By Our Correspondent with AP Report <\/p>\n
Tension builds up as Israelis watched as election results took shape on Wednesday after many voters delivered a rebuke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu \u2019s far-right government, with the highest turnout in over a quarter-century. Exit polls suggested there was no clear winner and that weeks of negotiating could lie ahead.
\nArab-led parties appear to have made a historic showing, but it’s not clear if opponents of the government, who exit polls suggested will have a majority in the next parliament, would form a coalition with them. Issues around the Palestinians and their descendants remain incredibly sensitive in Israel.
\nNetanyahu was defiant early Wednesday as he seeks to remain the country’s longest-serving prime minister. He dismissed the idea of a partnership with Arab parties, whose constituents make up 20 percent of Israel\u2019s population, as treasonous.
\n\u201cWe must establish a strong, right-wing, nationalist government,\u201d Netanyahu said. \u201cWe must not endanger Israel and establish a government that relies on anti-Zionist Arab parties.\u201d
\nHis top challenger, centrist former military chief Gadi Eisenkot , has left the door open to partnering with Arab parties under certain conditions, including their recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and of Hamas as an extremist group. Some likely partners, however, have ruled that out. Whether they will change their minds to force Netanyahu from office remains to be seen.
\nWith 60% of votes counted, Netanyahu\u2019s Likud party has 21.4 percent and Eisenkot’s Yashar party has 16.2%. Either would need to form a coalition. The count from Israel\u2019s Central Elections Committee does not indicate how many seats each will have in parliament, the 120-seat Knesset.
\nLikud’s share so far was lower than in the previous election in 2022, when it received 23.4 percent.
\nThe results suggest that Netanyahu\u2019s opponents were unable to capitalize on the anger and grief sparked by the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack and three years of war to decisively unseat him.
\nOne loser, however, was far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir , who for many Israelis represented the worst strain of Netanyahu\u2019s government, openly taunting Palestinian detainees and asserting that many in Gaza are \u201cnot even people.\u201d
\nElection turnout was at 77.7 percent of eligible voters, the highest since 1999. Final results are expected in the coming days, including from hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots yet to be counted. Those include military personnel, diplomats and others.
\nVoting reflected many Israelis’ unease over Netanyahu’s alliance with the far-right and anger over draft exemptions for the significant ultra-Orthodox Jewish population.
\nExit polls by major Israeli TV stations suggested Netanyahu\u2019s governing coalition shrank but that Likud would remain the largest party and best placed to be asked to form a government by Israel\u2019s president, Isaac Herzog. The president, however, isn’t required to go with the party having the most seats.
\nThe exit polls suggested that Netanyahu\u2019s bloc and Eisenkot\u2019s each won about 51 seats, and Arab parties won about 18. That sets the stage for weeks of political negotiating before a prime minister is declared, or another round of elections is called.
\nThe easiest path to a parliamentary majority would involve Eisenkot partnering with Arab-led parties, but that could prove politically difficult. In a speech early Wednesday that focused on national unity, Eisenkot pledged to form a government and promised \u201ca new era, an era of hope.”
\nConfronted with Arab parties\u2019 strong election showing, Israelis are now facing a debate as strong as their coffee.
\n\u201cWe have no future here if we do not stop being afraid. And if we do not stop the racism. We must no longer accept Netanyahu\u2019s racist division between Jewish votes and Arab votes,\u201d the leader of the Democrats party, Yair Golan, said on X. His party supports bringing Israel\u2019s Arab-led parties into the coalition.
\nIsrael\u2019s Arab citizens are descendants of Palestinians who remained in the state after its creation in 1948. They often face discrimination and are viewed with wariness because of their solidarity with the Palestinian cause. That suspicion intensified after October 7, even though Palestinian citizens were also among those killed and abducted .
\nNetanyahu had warned that Arab parties could make or break the election, saying they were heading to the polls in \u201cunprecedented numbers.\u201d He won\u2019t work with the Arab-led parties, and they have also ruled that out.
\nThe mood was joyful at the headquarters of the United Arab List, the lone Arab party to ever join a governing coalition, briefly, in 2021.
\n\u201cWe are here, we are not on the sidelines,\u201d party leader Mansour Abbas declared.
\nIf no one can put together a majority coalition, new elections could be held early next year. Israel held five elections between April 2019 and November 2022 because of a similar stalemate. Whether thousands of Israelis living abroad would again fly back home to vote , and whether Arab voters would again surge to the polls, is unclear.
\nMinority governments are possible, but they must rely on cooperation from parties outside the government to pass legislation.
\nAttitudes over a polarising Netanyahu will shape days ahead
\nThe race was widely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu\u2019s nearly unbroken 17-year rule. Israelis were divided even before the deadliest attack in the country\u2019s history. The resulting wars , along with settler violence in the occupied West Bank, have stoked worldwide outrage , straining ties with Israel\u2019s closest allies and fueling a rise in antisemitism.
\nNetanyahu\u2019s supporters think he is protecting Israel\u2019s security and Jewish identity in the face of international pressure and liberal elites at home.
\nHis detractors say Netanyahu, beset by an ongoing corruption trial , dragged out the war in Gaza and its hostage crisis for political reasons. They say he is undermining Israel\u2019s independent judiciary. And they accuse his government of allowing ultra-Orthodox religious Jews to avoid military conscription .
\nEisenkot is viewed by supporters as a capable leader with sterling security credentials. His son and two nephews were killed in Gaza, and his backers believe that he feels deeply the pain that still courses through Israel. Parties that likely would support him have vowed to improve Israel\u2019s international standing and work to conscript ultra-Orthodox men while bolstering the independence of the judiciary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Our Correspondent with AP Report Tension builds up as Israelis watched as election results took shape on Wednesday after many voters delivered a rebuke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu \u2019s far-right government, with the highest turnout in over a quarter-century. Exit polls suggested there was no clear winner and that weeks of negotiating could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19145"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19149,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19145\/revisions\/19149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}