Israel's Election Ends in Near Deadlock as Netanyahu and Eisenkot Both Claim Momentum

At 3:15 on Wednesday morning, Benjamin Netanyahu walked onto a stage in Jerusalem looking, by the account of the reporter in the hall, reinvigorated and ebullient. Hours earlier, his chief rival had already claimed the night as his own. Israelis had voted on Tuesday in the largest numbers in a generation, and the exit polls they produced pointed to something close to a tie.

The three big television networks first projected a small lead for the opposition alliance led by Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief whose son was killed in the Gaza war. Later versions shifted. One now gives Netanyahu's bloc a slight edge, and the other two show the blocs even. Exit polls in Israel have a spotty record, especially in close races, and the official count was far from done: election authorities had tallied nearly a million votes, about a fifth of those cast. Counting will take days.

The polls, if accurate, leave neither side with a clear route to a majority without two Arab parties, projected to win 17 or 18 of the 120 seats in Parliament. That would be their strongest showing ever. Netanyahu has effectively ruled out including them in a coalition, and Eisenkot and his partners have balked at the idea as well. The two parties are the socially conservative United Arab List, known as Raam, and the left-wing Joint List. Their voters turned out in record numbers, many of them furious at Netanyahu over his treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and over policies they feel make Palestinian citizens of Israel second-class. Throughout the campaign, Netanyahu made overt appeals to anti-Arab prejudice.

Mansour Abbas, Raam's leader, said the turnout converted "frustration and despair" into "hope" among Arab voters, who are about 20 percent of the population. He said he wanted to replace Netanyahu's government "in every possible way." Raam is the only one of the two that has sat in a government, joining Naftali Bennett's short-lived anti-Netanyahu coalition in 2021. That outraged many right-wing Jewish voters, and after the coalition collapsed roughly a year later, they backed Netanyahu, who went on to form the most hard-line government in Israel's history. Many Israeli Jews still believe a majority should not depend on Arab lawmakers.

Eisenkot took the stage past midnight, embracing members of his Yashar party before a flag-waving crowd that hailed him as the next prime minister. "We've made history," he said, and, "Tonight we got the answer. The public wants change." He then addressed the country's security chiefs and public servants, telling them Netanyahu leads a transitional government that has lost public confidence. "Stand strong and firm against any attempt to challenge you," he said, promising his clear backing. Amid reports that Netanyahu has pushed for renewed strikes on Iran, he added: "Netanyahu, don't dare use Israel's security for your political needs."

Netanyahu, speaking later, acknowledged the exit polls were only a preview and said he awaited official results, yet he sounded triumphant. He said Likud had clearly emerged as the largest party and mocked the months of polls that had shown it trailing Eisenkot's. Listing enemies of Israel who have been killed, including Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he said, "Iran is weaker than ever, Israel is stronger than ever," but "it's still not over," and with his "friend" President Trump the Iranian threat could be removed for good. "We must form a strong right-wing government," he said, offering no hint of reaching toward the opposition. At Likud's headquarters, activists in "Make Israel Great Again" hats threw voting slips like confetti, though some party officials privately conceded their path was narrow.

Other voices sharpened the divide. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, said parties unable to condemn the Oct. 7 massacre or declare Hamas a terrorist organization "are not legitimate actors in Israeli politics." Bennett, whose party is in Eisenkot's alliance, declared that Netanyahu had lost, tying him to the Oct. 7, 2023 attack: "The government of Oct. 7 will go home." He said the opposition would set ego aside to form a government that insists on conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jews, without saying whether Likud or Arab parties might be included.

A unity government between Netanyahu and Eisenkot is one option analysts are weighing, but Eisenkot's voters deeply despise Netanyahu, Eisenkot has called him unfit, and the two would have to settle who serves as prime minister. Eisenkot has also floated a minority government. A coalition ordinarily needs at least 61 lawmakers. Once official totals and seat allocations arrive, President Isaac Herzog will invite the leader he thinks best placed to build one. Still uncounted are hundreds of thousands of ballots from military bases, hospitals, prisons and embassies, which favored Netanyahu's camp in the previous election.