Israel's election has stripped Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right coalition of its mandate and handed the opposition a firm majority. Yet a promise by most Jewish opposition parties not to govern alongside Palestinian-led parties may give the prime minister a route to stay in office, as of Wednesday 28 October.
If the pledge holds, Netanyahu could turn defeat into another term. At the least he might remain caretaker prime minister for a prolonged period, with the possibility of yet another round of elections. The campaign leading up to the vote was marked by his portrayal of Palestinian citizens as an enemy within the state, a strategy critics said was meant both to boost his support and to complicate coalition talks for his rivals.
Israeli media focused on the obstacle rather than the loss. The newspaper Israel Hayom ran the headline "No Clear Government", while Channel 12 published an article titled "Road to Unity Government Has Been Paved".
Yair Golan, leader of the centre-left Democrats, rejected that framing. "Netanyahu lost. I know how to count," he said, calling for a government formed with Palestinian citizens, who make up about 20% of Israel's population. He urged Israelis to stop accepting Netanyahu's division between Jewish votes and Arab votes. Musician Yali Sobol made a similar point in a Facebook post, writing that if people stopped being racist they would "discover you have won."
Public opinion among opposition voters may be ahead of their leaders. Political psychology researcher Eran Halperin said a survey taken as polls closed showed a clear majority of opposition voters backed forming a government with the Palestinian-led Ra'am party to remove Netanyahu. Opposition leaders were silent on Wednesday, apparently weighing their wish to unseat him against their promises not to work with Palestinian parties. Former general Gadi Eisenkot, who leads the largest opposition party, has not directly ruled out such a partnership, but he set conditions that make it politically impossible for those parties to join.
Palestinian leaders have been more explicit. Yousef Jabareen, head of the larger Joint List, said his party was "ready and prepared to pave the way for the ousting of the Netanyahu government," adding that "the change comes through Jewish-Arab partnership." Ra'am, an Islamist party, placed a Jewish former police chief in second position on its slate as a sign of its commitment to working with Jewish Israelis. An earlier precedent, when Yitzhak Rabin relied on Palestinian support for a minority government three decades ago, receives little attention in today's political debate.
Netanyahu's campaign posters often carried the slogan "The right or Palestine", which cast the fifth of the population who are Palestinian as an enemy inside Israel's borders. On election night he shrugged off the loss of about 10 seats from the 64-seat coalition he assembled in 2022, a heavy rebuke by most counts, and claimed vindication. The Knesset overall has moved further right, as have young Israelis. He said the right-wing bloc held "a clear, decisive majority among the Zionist public" and called for "a strong national-right government."
Many Israelis saw the vote as existential, with concerns about the erosion of democracy inside the pre-1967 borders and the push for a State Commission of Inquiry into the 7 October attacks. Palestinian citizens, who face rising crime, discrimination and home demolitions and are watching relatives endure violence in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, turned out in record numbers.
Israel describes itself as a Jewish and democratic state. If Palestinian representatives are effectively kept out of government because of their ethnicity, the choice between a Jewish future and a democratic one may become sharper.
