President Trump gave Benjamin Netanyahu his “Complete and Total Endorsement” before Israel voted. It didn’t get him a majority. Israel’s certified results give Netanyahu’s bloc 53 seats, Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc 48, and the Arab-led parties a record 19, so neither side has the 61 needed to govern, Al Jazeera reported.
Netanyahu’s allies are now claiming the election was stolen. Israel’s election officials say it wasn’t.
Who won Israel’s election?
Nobody outright. Eisenkot’s new Yashar party took 21 seats in its first election, behind Netanyahu’s Likud. Arab-led parties Ra’am and the Joint List won a record share. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote, “The elections were stolen, the results are fraudulent, foreign countries interfered,” and called for arresting Arab party leaders. The Central Elections Committee reviewed 9,069 polling stations and found “no irregularities that compromised the integrity of the election or changed its results.” “Election results, as lawfully determined, are binding on us all,” said its chairman, Justice Noam Sohlberg.
What happens next in Israel?
President Isaac Herzog is meeting party leaders and will pick whoever he thinks can form a government, almost certainly Netanyahu or Eisenkot. That person gets 28 days, plus a possible 14-day extension. “The elections are over. Now is the time to face reality,” Herzog said, Al Jazeera reported. Ra’am said it would back Eisenkot, putting him around 56, and the Joint List’s seats could push him past 61. If no one can form a government, Israel votes again early next year.
What does Israel’s deadlock mean for the U.S. and Iran?
Trump tied his endorsement to the war, writing that with “anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so.” We covered that endorsement and warning before the vote. If Eisenkot forms a government, Trump will have to decide whether he meant it, at the same moment a new Democratic Congress is pressing him to wind down the Iran war at home.
The BeezLoop Take
Calling an election stolen because you didn’t like who voted, especially Arab citizens, is an attack on democracy wherever it happens. Israel’s election officials and its president did their jobs. That deserves notice.
For Americans, the endorsement was a gamble that didn’t pay off. A president publicly picking a winner in an ally’s election, and threatening to walk away from a shared war if voters chose wrong, put U.S. policy on the line for one man. It shouldn’t be repeated.
The open question: can Eisenkot assemble a government with Arab parties’ support, or is Israel headed to its sixth election since 2019?
More on BeezLoop: Iran’s offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Sources: Al Jazeera (certification) · Al Jazeera (coalition talks) · The Jerusalem Post · Times Now (video)
