he most remarkable story of Israel’s election is the unprecedented success of Arab parties. They won 19 seats for the first time after Israeli Arab voters turned out in large numbers on Tuesday, hoping to remove Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving Prime Minister. They have already offered support to the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot, which has secured 48 seats in the Knesset to form the next government. This should give Eisenkot a simple majority and fulfil his declared aim of ousting the veteran Israeli leader from power. But Israeli politics isn’t that simple. Netanyahu may have lost the election, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s out of power.
Tuesday’s election was a referendum on Netanyahu, and most polls predicted a heavy defeat for him. He was accused of corruption, of taking the country into endless wars, of tarnishing its international reputation, and of weakening the judiciary. Above all, Jews suffered the worst massacre since the Holocaust under his watch when Hamas-led terrorists attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Netanyahu didn’t even apologise for his government’s failure to prevent the heinous attack.
Yet, he has done better than expected in the election, the first since that atrocity. His Likud party emerged as the single largest party, and his right-wing bloc won 53 seats. About 4.5 lakh absentee ballots will be counted on Thursday, and he is expected to improve his tally. It won’t be enough to reach the 61-seat mark needed to form the government. But Netanyahu, a master political tactician, has been in such situations before and knows how to manipulate opponents and turn the tables in his favour.
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Test For Israel’s Democracy
Netanyahu’s Likud party has already tried to delegitimise Arab Israeli votes by making unsubstantiated allegations that Arabs have stolen the election and by calling for the police to investigate irregularities. This is an attempt to prevent the opposition bloc from forming a government with the support of Israeli Arabs. Although Arab parties have supported Israeli governments from outside in the past, under Netanyahu’s rule, the Israeli public has become more hostile to the idea of such a government. Eisenkot and his allies ruled out such a government during the campaign. Even after the results, only Yair Golan, the leader of the left-wing Democratic Party, has come out in favour of forming a government with Arab parties. A former army general, Golan’s party, like most Israeli leaders, is part of the opposition coalition.
“We have no future here if we don’t stop being afraid … We must no longer accept Netanyahu’s racist division between Jewish votes and Arab votes,” Golan posted on social media on Wednesday. But his suggestion is falling on deaf ears. Excluding 20% of the Arab Israeli population from government participation would raise questions about Israel’s democracy.
Second Class Citizens
The State of Israel rules over Palestinians who can’t vote in elections. Palestinians in Jerusalem are classified as permanent residents, yet they have no voting rights. Arab Israelis have equal rights as citizens but still face discrimination. The areas they live in have lower standards of living than those in Jewish localities, according to an analysis by the US think tank Council on Foreign Relations. Their schools are also underfunded, which affects their education.
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Israel’s Law of Return grants all Jews and their families the right to settle in Israel, but Muslims and other Jews have no such right. A 2018 law removed Arabic as an official language, gave it “special status”, declared Israel the nation-state of the Jewish people, and recognised the Jewish people’s unique “right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel”. No wonder Arab Israelis feel like second-class citizens. Including them in government would go a long way towards addressing their grievances. But the Israeli public doesn’t seem to favour that.
The fact is, Israel has become more right-wing under Netanyahu, with Arab Israelis viewed with suspicion and often accused of sympathising with Hamas despite their condemnation of the militant group. His government includes extreme right-wing politicians who often make racist comments against Muslim citizens of Israel. His National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was barred from serving in the army in his youth because of his involvement with terrorist groups. His Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has said that Israel needs “to wipe out Gaza” and that it should repeat what it “did in Gaza” in the West Bank. It’s worth remembering that Israeli forces killed more than 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign after the October 7 attacks. Arab Israelis and Palestinians from the occupied territories may dream of their homeland one day, but the fact is, the two-state solution is no longer even a debating issue in Israel.
Unity Government
Eisenkot declared victory after the results and called for the largest party in the opposition coalition (meaning his own Yashar party) to be invited to form the government. But President Isaac Herzog is likely to invite Netanyahu, the leader of the largest party, Likud, to first try to form the new government. The opposition leaders will be invited only after he fails to secure a majority. On Wednesday, Herzog told political leaders to approach coalition negotiations with open minds to avoid fresh elections. There is already talk of a unity government in Israel, which will suit Netanyahu as long as he remains prime minister. A unity government will mean the alliances led by Netanyahu and Eisenkot joining forces. This may seem unthinkable, given that the opposition fought the election against Netanyahu. But Israel has a history of such unity governments.
Netanyahu also has the Trump card, literally. The US president has already put his weight behind the Israeli leader and even claimed credit for Netanyahu’s better-than-expected performance as results started coming in on Tuesday night. An emergency situation will justify forming a unity government in Israel, and Trump could provide that by restarting the war with Iran. Netanyahu tried to do that during the last days of the election campaign, but Israel’s generals refused to oblige, sensing its political motive. But after the results, the generals won’t be able to comply, and opposition leaders, including Eisenkot, will have no option but to support the renewed military campaign against Iran and form a unity government.
Fresh Iran Bombing?
In any case, he will remain the caretaker Prime Minister while negotiations and horse-trading to form a new government continue. That could last months, leaving Netanyahu in charge. Even fresh elections would suit Netanyahu, because Arab voters are unlikely to turn out again in large numbers if they believe their vote will be wasted. That has been the case in previous elections. In this election, nearly 70,000 Israelis from abroad flew home to vote. Most of them reportedly cast their ballots against Netanyahu. That may not be repeated. On the other hand, Netanyahu’s supporters will be more organised next time round.
Eisenkot will know that joining a national unity government will only help Netanyahu. Like him, a former army chief, Benny Gantz joined such a government after the inconclusive 2020 elections. But Gantz never became prime minister. History often repeats itself in Israel, and you just can’t write off Netanyahu. The great survivor and master manipulator is unlikely to disappear from the Israeli political scene anytime soon.
(Naresh Kaushik is a former editor at the BBC and Associated Press. He is based in London)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
