No One Wants to Govern With Them—But Israel's Arab Parties Just Had Record Night
A day after Israel's election ended in deadlock, the math is brutal: the Arab-led parties posted their best showing ever and hold the balance of power, but every Jewish-led bloc has ruled out governing with them. Trump says he may step in.
A day after Israel's knife-edge election left neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his rival Gadi Eisenkot anywhere near a governing majority, the math being crunched in Jerusalem on Wednesday was stark: the kingmakers nobody wants are the only path to 61 seats.
With about 88.6% of votes counted, according to the Times of Israel's running tally, Netanyahu's bloc of Likud, the Haredi parties, Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism holds 53 of the Knesset's 120 seats. The anti-Netanyahu opposition holds 67 — but that total splits into 48 seats for Jewish-led parties and 19 for Arab-led parties, chiefly the Joint List and Ra'am, their best combined showing in Israeli history.
Excluded Either Way
The problem: Jewish-led opposition parties have already ruled out forming a government with the Arab-led parties, even though doing so is the opposition's only route to a majority. That leaves both blocs short, a caretaker government in place, and roughly 430,000 to 480,000 "double-envelope" ballots — cast by soldiers, diplomats and prisoners — still to be counted starting Thursday at 1 a.m. Analysts say those ballots could shift up to a dozen seats but are unlikely to flip the overall balance.
NEITHER SIDE IS NEAR A MAJORITY
Behind the scenes, the maneuvering has already started. Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman is pushing for a unity government between Netanyahu and Eisenkot and has reportedly cut off contact with the rest of the opposition. Separately, opposition figures are said to be weighing whether to replace Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana with Yair Lapid. President Isaac Herzog has urged the parties to find a way to avoid sending the country back to the polls, a scenario Israeli commentators say could otherwise drag on for months.
Washington Watching Closely
President Trump said Wednesday he would look at pushing for a unity government, according to reporting cited on Democracy Now's daily briefing, while a US official cautioned that the administration had not decided whether to intervene and dismissed reports of a preferred coalition outcome as "false and premature." Israeli media reported it could be months before a new government is actually seated.
For now, Israel has a result without a winner — and a kingmaker bloc that both sides agree they'd rather not crown.