Israeli Elections: 'Jewish Democracy' without a majority or loser... When the public chooses not to choose

In the Israeli political landscape, the elections this time unfolded like a movie with no clear ending: the protagonist (Netanyahu) shouts, “I am the winner!”, while his rival (Eizenkot) responds from behind the scenes, “But you cannot govern!”, and the audience in the middle applauds...

Polls published on election night collapsed like a house of cards at the first gust of wind from the actual ballot boxes—as if they had been read from a coffee cup rather than from voter data. Likud advanced, but not enough to open the door to government; and the “Change” camp retreated, but not enough to concede defeat.

The result? Israel, which wanted a government, got a “suspicious draw” in a tug-of-war, tied in a knot that can only be untied by a new ballot box. Amid all this, Arabs achieved their highest voting percentage in decades, only to discover that their votes have become a difficult number in an equation... but an equation that no one wants to solve with them. Is this democracy? Or a thoroughly absurd play, where everyone wants to win, but no one wants to govern?

After the majority of votes were counted, the political picture flipped upside down. Instead of the “Change” camp led by Gadi Eizenkot taking the lead, as election night polls had shown, a clear advance emerged for the camp of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. However, this advance does not mean the ability to form a government; rather, it complicates the political equation further and pushes Israel toward more ambiguous scenarios, where the public says “no” to Netanyahu, but does not clearly say “yes” to his alternative. It is in this gap that all the risks lie.

At the level of individual parties, Netanyahu’s Likud remains the largest party by a clear margin, followed by the “Yesh Atid” party led by Eizenkot.

Immediately following the elections, Netanyahu faces a strategic choice: first, obtain the mandate to form the government from the President, or wait until his rival fails. According to Channel 14’s analysis, there are two paths for Netanyahu, each with its own advantages and risks...

Path One: Obtain the mandate first. If Netanyahu first obtains the mandate to form the government from President Isaac Herzog, he will have 28 days (extendable by 14 days) to negotiate on behalf of the “official candidate for prime minister.” More importantly, Likud will chair the “Organizational Committee” in the Knesset, which sets the legislative agenda and forms committees, and can slow down attempts to pass legislation hostile to Netanyahu or the previous government.

Path Two: Wait until the rival fails. This is a high-risk strategy. If Eizenkot first obtains the mandate and fails to form a government, Netanyahu’s advantage may shift from “first choice” to “last resort before new elections.” In this case, parties that initially refused to cooperate with him may have to reconsider their stance under the pressure of “fear of new elections.” But the risk lies in the fact that if Eizenkot succeeds in forming a government, Netanyahu will lose the initiative.

With no camp securing 61 seats, forming a government faces a deadlock. Potential scenarios can be classified into four types, but each faces significant obstacles:

Yuval Karni, a writer in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, says that Netanyahu “can tactically request the mandate to form the government to waste time, but it is reasonable to assume that he will not succeed in forming a government.”

Scenario Two: A minority government led by Eizenkot. This is the “most logical” path mathematically, but the most politically controversial.

Eisenkot himself announced that he would form a “Zionist coalition government,” setting a precondition that “non-Zionist parties” must recognize that “Hamas is a terrorist organization.” The problem is that even with seats from Ra’am, he cannot reach the 61 seats needed, and requires external support from the Joint List. Both Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett explicitly ruled out forming a government relying on Arab parties.

Scenario Three: A national unity government (Netanyahu + Eisenkot). In the past, this scenario was considered the “last resort.” But this time it appears impossible. Eisenkot explicitly ruled out sitting with Netanyahu in the same government during the election campaign, and Netanyahu’s partners (Ben Gvir and Smotrich) would strongly oppose any “dilution” of the government.

Scenario Four: New elections. When all options are exhausted, Israel will return to the ballot boxes. Netanyahu would serve as interim prime minister during this period, giving him valuable time. Yossi Verter warned in Haaretz that Netanyahu might “engineer a security escalation” to undermine the formation of a government. Haaretz’s editorial noted that “new elections are the worst-case scenario, but also the most plausible.”

In this context, Knesset member Yousef Jabareen of the Joint List affirmed that “any party wishing to replace Netanyahu’s government must reach an understanding with our parliamentary bloc. Either the continuation of racism, exclusion, and supremacy, or a genuine Jewish-Arab partnership.”

However, in practice, the “taboo” remains. In Israel’s history, only one Arab party has participated in the government (Ra’am in the Bennett-Lapid government of 2021–2022), and that government ultimately collapsed under pressure from the right. Current leaders of “Change” (Eisenkot, Lieberman, and Bennett) have explicitly ruled out forming a government relying on Arab parties, fearing that Netanyahu would label them “traitors” in the next elections.

Haaretz analyst Nedav Ayal wrote: “Netanyahu lost, but it is not clear who won.” And in this gap lies all the risk for the coming phase.