Netanyahu may survive Israel election deadlock as opposition faces Arab-party dilemma
Israel’s opposition may have enough seats collectively to defeat Benjamin Netanyahu, but deep divisions over cooperation with Arab-led parties could leave the prime minister in office long after an election that deprived his governing alliance of its majority.
Preliminary results from Tuesday’s parliamentary vote projected 53 seats for Netanyahu’s right-wing and religious bloc, 48 for an opposition grouping led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot and 19 for two Arab-led parties. With 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-member Knesset, neither of the two main camps has a clear route to government.
The figures, reported by Israel’s Central Elections Committee with 85.6 percent of all ballots accounted for on Wednesday afternoon, remain subject to change as outstanding votes, including those cast by soldiers and diplomats, are counted.
The arithmetic presents an apparent paradox. Eisenkot’s bloc and the Arab-led parties together command a projected 67 seats, well above the majority threshold. But putting those numbers to work would require political compromises that some of Netanyahu’s principal rivals have explicitly rejected.
An anti-Netanyahu majority is not yet a coalition
Eisenkot’s potential partners include former prime minister Naftali Bennett and nationalist politician Avigdor Lieberman. Both campaigned against another Netanyahu government, but have also ruled out depending on Arab parties to form one of their own.
The Arab-led Joint List, projected to win 12 seats, has indicated it is willing to help remove Netanyahu, including by supporting an alternative government from outside the coalition. Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am, projected to take seven seats, has left open the possibility of joining a viable coalition.
This difference between participation in a cabinet and outside parliamentary support matters. An Eisenkot-led minority government could theoretically win an initial vote of confidence with fewer than 61 governing lawmakers if enough other members supported it or abstained. Surviving subsequent votes on budgets, security and legislation would be a different matter.
Even if all 67 lawmakers opposed to Netanyahu initially voted together, the arrangement would contain parties with sharply different views on Palestinian rights, national identity and security. Opposition to one leader is not a common programme for governing.
There is also the risk of defections. Bennett’s 2021–2022 coalition included Ra’am but ultimately collapsed amid the loss of support from right-wing lawmakers. That experience remains a warning for any attempt to build a new government across the same political fault lines.
An Eisenkot coalition dependent on the Joint List or Ra’am could face opposition not only from Bennett and Lieberman but also from conservative and religious figures within Eisenkot’s own Yashar party. A small number of lawmakers refusing to back the government could make it impossible to govern consistently, even without formally joining Netanyahu’s camp.
Netanyahu’s advantage is incumbency
Netanyahu has his own formidable problem: his projected 53 seats leave him eight short of a majority, and none of the principal opposition leaders has offered to serve under him. A straightforward reconstruction of his previous right-wing coalition therefore appears out of reach.
Yet the two sides do not face identical consequences if negotiations fail.
Netanyahu remains caretaker prime minister until a successor wins parliamentary confidence. He does not need to assemble a fresh coalition simply to remain in the office he already occupies. Eisenkot, by contrast, must find a workable arrangement among politicians who disagree on some of the issues most likely to test a government.
The stalemate could therefore prove more advantageous to the incumbent than the seat totals initially suggest. A prolonged negotiation, or ultimately another election, would allow Netanyahu to continue leading the government while his opponents seek a way to turn their combined parliamentary strength into executive power.
The three realistic paths
One possibility is an Eisenkot-led minority administration backed from outside by Arab lawmakers. That would require Bennett, Lieberman and others to soften their stated positions. It could remove Netanyahu, but it would begin life vulnerable to internal rebellion and difficult confidence votes.
A second path is a national unity or power-sharing government involving Netanyahu and Eisenkot. President Isaac Herzog has urged parties to approach the negotiations with an open mind and avoid another election. But Eisenkot campaigned on replacing Netanyahu, while Netanyahu has called for a right-wing government. A unity deal would require major concessions from at least one side.
The third, and arguably most plausible, outcome is prolonged deadlock followed by another vote. Israel held five elections between 2019 and 2022 as rival blocs struggled to assemble durable majorities. There is no guarantee that another contest would resolve today’s divisions, but failure to form a government would keep Netanyahu in a caretaker role in the meantime.
Parliament could still constrain Netanyahu
Remaining prime minister would not mean Netanyahu had regained control of the Knesset. Israeli media reported Wednesday that Eisenkot, Bennett and Lieberman were discussing a joint effort to replace Likud’s Amir Ohana as parliament’s speaker when the new Knesset convenes on November 10.
Such a move would also require cooperation with Arab-led lawmakers. If successful, it could give the opposition greater influence over parliamentary business and potentially advance an independent inquiry into the security failures surrounding the October 7, 2023 attacks.
That may be a more achievable form of cooperation than constructing a government that depends on the same votes for its survival. It would also create an unusual political arrangement: Netanyahu remaining in the prime minister’s office while opponents hold greater sway over the legislature.
Official election results are due by November 4, after which Herzog will consult parliamentary factions and assign a candidate the task of forming a government. The first candidate will have 28 days, with a possible extension of 14 days, to secure a coalition.
For now, the central question is no longer simply whether more lawmakers oppose Netanyahu than support him. It is whether those opponents can govern together without losing the very votes they need to replace him.
Netanyahu’s bloc may have lost its parliamentary majority. His opponents have yet to demonstrate that they can translate their larger combined numbers into a stable alternative.
That distinction may prove decisive in keeping him in power.
