With 85% of the votes counted on October 28th, the opposition parties between them were sure to have more than half , probably 67, of the 120 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. IN MOST DEMOCRACIES when the opposition parties win the most votes, and secure a majority in parliament, they strive to form a government. In Israel, however, nothing is quite so simple .
In theory, therefore, the right-wing coalition led by Binyamin Netanyahu should be gone from office.
However, the opposition could well prove too divided to form a ruling coalition. During the campaign, most opposition party leaders explicitly ruled out forming a government with them. When pressed, Gadi Eisenkot, a former general and the leader of Yashar, a centre-right party that took the second-largest share of the vote, was evasive. Yet without the backing of Arab parties, he stands little chance of forming a stable government. The vilification of Israeli Arabs continues. Members of Mr Netanyahu’s most recent coalition included Jewish supremacists, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national-security minister. In September the Knesset’s election committee barred Arab parties from the election, alleging they supported terrorism and rejected Israel’s Jewish character. The Supreme Court overturned that. A coalition of opposition parties, including the Arab ones, should thus pull together, and fast. Mr Netanyahu has also, of late, pressed for renewed military strikes on Iran. And his government has been inflaming tensions in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Of those 67 seats, about 19 are in the hands of parties who represent Israel’s Arabs. He once led the youth wing of a virulently anti-Arab movement that went on to be banned in 1994 as a terrorist organisation. Because likud is the largest party, isaac Herzog, Israel’s president, needs to judge that co-operation is possible, with a new coalition led by Mr Eisenkot, or he will opt to invite Mr Netanyahu to try first.
On election day, right-wingers in the streets exhorted Jewish voters to “save our home” from Arabs. If large-scale violence resumes in either place he might argue that Israel needs him to stay on and lead an emergency “unity” government.
