Fifty-three seats. Forty-eight. Nineteen. Those three numbers, drawn from partial counts with roughly 85 percent of ballots tallied, describe an Israeli election that produced the highest turnout in more than two decades and still failed to produce a government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud and its far-right and ultra-Orthodox allies were on course for 53 of the Knesset's 120 seats, as the BBC reported. Gadi Eisenkot, the former military chief, and the three other Jewish parties in his bloc were heading for 48. Neither is near the 61 needed.
The Israel election deadlock matters well beyond coalition arithmetic. The campaign was fought over decisions the next cabinet cannot dodge: who answers for the security failures of 7 October 2023, how the wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran are conducted, whether ultra-Orthodox men are drafted, and how far the government goes in pressing judicial changes.
The kingmakers nobody wants
The surprise of the night was the Arab vote. Parties representing Israel's Arab citizens, about a fifth of the population, look set for a record 19 seats, according to the same count. Many Arab voters have boycotted past elections on the grounds that taking part legitimises a system that treats them as second-class. This time, BBC correspondent Tom Bennett wrote, turnout was driven by a wish to remove the most right-wing coalition in the country's history.
The arithmetic, though, is blunt. Eisenkot's only route to a majority runs through those parties, and every Jewish party in his bloc except Yair Golan's Democrats has ruled out working with them. The United Arab list, projected at about seven seats, has said it would join an opposition government. The Joint List, at around twelve, would back one from outside. Even if the taboo broke, a coalition stretched across that spectrum would be brittle on Gaza and the West Bank, which are precisely the questions on which it would have to act.
Netanyahu has pressed the opposite case. He told supporters it was forbidden to endanger Israel with a government that leans on what he called anti-Zionist Arab parties. Likud went further on Wednesday and alleged bribery, threats, fraud and prohibited software, offering no evidence.
Where policy gets stuck
Consider the draft. Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, the two right-wing figures in the opposition bloc, share Netanyahu's hard line on security. Both also campaigned to oust him and to conscript ultra-Orthodox men, which sets them against the two ultra-Orthodox parties in his present coalition. A deal that peeled them away would force Netanyahu to choose between his religious partners and a larger majority. Bennett and Lieberman simply replacing those partners does not appear to add up on current numbers.
A national unity government is the other door, and it looks nearly as stuck. Eisenkot built his campaign on removing Netanyahu and, on election night, called on him to retire. Netanyahu thanked his loyal allies and asked for a right-wing government, which many read as a signal that he intends to keep them. One thing could change the calculus: renewed fighting with Iran. Israeli and US media reported before the vote that Netanyahu had pressed Washington to approve new strikes. His critics would call that self-preservation by other means; his supporters would call it security. Nobody outside the prime minister's circle can say which, and he is not known for volunteering it.
So the most probable result, analysts quoted by the BBC suggest, is another election. That would leave Netanyahu in office as caretaker, with no mandate to take on the draft or the courts and few incentives to hurry decisions on Gaza. He may also judge a rerun favourable. Arab turnout at this level may not repeat if record representation changes nothing, and an estimated 70,000 Israelis who flew home to vote, thought to lean against him, may not make the trip twice.
President Isaac Herzog has said he expects official results next week, after which he will consult every faction and choose who gets the first attempt at a government. He urged that nobody arrive with a closed mind, which, after the night just past, is a generous hope. The count of roughly 430,000 to 480,000 absentee ballots, from soldiers, diplomats and hospital patients, could still move a seat or two. It will not move the structural problem. The thing to watch is whether Bennett or Lieberman blinks first, and whether Iran forces the question before the parties do. Neither is a comfortable bet.