Israel election: Netanyahu fails to win a majority

Israel’s general election – the fourth inside two years – has produced no clear winner. It comes as no surprise given the raucous and contradictory nature of Israeli politics.

The incumbent Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, 71, has won some 30 seats for his Likud group in the 120-member parliament, the Knesset. But he doesn’t look as though he will be able to win over allies from other parties to win an overall majority of 61 seats.

Netanyahu has been Prime Minister since 2009, the longest serving in Israel’s history – he held the office for three years in the 1990s before being voted out of office.

This election was all about Netanyahu, and the debate will continue to be about him and his fitness to head the government until the next general election, now most likely to come in the late summer or autumn. Turnout was slightly down on last autumn’s election, with just over 67 per cent of the electorate going to the polls. This was possibly the effect of campaigning in during Covid restrictions. For Netanyahu, there was a notable absence from the previous three campaigns – the endorsement of Donald Trump. There was no high profile greeting on the White House lawn. President Biden is not a fan, based on his experience as Obama’s vice-president. Washington is clearly noncommittal, until the present churn in Israeli politics dies down.

Netanyahu campaigned on being the only Israeli capable to meet these testing times. After all, he could show how well he has managed Covid, making Israel proportionately the most vaccinated nation. He had overseen new friendships and recognition by former Arab opponents, the UAE and Bahrain. He had also piloted the successful acquisition of the F-35 Lightning II fighter from the USA, which he has sent into action in skies over Syria.

Yet Netanyahu has other problems. The first complication is that he is actually on trial, even while serving as prime minister and caretaker prime minister. He is charged on three counts of bribery, fraud and corruption. He can’t be sent down as long as he is in office. One of the deals he has offered potential allies, it has been reported, is that they should vote him life immunity from conviction, in return for the rewards of office.

Netanyahu’s posturing about a right to rule has annoyed and alienated former friends and potential allies. Gideon Sa’ar, a former protégé, has refused to join him. A re-elected member of the opposition Labour party, Omer Barlev, has threatened to bring forward a law to state that no person under indictment can serve in the Israeli government.

The obvious kingmaker is the adroit and outspoken Naftali Bennett of the Yamina group, who has served in government previously with Netanyahu. Today the liberal-left daily Haaretz has published an editorial in Hebrew and English urging Bennett not to come to Netanyahu’s rescue. “Bennett, his Yamina colleagues and all the rightists in the “anyone but Bibi camp” have a responsibility to stop Netanyahu, who won’t hesitate to use any means to escape justice,” the paper intones. “This is a battle for the country, and we must hope they will choose to be on the right side of history.”

Many Israeli voters must now worry that government, diplomacy, and security policy will continue to be suspended while the battle over Netanyahu’s future rumbles. It is likely to be weeks at least, and maybe months, before even a ramshackle government can be formed to guide the country towards the next election.

It is now an open question for many Israelis whether a prime minister battling for his political life is best suited to address some matters of security and foreign policy now fast coming over the horizon. There is the issue of Iran and its very loose interpretation of the nuclear deal of 2015. It has already upped the rate of enrichment of uranium, with fears that it will have several viable nuclear warheads by this time next year. This is compounded by the concern that Iranians will elect a hardline new president from the hawks of the Revolutionary Guard next June, who will increase support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, and affiliates in Iraq.

This summer the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza are due to hold long-postponed elections for their assembly and the presidency of the Palestinian Authority. It is a hotly disputed contest between Fatah, the party of the current aged President, Mahmoud Abbas, and the more radical Hamas. This raises complex internal and external issues for Israel. Netanyahu spoke last year of the drive to annex Zone ‘C’ of the West Bank, the most populous of the occupied areas near Jordan. The arguments about this are bound to recur in his bid to win over allies from the hard, nationalist right. However, the last Palestinian legislative election was in 2006, and elections have been postponed serially ever since.

The election this week has thrown up some surprises for the new Knesset. An Islamist grouping of Israeli Arabs, Ra’am, looks set to win five seats. It is a breakaway from the Joint List of Arab parties, which won six seats. Netanyahu at one point courted Mansour Abbas, leader of Ra’am, to give him a working majority. Abbas seemed to consider a deal, but later told Channel 12 television, “ We won’t sit with racists who threaten al-Aqsa” – a reference to Islam’s holiest site in Jerusalem – “there are other options for a government.”

On the other side of the new parliament, a new grouping called Religious Zionists has won six seats. They are a new combination of hardline groups who are anti-LGBT and against any territorial concessions to the Palestinians. Among their antecedents are the Kach Party of the hugely controversial American-Israeli Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was assassinated in 1990. The Party itself was banned in 1994.

The Religious Zionists, too, could be a power broker. If they were to join Likud and a range of religious and conservative parties, including Yamina, Shas and United Torah Judaism, they could give a Netanyahu coalition a majority of one.

This is unlikely , since the leader of Yamina is Naftali Bennet and he fancies the top job for himself. No wonder Netanyahu pronounced with characteristic braggadocio after the poll closed: “This result shows most Israelis are now right-wing.”

The result is still so tight that it is thought that 450,000 absentee ballot papers could be crucial in determining the last few seats. The number of postal votes is well up on last year and the two elections of 2019 – possibly owing to Covid.

These votes, however, are unlikely to alter the conclusion drawn by the Haaretz editorial at the close of the polls. “The only thing that’s clear from the first three exit polls published on Tuesday night is that Israel is stuck.”