THE ECONOMIST: Voters give Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition a drubbing but PM won't give up without a fight

The Israeli electorate seems to have firmly rejected Benjamin Netanyahu and his hard-right coalition.

Exit polls on Tuesday suggest the Prime Minister’s Likud party has lost around a quarter of the 32 seats it won in the 2022 election and that his coalition will fall short of a majority in the Knesset, Israel’s 120-seat parliament, by at least 10 seats.

Yet Mr Netanyahu, who has been in office for a total of 19 years and hoped to form an unprecedented seventh government, does not appear ready to accept defeat.

The main broadcasters’ exit polls give the opposition parties, on average, 69 seats in the next Knesset, with 51 for the Netanyahu bloc. Yashar, a newish centre-right party led by Gadi Eisenkot, a former general, won slightly fewer seats than Likud, but Mr Netanyahu had to cannibalise his own coalition partners to secure the largest share of the vote for his party.

Mr Eisenkot will, nonetheless, struggle to form a government.

Turnout among Israel’s Arabs was much higher than usual, and they seem to be on track to win as many as 18 seats.

That would be a record for Arab representation in the Knesset. The opposition will need at least one of the Arab parties to hold a majority. But Mr Eisenkot has been reluctant to say that he would include them in any coalition.

One of his potential partners, Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the nationalist Yisrael Beitenu (Israel our Home) party, has categorically ruled out even relying on their support for a minority government.

Exit polls have been wrong in the past, most famously in 1996, when Mr Netanyahu appeared to have lost, only to emerge victorious the following morning. But the margin this time seems too wide. Most votes should be counted by Wednesday morning, with perhaps 10 per cent not counted until Thursday (mostly votes cast by soldiers and others who did not vote in their usual polling stations).

Under Israel’s proportional representation system, small movements in parties’ share of the vote can affect how seats are allocated and determine whether a party crosses the electoral threshold of 3.25 per cent.

This could change the overall picture dramatically. At present, though, none of the 11 parties that have won seats seems on the brink.

One conclusion is almost beyond doubt. Mr Netanyahu will not be able to put together a coalition similar to the one that has ruled Israel for the past four years. The Prime Minister received a drubbing from voters first and foremost because of the attacks by Hamas on October 7 2023, which happened on his watch.

He did everything in his power to delay the election until the last date allowed by law, but nothing has revived his popularity.

His rivals sought to exploit this vulnerability, pointing out that every one of the security chiefs who were in charge on October 7 had resigned.

Mr Eisenkot, whose son and two nephews were killed in the Gaza war, began election day on Israel’s border with Gaza at Nir Oz.

The kibbutz was attacked on October 7, and a quarter of its residents were killed or taken hostage. He accompanied Gadi Mozes, who was held captive for 16 months in Gaza, to the polling station in Nir Oz.

Many voters were also objecting to Mr Netanyahu’s partners from the ultra-Orthodox community.

His government has lavished money on the community, including for its schools, which refuse to teach general studies. The government has also allowed them an exemption from military service.

Secular Israelis felt this was their last chance to wrest control from a minority that they reckon fails to contribute to the country’s economy or security. Tens of thousands of expatriate Israelis, mostly liberally inclined, also flew back to vote.

Turnout among Arab voters rose sharply compared with the election in 2022, jumping from around 53 per cent to at least 65 per cent.

The policies of Mr Netanyahu and his Jewish-supremacist police minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, help explain the surge.

Even on election day the far right was whipping up anti-Arab hysteria. In Jerusalem and other cities, cars with loudspeakers roamed the streets exhorting people to get out and “save our home” from Arab voters.

None of this means Mr Netanyahu will accept defeat willingly. His opponents expect that he will question the legitimacy of the result, focusing in particular on the Arab vote.

On election day he repeatedly took to social media to claim that the left and the Arabs were “stealing the election”.

The Central Election Commission has reported no widespread disruptions or attempts to tamper with the results.

Mr Netanyahu, as caretaker prime minister, might also try to exploit his control over Israel’s military policy in order to cling to power.

He is eager to launch a new series of attacks on Iran, possibly with America, and has been ratcheting up the tension in the occupied West Bank. A conflagration on either of these fronts could create pressure on some of the opposition parties to join an emergency government under his leadership.

New coalition or new election?

Once the results are finalised, coalition talks will begin.

Next week Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, will meet representatives of the parties to hear their endorsements for prime minister. He will then decide who gets first crack at forming a government. This process could take up to three months—and may lead nowhere.

For Mr Eisenkot to form a government, members of his bloc would probably have to abandon their opposition to working with Arab parties. On the other side, a “unity government” of Jewish parties looks unworkable owing to disagreements over the ultra-Orthodox parties’ demand for a law that would continue to exempt Haredi students from military service.

Even having lost his coalition’s majority, Mr Netanyahu has two advantages in this process.

First, all the parties of his outgoing coalition are likely to put him forward to Mr Herzog.

Second, the longer the talks drag on, the greater the chance of a stalemate that forces another election in early 2027. That would give him at least six more months in office.

Mr Eisenkot, by contrast, has yet to receive a formal endorsement from the other opposition parties. Their leaders are expected to drive hard bargains in return for their support—or even demand the top job themselves.

“Netanyahu has gone so overboard in this campaign that there’s hope the opposition leaders get together quickly and cut the haggling,” says one optimistic opposition insider.

The likeliest scenario in such a case is Mr Eisenkot forming a minority government with the support of the Arab parties

But Mr Netanyahu, ever the political survivor, will not go without a fight.