Israel's Election Is Too Close to Call as Arab Parties Emerge as Kingmakers

Past midnight in Israel, with the count barely begun, two men who both wanted to be prime minister took the stage and spoke like winners. Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief whose son was killed in the Gaza war, told supporters the public had given its answer: it wants change. A few hours later, at 3:15 a.m., Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the Likud election-night headquarters in a Jerusalem conference hall and said the country must form a strong right-wing government. Neither could say it with certainty, and the exit polls did not settle it.

Turnout on Tuesday was the largest in a generation. The exit polls from Israel's three biggest television networks first showed a slim lead for Eisenkot's anti-Netanyahu alliance. Updated versions then shifted: one now put Netanyahu's bloc narrowly ahead, while the other two showed the blocs even. These polls have a spotty record, especially in close races, and by nearly 4 a.m. election authorities had counted only about a million votes, roughly a fifth of the total. Full counting will take days.

The arithmetic is what makes the night so unsettled. If the polls hold, neither bloc can reach a governing majority without two Arab parties, projected to win as many as 17 or 18 of the 120 seats in Parliament. That would be their strongest showing ever. They are the socially conservative United Arab List, known as Raam, and the left-wing Joint List. Netanyahu has effectively ruled out including them, and Eisenkot and his partners have balked at the idea as well. Unless one or more parties defect from a main bloc, there is no obvious route to a government.

Mansour Abbas, who leads Raam, said Arab voters, about 20 percent of Israel's population, had turned their frustration and despair into hope. He said he wants to replace Netanyahu's government in every possible way and that his first priority is to ensure there is a chance of forming one that does so. Many Arab voters said they were furious over Netanyahu's 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. Over the decades, disagreements including over Israel's nature as a Jewish state have led many Arab voters to stay home.

Bringing Arab parties into government remains fraught. Only Raam has done it, in 2021, when it joined the short-lived anti-Netanyahu coalition of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. That outraged many right-wing Jewish voters, and after the coalition collapsed roughly a year later, they backed Netanyahu, who formed the most hard-line government in Israel's history. Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and leader of Religious Zionism, used his election-night speech to call parties that cannot condemn the Oct. 7 massacre or declare Hamas a terrorist organization illegitimate actors in Israeli politics.

On the other side, Bennett, who leads a party in the opposition alliance, told supporters the sitting prime minister had lost, saying the government of Oct. 7 will go home. He said the opposition parties would set ego aside to form a government that insists on conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews. He did not say whether that could include Likud or Arab parties. Analysts are weighing a unity government of Netanyahu and Eisenkot, but Eisenkot's voters deeply despise Netanyahu, Netanyahu is unlikely to give up control, and Eisenkot has called him unfit to lead. Eisenkot has also floated a minority government.

Netanyahu, now a caretaker prime minister, called the exit polls a preview and said he awaited official results, yet claimed Likud was the largest party and mocked months of polls that had shown it trailing Eisenkot's. He listed enemies of Israel who have been killed, including Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and said Iran is weaker than ever but the job is not over, which he said could be finished with his friend President Trump. Eisenkot, amid reports that Netanyahu has pushed for renewed attacks on Iran, warned him not to use Israel's security for political needs. He also told security chiefs and public servants that Netanyahu leads a transitional government that has lost the public's confidence, and that they have his clear backing if challenged.

The exit polls also miss hundreds of thousands of votes cast at special polling stations, including military bases, hospitals, prisons and embassies, which favored Netanyahu's alliance in the previous election. Once official totals are in and seats allocated, President Isaac Herzog will invite the leader he thinks best placed to assemble a coalition, normally needing at least 61 lawmakers. Party leaders are expected to start discussing alliances in the morning.