Israel's Election Deadlock: Four Paths Forward, and Why New Elections May Loom

With 85 percent of the votes counted after Tuesday's election, Israel appears headed for deadlock. Neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition nor the bloc led by his main challenger, Gadi Eisenkot, looks set to reach a majority. Forming a government would require one of the leading parties to break a campaign promise, which is why new elections may be the most probable outcome.

The night itself turned on a revision. Eisenkot took the stage at his campaign headquarters on election night and called on Netanyahu to announce his retirement from political life that same day. He told supporters that Israelis were tired of a culture of lies, division and incitement. But one of the main exit polls, which had first projected a lead for Eisenkot's bloc, was later revised, and Netanyahu moved ahead.

The first path is a national unity government under Netanyahu. Netanyahu would need Eisenkot's Yashar Party to join his Likud Party, which would likely mean dropping the far-right and ultra-Orthodox partners he now governs with. Eisenkot has built his whole campaign on ousting Netanyahu and presents himself as the only alternative, so joining would mean abandoning his central platform. At Likud headquarters, Netanyahu thanked his loyal partners and called for a strong right-wing government, which some read as a sign he intends to keep them. One thing that could change the calculation is renewed conflict with Iran, which might pressure leaders to set aside their differences. In the days before the vote, Israeli and US media reported that Netanyahu was pushing for fresh strikes and had urged Donald Trump to approve US involvement. His critics would likely cast that as an attempt to save himself politically.

The second path is an Eisenkot-led coalition that includes Arab parties, which would be a seismic shift. Only one independent Arab party has ever formally joined a coalition, in 2021, and it did not last long. Eisenkot and every other Jewish party in his bloc except one have ruled it out, yet it is currently the opposition's only route to a majority. The Arab parties were the story of the night. They could win a record 19 seats, helped by unprecedented turnout among Israel's Arab citizens, who make up about a fifth of the country and often call themselves Palestinian citizens of Israel. Many had boycotted elections for years, arguing that voting legitimised a system that treats them as second-class citizens. This time, the motive was a desire to remove the most right-wing governing coalition in Israel's history.

The United Arab list is projected to win around 7 seats and has said it would join an opposition government. The Joint List, projected at 12, would back one from outside. The only Jewish leader currently advocating this route is Yair Golan of The Democrats. Such a coalition would be fragile, especially on Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and the united Jewish-party front against Arab participation points to deep divisions.

The third path has Netanyahu peeling off right-wingers from the opposition bloc. The likeliest are Naftali Bennett, joint leader of the Beyachad alliance, and Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beiteinu. Both are hardliners on security with some common ground with Netanyahu. But both campaigned explicitly to oust him and to extend military conscription to the ultra-Orthodox, putting them in direct conflict with the two ultra-Orthodox parties in his government. Some suggest their parties could replace those partners, but the current numbers suggest they would fall short of a majority.

That leaves new elections as the default. Many would see that as a tacit win for Netanyahu, who would stay on as caretaker prime minister and may believe he would do better in a rerun. Some analysts doubt the high Arab turnout would repeat, especially if record representation produced no change in government, and a second vote could mobilise more right-wing voters. He may also bet that the estimated 70,000 Israelis who flew home to vote, thought to lean against him, would not do so again. Right-wing parties that missed the 3.25 percent threshold might draw fewer votes or not run at all, sending more votes to Likud and its allies.

Israel has been here before: between 2019 and 2022 it held five separate elections as Netanyahu and his rivals repeatedly failed to cooperate. What to watch now are any renewed tensions with Iran, and whether Arab turnout holds if voters are called back to the polls.