After Tuesday’s legislative elections, Israeli broadcasters credited Netanyahu’s Likud and his allies from the ultra-Orthodox parties and the far-right “Religious Zionism” list with 62 seats, one more than the majority threshold in the Parliament of 120 deputies.
Then, the Electoral Commission began dribbling out the first results confirming this trend without, however, sealing the outcome of the election for the moment.
However Thursday morning, after 93.3% of the votes counted, the “right bloc” of Mr. Netanyahu is credited with 65 elected – 32 for the Likud, 19 for the orthodox parties and a record of 14 for the far right – in what analysts say could be the most right-wing government in the country’s history.
Also on Thursday, three Israeli policemen were injured in an attack in Jerusalem’s Old City, police said, saying the assailant had been killed.
The Lapid government “is coming to an end”, said far-right tenor Itamar Ben Gvir. ‘It’s time to bring security to the streets, to restore order, to show who’s in charge, it’s time to kill a terrorist who is carrying out an attack,’ he said after the attack in Jerusalem .
Outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist party Yesh Atid (“There is a future”) is heading for a harvest of 24 elected officials, his center-right ally Benny Gantz 12 MPs, followed by nine elected for two other formations and 10 for Arab parties.
In the Israeli proportional system, the parties must obtain 3.25% of the vote to enter Parliament, a minimum rate giving them de facto four deputies.
Two small parties hostile to Mr. Netanyahu’s camp, the left-wing party Meretz and the Arab party Balad, garnered 3.15% and 2.97% support respectively, their fate being however in the hands of the last votes counted, i.e. mainly military and health care workers.
“We may be losing our representation in the Knesset (parliament), but we have won the love of our people and unprecedented support,” said Sami Abu Shehadeh, leader of the Balad party who ran alone and not leagued with other Arab formations.
Proof that his position was at stake, outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid canceled Wednesday his participation in COP27, the UN climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Mr. Lapid, who turns 59 this weekend, last year rallied a motley coalition (right, left, center and an Arab party) to end the reign of Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest-serving head of government in the country. history of Israel, in power from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021.
“Bibi”, as he is nicknamed, had not abdicated and left political life as his opponents wanted, but had rather clung to the post of leader of the opposition with the aim of returning to business to eventually vote for a immunity by deputies and annul his trial for corruption.
Once the final results are known, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, whose function is essentially symbolic, will mandate the political leader most likely to form a government to take action. The latter will then have 42 days to set up a government.
But according to the Israeli press, the Netanyahu camp did not wait for this formal green light, the ex-Prime Minister having mandated Yariv Levin, one of his relatives, to start talks which could be complicated, with the formation ” Religious Zionism” in particular.
The leader of this party, Bezalel Smotrich, has already indicated that he wants the Ministry of Defense, and No. 2 Itamar Ben Gvir, that of Public Security, two key positions at the forefront of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which is experiencing already a peak of violence in seven years.
Their appointments to these crucial posts could be “embarrassing on the international scene” for Benjamin Netanyahu, believes Palestinian analyst Khaldoun Barghouti.
Without wanting to “speculate on a government”, the American State Department said it hoped that “all Israeli leaders will continue to share the values of an open, democratic society that promotes tolerance and respect for all civil society, in especially minority groups.
