By Sumayya
JERUSALEM: Benjamin Netanyahu looked ready to stay as Israel’s temporary caretaker prime minister after unexpectedly strong support among Jewish voters left his rivals with little clear chance of removing him, even though his right-wing group lost its majority in parliament.
With nearly 86 percent of the votes counted on Wednesday, Israel’s three main television networks predicted that Netanyahu’s group of right-wing, far-right, and ultra-Orthodox parties would win 53 seats in the 120-seat parliament, called the Knesset. This put him well ahead of the 48 seats predicted for rival Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition group. Parties representing Arab Israelis were predicted to win a record-breaking 19 seats. This left Eisenkot with no realistic path to power without their massive support, which many Jewish political leaders refuse to accept. The final numbers could still change as counting goes on, but Eisenkot’s group of anti-Netanyahu parties, which range from the center-left to the hard right, fell short of pre-election polls that predicted a very close race.
Netanyahu will remain the temporary caretaker prime minister during any team-building talks and potentially until another election happens next year. While a temporary government faces some limits, experts state it keeps its powers, including control over the war with Iran. Guy Lurie, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, stated that a temporary government legally has the same powers as a regular government, but also holds “a duty of restraint” and less freedom to make choices in certain areas.
Security fight grows sharper
Netanyahu, speaking to his Likud party followers after 3 a.m. (0100 GMT), called for building “a strong, right-wing national government.” He highlighted Israel’s military victories and brought up the chance of new, shared military actions against Iran alongside his partner, US President Donald Trump. He stated that the two nations had a “special historical chance” to remove what he called the Iranian danger “once and for all.”
Trump, who had urged Israeli voters to keep Netanyahu in power so the two leaders could “finish the job” in Iran, stated that Netanyahu had done “very well” and claimed his public support had “helped him a lot .”
Israel’s high-voter-turnout election was ignored by some people in the rest of the Middle East. In Tehran, large signs with pictures of the killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reminded Iranians of the US and Israeli military strikes launched in February that started the war. Right next to it was a poster of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed on Netanyahu’s orders in Lebanon.
“I truly see the possibility of an attack,” said 50-year-old Iranian citizen Abdollah Karimi.
Anger was also felt in Egypt, which was the first Arab country to sign a peace deal with Israel back in 1979. Outhman Selim, a 62-year-old lawyer, stated that his hopes for a Netanyahu defeat to move the country away from the far right had been crushed.
Eisenkot acknowledged that Netanyahu stays on as temporary prime minister but warned that he might use security situations for political goals. “I call on the heads of the security groups and the public service: Netanyahu is a temporary prime minister without an official mandate or the trust of the people,” he stated. “Stand strong against any attempt to test you.”
Netanyahu’s office has previously denied claims that he is using the Iran war for political benefit and did not answer right away to a request for a comment on Wednesday.
The chance of a temporary government running without a parliamentary majority hurt Israeli financial markets. The shekel currency dropped around 1.6 percent to 3.10 against the US dollar. Tel Aviv’s main stock market indexes fell by more than 3 percent.
A major shift in Israeli politics
The result highlighted a deep move to the right among Israeli Jews during Netanyahu’s years as the country’s main political leader. The center-left teams that controlled Israel for the first half of its history have been shrunk to a tiny group. Nearly all Jewish parties now agree with Netanyahu’s refusal to ever allow an independent Palestinian state, which has been the base of international peace efforts since the 1990s.
This election was Israel’s first vote since Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in attacks on October 7, 2023, which threw the country into ongoing wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. The war in Gaza, which leveled the area and killed 74,000 Palestinians according to Gaza health officials, has left Israel more and more isolated across the globe. Netanyahu himself is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on war crimes charges that he calls ridiculous, and he faces corruption charges inside Israel that he claims are a plot by the political system.
Voter turnout reached 77.7 percent, the highest level seen in more than twenty years, and was especially high among Israelis of Palestinian family descent, who make up more than one-fifth of the population. Many voted because of what they see as clear racism coming from Netanyahu’s cabinet, which features a party leader previously convicted of stirring up racial hatred against Arabs.
The head offices of the Joint List, a partnership of multiple Arab parties, filled with whistles and clapping when early exit polls came out. “We reject the occupation and racism, and we will stay here,” stated Joint List candidate Faten Gattas.
The last political team that managed to remove Netanyahu from power relied on one small Arab party, but Eisenkot’s low numbers mean the opposition would now need backing from the entire Joint List itself. Most Jewish leaders have avoided official partnerships with Arab parties since Israel was founded.
