The Next Century Foundation’s chief research officer and co-author of this report offers an observation on the following blog. The observation is her own: This election will not be remembered for whether Benjamin Netanyahu lost power – it will be remembered as the moment Arab citizens became impossible to govern without, and the moment much of Israel’s political class showed it would rather fight that fact than accept it. The desire to remove Netanyahu will outweigh the opposition’s reluctance to rely on Arab votes, and Eisenkot will most likely form a government sustained by Arab support. 

A result without a majority

The final count left Israel without a governing majority. Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc of Likud (27), Otzma Yehudit (7), United Torah Judaism (7), Shas (6) and Religious Zionism (6) fell to 53 seats, down from 68 in the outgoing Knesset.

Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc, comprising of Yashar (21), B’Yachad (12), the Democrats (8) and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beytenu (7), reached only 48. The decisive shift came elsewhere – the Arab-led parties. The Joint List (11) and Ra’am (8) won a record 19 seats, almost double their previous 10.

The maths is unforgiving. Netanyahu’s bloc cannot reach 61 even with Yisrael Beytenu, and the opposition can do so only with Arab support, bringing its total to 67. Even that majority rests on Lieberman: without his 7 seats it collapses to 60, leaving the outcome dependent on a politician who campaigned against exactly this arrangement.

A coalition government would solve the mathematics. Likud, Yashar and B’Yachad alone hold 60 seats, and adding any one of the smaller opposition parties would produce a comfortable majority. But Eisenkot has said that Netanyahu “cannot serve as prime minister, minister or deputy minister”, which makes that route unlikely while Netanyahu leads Likud.

What happens now?

The process to decide who governs is set out in Basic Law: The Government.

4 November: the Central Elections Committee gives the official results to President Isaac Herzog. The new Knesset is due to be sworn in on 10 November.

Within seven days of the results: Herzog consults the parties represented in the Knesset. Each party recommends a candidate for prime minister, and Herzog assigns the task to the Knesset member with the best chance of forming a government. That is not necessarily the leader of the largest party.

28 days: the nominee negotiates to build a coalition of at least 61. Herzog can extend this by up to 14 days.

If the nominee fails: President Herzog can assign the task to another member, or a majority of the Knesset can ask for a candidate of its choosing. If no government is formed, the Knesset is dissolved, and an election is held within 90 days.

Herzog has urged party leaders to come to the consultations with an open mind. He emphasises that Israel must do everything it can to avoid another election.

Prediction

The likeliest outcome is that Eisenkot forms the next government and Netanyahu loses office. The desire to remove Netanyahu is likely to prove stronger than the opposition’s reluctance to rely on Arab support. However, this does not mean an end to the hostility toward Arab political participation in Israel. In fact, it would bring it to the centre of the new government.

The paths back to power for Netanyahu are narrow. The Arab parties will not back him. He has called a government relying on them a disgrace, and Likud has claimed the election was stolen by Arab parties who support terrorism – claims the Central Elections Committee has called baseless. Eisenkot has firmly ruled out governing with him. This leaves the opposition as the only side with a potential majority.

But reaching that majority would require the opposition to break a campaign pledge. Eisenkot has said that Ra’am would not be part of his government, and Lieberman pledged not to rely on Arab parties. Yet the wording of these pledges leaves room for the will to oust Netanyahu to take priority. Excluding Arab ministers is not the same as refusing Arab votes from outside the government. The Joint List has said it is “ready and willing to pave the way for the Netanyahu government’s removal”, and Bennett and Lieberman both sat in the 2021 government that included Ra’am. Outside support is the most likely form a deal would take, because it allows the opposition to say that no Arab party is a partner.

Such a deal would not settle a deeper dispute. A government sustained by Arab votes, whose leaders nevertheless refuse to acknowledge this support as a form of partnership, and denounced by Likud as stolen, would face questions over its legitimacy.

A caretaker government

Until a new government is sworn in, Netanyahu’s cabinet remains in office. Under the Basic Law, that could take until late December. If talks fail and no government can be formed, the law requires a new election within 90 days, and the caretaker period could last well into 2027.

That period is likely to be one of paralysis. A caretaker government fighting for its own survival has neither the mandate nor the political incentive to make major decisions – most notably on Gaza. Choices over the ceasefire, reconstruction, and the territory’s future governance are likely to be postponed until it is clear who governs Israel, and on whose votes.  

The uncertainty could also complicate Israel’s approach to Iran, particularly regarding any further military confrontation or diplomatic developments, as a caretaker government may be reluctant to make major strategic decisions.

Paralysis is also likely to affect Israel’s neighbours and partners. Egypt, which has played a central role in mediation, would be negotiating with a government whose authority is in question. Jordan and the Gulf states would face the same uncertainty, and Saudi Arabia, which has reiterated that a two-state solution is the only path to lasting peace, is unlikely to advance talks while it remains unclear who will govern Israel.

The regional reaction to the election has been cautious, with widespread pessimism about a significant change in Israeli policy. A prolonged caretaker period gives that caution weeks, possibly months, to harden.

The Risk of Contested Legitimacy 

The legitimacy of whichever coalition emerges is expected to be contested, and the ground for this was laid before a single vote was cast.

Reports from inside Israel ahead of the polling day state that Likud had drawn up complaints in advance, ready to challenge results from Arab majority areas and claim the election had been stolen should Netanyahu lose. Within hours of the polls closing, they did exactly that and alleged that Arab parties, which they accused of supporting terrorism, had stolen the vote through bribery, intimidation and illegal software usage. However, election officials said they had been handed claims, not evidence. 

The opposition has equally exposed itself to the risk that any coalition it forms could be attacked on the grounds of legitimacy. Eisenkot has previously said that Ra’am will not sit in his government but has not ruled out the possibility of Arab parties supporting from the outside. Liberman and Bennett have pledged not to rely on Arab parties at all, yet both sat in the 2021 government that depended on Ra’am’s votes. Any reliance on Arab support in a coalition will be presented as proof of an illegitimate government, with the possibility of the 2021 record being used to argue that the promises were never sincere. Should Netanyahu remain as caretaker prime minister in the event of a coalition stalemate that lasts months, he will be ruling without a majority and governing under a mandate his opponents reject. Either way, the question of the legitimacy of the new government will sit at the centre of Israeli politics as a potentially highly divisive point. 

This matters because a government whose mandate is challenged from its first day will struggle to take the difficult decisions ahead. However, the inconsistency between the opposition leader’s statements and their previous actions in relation to working with Arab parties may expose them to accusations of illegitimacy if a coalition is formed. Contested legitimacy is unlikely to be a passing quarrel but a political tool and may well define how the next government governs and for how long.

What Might Happen to the Arab Israelis?

Given the record-high Arab voter turnout and number of votes cast for Arab candidates, it is undeniable that their voices cannot be ignored. Turnout in Arab communities reached around 80 per cent, surpassing the previous record set in 1999, and the two Arab-led lists won 19 seats, against a previous high of 15 in 2020. Neither bloc can reach a majority without them. Even outside a coalition, they can shape events: when the new Knesset sits, the opposition and Arab parties together could elect the Speaker and control the parliamentary agenda. On this reading, Arab citizens have made themselves impossible to ignore, and this could be a turning point for their inclusion and equality.

The second possibility is the opposite and in this article’s opinion, more concerningly, more likely, that greater visibility brings greater hostility. Likud’s stolen-election claims were directed squarely at Arab parties, and the prime minister’s allies have demanded the interrogation and arrest of Arab politicians. The community is already a target, and the campaign suggests much of the right would rather contest Arab participation than accommodate it. These outcomes are not mutually exclusive. The likeliest result is both at once: more influence in the Knesset, and more hostility outside it.

Why is recognition so difficult? Because accepting Arab support would mean more than breaking a campaign pledge. For much of Israel’s right, the exclusion of Arab parties from government has become part of what it means to be right-wing, framed as the principle that a legitimate government needs a Jewish majority. But in the wake of these elections and the claims made against Arab voters and politicians, this sentiment has come to rest less on Zionism than on hostility to Arab citizens themselves. To abandon it would call into question the ideological foundations on which the right has now built its identity.

Our view is that the hostility will survive within Israel’s right wing, because it remains too useful to discard. But this election has made it far more expensive to keep. Whoever breaks it will pay with their own voters; whoever keeps it will be telling a community that has just voted in record numbers that its participation changes nothing.

What conditions could change this predicted outcome?

Our prediction rests on the opposition’s desire to remove Netanyahu outweighing its reluctance to rely on Arab support. However, this prediction is not by any means a guarantee, and there are conditions that would change its likelihood.

The first is a rapid deal. If the opposition settled its differences within the first mandate period, the paralysis anticipated in this article would be brief. This seems unlikely: the disruption of seats between the blocs, together with the number needed for a majority, leaves little room for manoeuvre, and several of its leaders have ruled out the very arrangement it would need. 

The second is that the opposition finds a majority without Arab support at all. That would require defections from Likud or its allies, or a Likud willing to move on from Netanyahu. There is little sign of it yet, but if Netanyahu’s position as leader weakened during negotiations, it would become the path of least resistance for an opposition wary of the Arab question.

Conclusion 

We expect that Eisenkot will form a coalition to lead the next government, sustained by Arab votes, although negotiations to form such a coalition will be challenging. However, a government that relies on Arab support while continuing to undermine and exclude its Arab citizens will be contested from its first day and will leave the deeper questions raised by this election unresolved.

The Next Century Foundation therefore urges the opposition parties, which have so far set conditions rather than sought a conversation, to enter into open dialogue with the Arab-led parties, supported by mediation where trust is lacking. Rather than debating whether the Arab parties’  votes are acceptable, all sides should identify the priorities they share and build on them to establish a coalition committed to peace, with human rights and equality at its centre. But to do so, they must recognise the equal political rights of the Arab parties and citizens they represent. True democracy does not function at the expense of others’ rights.

Photo by Rafael Nir on Unsplash