on Arab votes from outside the coalition is one possible way through but that could lead to stalemate and necessitate another election.
Former Likud minister Tzachi Hanegbi, who voted for Leiberman at the election, has appealed for Abbas to be brought into the conversation. “It is in the interest of everyone to talk to all segments of the Israeli political arena, including Mansour Abas who was invited four times to PM’s Netanyahu’s home," he told the JC.
Or will the change bloc splinter, with some of its members joining Likud? Depending on the final numbers, Netanyahu may only need to persuade a handful that serving with him is preferable to remaining in opposition or fighting another election. But that carries the baggage of the 2020-2021 unity government, when Netanyahu refused to honour a shared leadership agreement with Benny Gantz.
It could still be that Bibi pulls through without needing anyone from the change coalition. It will be difficult for President Herzog to ask any other leader to form a government at this stage.
Even short of a majority, Bibi has put his opponents in a difficult position. They were claiming victory last night when the exit polls dropped and now they may have to break a promise to turn into a government.
And as if there were not enough countervailing winds blowing through Israeli politics right now, here is one more: As things stand, one third of the seats are set to go to antizionist parties from disparate factions – the Arab parties and the antizionist Charedim. The Zionist majority will now need address how to work together in government.
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