Published: 25 March 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU 'S Likud party received a simple majority of the votes cast in Tuesday's election. As of the writing of this report, the Likud received 30 votes; the second-largest party, Yesh Atid headed by Yair Lapid, received only 17 votes.
So why is it still impossible to know if Israel will have a government at any time in the future, or if it will soon be heading back to what will probably be another inconclusive election campaign in the near future.
The answer is sadly simple: timing and elementary arithmetic.
The timing issue is simple: For a variety of procedural and technical reasons, we simply don't have the final results yet, and may not have them before the Passover holiday this weekend. It's a tight race and even the smallest shift could change the equations.
Indeed, on late Tuesday night, when all the major television channels produced nearly-identical exit polls, it seemed that Netanyahu had eked out a slim victory. By mid-morning Wednesday, it had become clear that he hadn't. So readers should know that anything that anyone predicts, including this reporter, before the final results are in, is not final.
The arithmetic itself should actually be quite simple, too, "just" a matter of addition. But so far, nothing is adding up.
In Israel's parliamentary system, Members of Knesset are not elected directly, but rather as members of party slates. To gain a seat in the Knesset, a list must pass the qualifying electoral threshold, which is currently 3.25% of the votes cast, equivalent to a minimum of four seats. With some 90% of the votes counted, 13 parties have made it into Knesset.
To become prime minister, the head of a party must gain enough votes to form a coalition with at least 61 seats. As noted in previous reports, to create that majority, Netanyahu is willing to combine the racist, xenophobic, homophobic and misogynist right wing "Religious Zionism" part, the ultra-Orthodox parties, and the Islamic United Arab List (popularly known as Ra'am, which broke off from the Joint Arab List.)
But it's not clear that all of them want to sit with him, and it's fairly clear that they don't want to sit together. As of yesterday, Israel time, Netanyahu cannot create any permutation of the 13 parties in the Knesset that adds up to 61.
So what now? Following the Passover holiday this weekend, Netanyahu will probably try to form a government. He needs to do this to put a hold on his trial for breach of trust, bribery, and fraud - or should he be convicted, to pass legislation that will keep him out of jail.
But the timing is complicated – over the next seven weeks, Israel will observe Passover, Memorial Day, Independence Day, and the Shavu'ot holiday. So even if he succeeds, it is unlikely that we will see a government any time before mid-June. And the evidentiary part of his trial begins in early April.
So what are the options? There are several theoretical scenarios – but none of them are very likely.
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SCENARIO 1: Netanyahu could try to form a minority government, based on his likely potential partners, including Shas, Yamina, Religious Zionism, and United Torah Judaism. He could then try to lure away one or two other MKs from competing parties.
A minority government would be notoriously unstable, putting Netanyahu at the mercy of every single MK's most extreme demands – and, as some of the parties, such as Religious Zionism, have shown, those demands can be very extreme indeed, especially with regard to religion. That could alienate others in his core base, which is largely religiously-traditional and would object to religious coercion.
SCENARIO 2: Netanyahu adds the Islamic party into the mix, reaching 63 votes. The irony of Mansour Abbas, the Islamic leader who Netanyahu first maligned and then courted, taking on the role of kingmaker is not lost on anyone, except, perhaps, Netanyahu.
But the probability that Religious Zionism and the United Arab List would sit together is about nil. Nor is it likely that t Netanyahu will even be able to convince the Religious Zionists to agree to a minority government according to which the United Arab List would support the government from outside the coalition, in exchange for budgets, ministry positions and other promises.
SCENARIO 3: Netanyahu convinces additional parties to join the coalition. That could include Naftali Bennett, from Yamina, Yair Lapid from Yesh Atid, Benny Gantz from Kahol Levan, Avigdor Lieberman from Yisrael Beiteinu, and/or Gideon Sa'ar from New Hope.
That's five parties, and theoretically, they could create a whopping majority, but Israeli politics are arithmetic, not mathematical. Lieberman has sworn he will never sit with Netanyahu and has consistently upheld his oath.
Bennett has made it clear that he hates Netanyahu personally and politically. Sa'ar broke away from the Likud to form his own party, so it's unlikely to see him coming back.
Lapid has based his campaigns on an image of himself as the antithesis of Netanyahu and, indeed, broke with Gantz after the previous elections when Gantz agreed to join the previous Netanyahu government.
And Gantz's party was nearly annihilated after he joined Netanyahu, only to find that Netanyahu broke every promise he made to him.
There are also options that do not include Netanyahu as prime minister – but they are not very likely, either.
SCENARIO 4: The Likud ousts Netanyahu and joins with the five parties. But Netanyahu has tremendous support among the rank and file of his party, and few MK's would be willing to anger the party grass roots.
Furthermore, in this scenario, the Netanyahu-replacement could not demand the prime ministership, which would not go over well within the party, since they are, after all, the largest party. And the probability that Lieberman, Lapid, Sa’ar and Bennett would overcome their egos and agree which of them would be prime minister are even less than nil.
SCENARIO 5: An anyone-but-Netanyahu bloc forms an interim government. Such a government would have no internal political, ideological or social coherence, but it could accomplish two things: Oust Netanyahu by pushing through legislation that would bar a candidate who is on trial for criminal offenses for running for Prime Minister and pass a budget.
Passing a budget, despite the differences between the parties, would be the easier of the two. Israel has not had a budget since 2018, because Netanyahu has kept the budget hostage to his political needs; the fiscal results have been disastrous, and it is conceivable the MKs would overcome party loyalties and personal interests to answer the most pressing budgetary needs.
It also conceivable, however, that the Israeli courts - the same courts that Netanyahu has so maligned - would approve the legislation that could stop Netanyahu from running.
SCENARIO 6: Sadly, this seems to be the most likely: Israel heads to its fifth election in two years.
Photo: Benjamin Netanyahu greets supporters at the Likud party final election event after early exit polls in Jerusalem, March 24 (Abir Sultan/EPA)
