Israel political deadlock leaves Netanyahu’s future hanging in the balance

Israel’s election results are due to be certified on Wednesday, but with both leading blocs falling short of a parliamentary majority, negotiations remain deadlocked.

As things stand, the right-wing coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secured 53 seats in the October 27 vote, while the self-styled Zionist opposition alliance led by former army chief Gadi Eisenkot had 48. A majority requires 61 seats in the 120-strong Knesset. The 19 remaining seats went to the two Arab-led lists – the Joint List and Ra’am, or the United Arab List.

Netanyahu’s camp has been accused of seeking to delegitimise the results after launching a series of largely discounted claims that the vote for the Arab parties, which scored their best-ever electoral performance, had been manipulated by foreign interference.

Despite their historic showing that was boosted by an unprecedented surge in voter turnout, the two Arab-led lists remain politically isolated. And while there have been indications that they would be prepared to support, or at least not oppose, an Eisenkot-led government, their backing remains contentious within the opposition – a broad and increasingly fractious alliance that also includes parties led by former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, left-winger Yair Golan and right-winger Avigdor Lieberman.

After a meeting on Tuesday, the main opposition leaders issued a statement announcing that they were preparing to “act immediately” to replace Netanyahu’s governing coalition “with a national emergency government and translate the clear parliamentary majority in the Knesset into action”. Yet, the statement did not specify how they would reach the majority that would ultimately depend on them allying with either the Arab-led lists or two ultra-Orthodox parties, which have historically supported Netanyahu in return for shielding some of their members from military service.

“Essentially, we’re both on track to a government, and nowhere near being able to form one,” Israeli pollster Mitchell Barak told Al Jazeera.

‘Not clear who’s talking to who’

Though informal negotiations are widely reported to have begun, official talks on establishing a governing coalition will start only after the results are certified on Wednesday. Netanyahu’s Likud party has already mooted refusing to recognise the results, citing its continuing claims of irregularities in the Arab vote. Those allegations have been investigated and discounted by police, while a separate probe by the internal security service, the Shin Bet, remains ongoing.

Once the results are certified, President Isaac Herzog will begin consultations with all the parties to determine which member of the Knesset, not necessarily a party leader, is best placed to form a government.

Herzog, who lost to Netanyahu after an especially bitter contest in 2015, has found himself in the unusual position of having to decide who should be given the first opportunity to form a government, while simultaneously considering the prime minister’s longstanding request for a pardon in his ongoing corruption trial.

One of Herzog’s options is to ask the Arab parties to recommend Eisenkot. If selected, the leader of the centrist Yashar party will initially have 28 days to assemble a coalition, a period that can be extended by 14 days. Should he fail, Herzog can then invite another candidate to try.

For his part, Netanyahu on Monday argued that Likud’s first-place finish, with 27 seats, gave him a mandate to lead the next government. “We aim to form a broad government with our partners and with any other party that wishes to join, provided they do not support terrorism,” he said.

Still, it is unlikely he will be able to command a majority without entering an alliance with the Arab parties that he has consistently vilified, or a large-scale wave of defections from the opposition.

Whatever the state of the negotiations, the new Knesset is due to be sworn in on November 10.

Barak said coordination within the opposition appeared minimal, while personal animosities between Netanyahu and Herzog further complicated already fraught negotiations.

“It’s really not clear who’s talking to who,” he added.

“Earlier this week, they named [Bennett’s running mate] Lapid as their choice of speaker, which was apparently news to both Eisenkot and Bennett. Equally, Netanyahu now has to appeal to his political rival, Herzog, both to be given the responsibility of forming a government and to be pardoned before any conviction,” Barak continued.

“All the while, he’s claiming that the Arab parties cannot be considered legitimate partners in government, which makes it almost impossible for anyone to form a coalition with them.”

Clear as mud

However, the extent to which the efforts to delegitimise the Arab parties may succeed remains uncertain. Ra’am served as a central plank of the Bennett-Lapid coalition in 2021–22, the first time an independent Arab party had formally joined an Israeli government, with public pressure to do so again growing.

Over the weekend, thousands rallied in Tel Aviv calling upon Eisenkot to make a deal with the Arab parties that reflected the overwhelming number of votes cast against Netanyahu’s governing coalition. However, following the meeting between the opposition leaders on Tuesday, sources within the Joint List told Al Jazeera they were not expecting to be invited to support the bloc anytime soon.

Instead, speculation has turned to the possibility of one of the two ultra-Orthodox parties – Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ), and particularly the latter – defecting to the opposition and backing Eisenkot.

Neither Shas nor UTJ have had straightforward relationships with Netanyahu’s governing coalition. In fact, it was the withdrawal of their parliamentary support in May, following what they saw as the coalition’s failure to pass a draft law exempting some of their ultra-Orthodox members from military service, that fundamentally weakened its majority in parliament.

“There are rumours that the Ashkenazi [Jews, who make up the bulk of the UTJ membership] are ready to break with Netanyahu and go to Eisenkot,” political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg told Al Jazeera.

“I am sceptical, but even that would still leave them short of an overall majority, so they would still need support from one of the Arab parties, even if that is Ra’am supporting them from outside a formal coalition,” he said of the parliamentary arithmetic.

Spoilers

Hanging over all, however, are developments tied to Israel’s deep and longstanding alliance with the United States.

Barak said the entire government-formation process risked being disrupted by the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections in the US, which could weaken Israel’s foremost ally, President Donald Trump, or be overtaken entirely by renewed war with Iran.

Netanyahu, particularly, went to pains during the election campaign to stress his relationship with Trump, whose Republican Party faces a tough race to keep hold of Congress.

Equally, both Trump’s rhetoric as well as the renewed build-up of US forces in the region may all signal the beginning of renewed conflict with Israel’s regional nemesis, Iran.

“Netanyahu cannot form a coalition,” Yossi Mekelberg, a senior fellow at Chatham House, told Al Jazeera. “It’s a numbers game, and he just doesn’t have the numbers – no amount of talking and planning can change that, but an emergency could, and in Israel, there’s no more popular an emergency than one involving Iran.”

In such an instance, he speculated that the incumbent could ask the opposition to fall in behind him, but that would raise the possibility of a former captain dictating war policy to former generals.

“There’s also the possibility that, however you want to define it, Israel has a successful war against Iran. That leads to a surge in popularity for Netanyahu when negotiations on a coalition resume, or [him] calling unnecessary, fresh elections,” said Mekelberg.