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YNET: Israel election results: Netanyahu bloc at 54 seats as Arab parties rise to 19
With 70.7% of votes counted, Likud leads with 27 seats while Eisenkot’s Yashar! slips to 20; the Joint List climbs to 13, strengthening the Arab parties’ position as their leaders signal willingness to help replace Netanyahu, with neither main bloc holding a majority
Esser Agaroth(2¢):
By 12:00 on election day, Israel was set to break voting records from over 50 years ago. Voters were out in droves. Projections were already telling us that the Arabs were voting, in spite of previous elections in which they had stayed home, either in protest or in apathy. They did not stay home this time around. Whereas it seems that a large segment of Haredim (ultra-orthodox) continued to stay home.
Currently, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party with its traditional allies As of now, the joint Hadash–Ta’al party list is picking up an unprecedented six more seats, for a total of 11. The United Arab List [Ra’am] is gaining at least one more seat, making its contingen six. The Arab parties stand to hold a never before 18 seats, 15 percent of the parliament of the “Jewish” state.
The conservative, Islamic Ra’am party was the first Arab party to be part of a ruling coalition of the Israeli. It was Naftali Bennett’s government with Yair Lapid in 2021. Before then Arab parties had only supported governments, such as Yitzchak Rabin’s, from outside of the coalition.
This election has been seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s leadership, and its failures pre-, during, and post-October 7th, 2023, the now infamous date ofHamas’s invasion and massacre, of Jews, including rape, mutilation, and microwaving of Jewish babies.
Yet, Netanyahu has rightly stated...
“We must establish a strong national right-wing government,” he added, warning against a government dependent on Arab parties, which he accused of opposing Israel’s existence. (Fox News)
The Haredi party leadership needs to release their voters. If they really care about their constituents, and not just their own power base, they need to release their followers to vote freely. Granted they are concerned about preventing exactly what happened in this election, the wasting of votes on a new party. But this might not have happened, if they had released their voters.
About 20 years ago, a Belzer Hasid claimed to me that if their Rebbe had given his followers the freedom to vote as they pleased, then Baruch Marzel, a student of Rabbi Meir Kahane hy”d, would have succeeded in entering the Knesset.
The Sephardi Haredi, Shas Party, traditionally propped up by secular and traditional, non-Ashkenazy Jews, has been consistently losing seats, since its 1999 election showing of 17 seats. It is projected to receive only six seats this time. Its votes went elsewhere.
Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzmah Yehudit (Jewish Strength) and Betzalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist parties stayed around the same. The only difference is that Moshe Feiglin will return to the government, thanks to his technical block agreement with Smotrich. So, where did all the votes go?
Clearly, even right of center Jews are fed up with Bibi, and have been running around, trying to figure out how to get him out of power, without simultaneously destroying the country.
Well, guess what. They did not succeed. If Netanyahu gets pushed out, they risk destroying the country, or going to elections again in the very near future.
As much as I dispise Naftali Bennett -- who has been invoking the buzz phrase “Jewish terrorism” -- may be the other winner besides the Arabs, and their parties. The question is, if it came down to the wire, would he join a Netanyahu government, or remain a “Never Netanyahu?” He holds the reins now. How will he play it?
And what will the Arabs do with their power? Will they join an Eisenkot government? If so, what will they get in return? A commitment to support a Palestinian state? Looking the other way from illegal Arab building? An even bigger crackdown on settlers than Bibi’s?
Well, we will have to wait and see. If a government is not successfully formed by someone, new elections may be called in just over three months from now.
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