COLIN RUBENSTEIN: Netanyahu’s path back to power in Israel is far from assured

Israel’s election has left Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud party the largest in parliament, while denying his existing coalition a majority. It has also denied his principal opponents an uncomplicated route to power. The next Israeli government will depend on whether political leaders can reconcile conflicting election commitments with the parliamentary numbers.

For Australians accustomed to knowing who will govern shortly after polling day, Israel’s system requires some explanation.

Israel elects its 120-member parliament, the Knesset, through proportional representation applied to a single national electorate. Voters choose party lists, with seats distributed broadly according to each list’s share of the vote, provided it clears a 3.25 per cent threshold. There are no local electorates and no preferential voting.

Unsurprisingly, given this highly representative system, no party has ever won an outright parliamentary majority.

Coalition negotiations are therefore essential to determining who governs — everything depends on who can somehow gain the support of 61 Knesset members across multiple parties.

After consulting the parties, President Isaac Herzog will commission the parliamentarian he thinks is mostly likely to form a government to try to do so within 28 days, with a possible 14-day extension. If that fails, others may be given the chance, but after not more than a further 49 days with no new government winning a confidence vote, new elections are automatically called.

The detailed final election results explain the difficulty anyone is going to have in getting to 61 seats.

Likud holds 27 seats. Together with United Torah Judaism, Shas, Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”) and Religious Zionism — his existing ultra-Orthodox and far right coalition partners — Netanyahu’s current coalition commands 53.

The four principal opposition parties — Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar (“Straight” or “Direct”), B’Yachad (“Together”), the Democrats and Yisrael Beytenu (“Israel our Home”) — have 48.

Two predominantly Arab slates — Ra’am, with eight seats, and the Joint List, with 11 — complete the parliament.

There are four broad possible outcomes.

First, the four opposition parties could reach an agreement with Ra’am, likely making Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff, prime minister. There is precedent: Ra’am participated in the coalition that displaced Netanyahu in 2021. However, those five parties together have only 56 seats. They would need additional parliamentary support, possibly in the form of abstentions, to allow a minority government to win a confidence vote. For example, if the Joint List abstained, those 56 votes could defeat Netanyahu’s bloc of 53.

The political obstacles are substantial. Avigdor Liberman, leader of Yisrael Beytenu, would have to reverse his categorical pre-election commitment not to be a part of any government relying on support from non-Zionist or Arab parties. Eisenkot has also stipulated conditions for prospective coalition partners — including acceptance of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, universal conscription and recognition that Hamas is a terrorist organisation that must be dismantled. Numerous potential partners, including the two ultra-Orthodox parties as well as the two predominantly Arab ones, would find some of these conditions very problematic.

What’s more, even if a minority government managed to win an initial confidence vote, passing budgets and sustaining co-operation would present continuing challenges.

Australians should also avoid assuming that a government replacing Netanyahu’s current right-wing one would necessarily embrace moves toward Palestinian statehood. Within Israel, given the violent Palestinian rejection of repeated Israeli two-state peace offers over the past few decades, there is today effectively zero trust in Palestinian intentions. A consensus has developed that withdrawing from the West Bank before there are fundamental, de-radicalising shifts in Palestinian governance, culture and national objectives, would be madness — inviting another, even deadlier version of the October 7, 2023 mass terror attacks.

Netanyahu could also theoretically persuade an opposition party to join his existing coalition. But any such arrangement would require some stunning reversals of very public pre-election commitments from all these parties’ leaders not to serve under Netanyahu.

Third, Likud and major opposition parties could form a broad “national unity” government, potentially without including Netanyahu’s present religious and far-right partners. Likud, Yashar and B’Yachad together hold 60 seats, requiring at least one further partner for a majority.

Such a coalition might offer greater parliamentary breadth and reduce smaller parties’ leverage. However, with Netanyahu remaining as leader of Likud and likely prime minister in some kind of rotation government, every participating opposition party would have to justify abandoning their pledges not to serve under him. Reaching agreement on leadership arrangements and mutual trust issues would be formidable hurdles.

Finally, negotiations could fail and Israel could return to the polls, as happened after both Israeli elections in 2019. Netanyahu would then meanwhile remain caretaker prime minister, but that does not mean nothing would change.

The Knesset will still convene on November 10, and the opposition and Arab parties are reportedly discussing plans to use their numbers to pass certain measures — including a long-discussed judicial inquiry into the failures that led to the October 7 disaster — regardless of whether or not a new government can actually be established.

So, while the upcoming days in Israel are sure to be eventful and intense, do not expect a new government to be formed for several weeks, if at all.

Dr Colin Rubenstein is executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council