Israel's Election: The Palestinian Kingmakers Nobody Wants

Special thanks to Alon Sahar, the author of this comprehensive analysis of the elections in Israel, published in his newsletter Staatsräson Monitor SRM about German-Israeli relations - From Insomnia to Insight. In this special edition, he examines Israel’s election results, the coalition scenarios that could keep Netanyahu in power or bring him down, and why the Palestinian parties’ unprecedented parliamentary leverage may prove insufficient to overcome the Jewish opposition’s political red lines.

An earlier version of this article appeared in German in Der Freitag. This updated English version incorporates the final election results and explores additional coalition scenarios, particularly in light of recent statements by ultra-Orthodox leaders, including those from United Torah Judaism (UTJ), that could open the door to an alternative government.

In Israel, Racism Is Above Politics

Israel’s election has produced deadlock, a stronger-than-expected showing for Netanyahu and a remarkable result for Palestinian parties. Yet the opposition’s insistence on a “Zionist government” exposes a contradiction: its leaders may be more determined to exclude Palestinians from power than to remove Netanyahu.

In fragmented parliamentary systems like Israel’s, inconclusive election results usually force politicians to soften their campaign red lines and leave room for coalition negotiations. Yet on Tuesday night, as exit polls suggested an opposition victory, Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu’s leading challenger, did precisely the opposite: he ruled out potential coalition partners before the votes had even been counted. He promised a “Zionist draft government”, committed to ending ultra-Orthodox Jewish men’s military-service exemptions. This sounded reasonable to much of the Jewish Israeli public, but also drew a boundary against Palestinian parties when their support might prove indispensable.

In other words, racism is not merely a moral failure here. It is also a recipe for political defeat.

The final results, published on Friday, confirmed Netanyahu’s stronger-than-expected showing. His bloc secured 53 seats, Eisenkot’s opposition 48, and the two Palestinian-led lists 19, including 11 for the Joint List and eight for Ra’am. Turnout reached 77.9 percent, the highest since 1999. The final count differed only slightly from Wednesday’s provisional figures, but confirmed that neither Jewish political bloc could form a government on its own.

Israel elects its 120-member Knesset proportionally, with a 3.25 percent threshold. A government normally requires 61 seats. The president consults parliamentary factions before assigning someone to form a coalition, not necessarily the largest party’s leader. In 2009 Netanyahu received the mandate despite Kadima winning more seats. Today the opposition’s 48 seats and the Palestinian parties’ 19 total 67, comfortably above the 61-seat majority. The problem is not simply arithmetic, but the opposition’s own vetoes.

Who is allowed to vote?

Palestinian citizens of Israel can vote, as can Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. Millions of Palestinians under occupation cannot vote for the parliament determining much of their lives. Unlike eligible Auslandsdeutsche, who can vote by post, Israelis abroad generally must return to vote. An Israeli in Berlin may have to fly home; a settler beyond the Green Line votes locally. The Palestinian next door cannot vote in the same election.

An estimated 70,000 Israelis, most of them liberal returned from abroad only to witness Likud ‘s racist billboards proclaiming Yamin o Falastin, “The Right or Palestine”, targeting Jewish voters unhappy with Netanyahu but wary of a government dependent on Palestinian Israelis.

Netanyahu’s alliance includes Likud, ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism, and the far-right factions of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. The ultra-Orthodox seek to preserve military exemptions and publicly funded religious schools; the far right pursues annexation and Palestinian displacement. Their interests differ, but they have reasons to remain together, including support for the judicial overhaul.

The opposition is less cohesive. Its principal figures include Eisenkot, former prime minister Naftali Bennett, nationalist Avigdor Liberman and Yair Golan, leader of the Labor-Meretz Democrats. They agree Netanyahu should leave, but not whom they can govern with. Liberman’s refusal to cooperate with Ra’am has not produced an obvious electoral gain, but eliminates coalition options.

Commentator Haim Levinson summarised the election on Nadav Perry’s podcast: “Who do you hate more, the ultra-Orthodox Jews or the Arabs?”

After years of war and military mobilisation, ultra-Orthodox draft exemptions and publicly funded schools offering limited mathematics and English instruction have become major grievances among secular Israelis. For Liberman, ending these arrangements is a defining objective. Yet rejecting ultra-Orthodox parties may require Palestinian support, while rejecting Palestinians may require compromise with the ultra-Orthodox.

Eisenkot’s “Zionist government” condition makes this harder. Liberal Zionists abroad present Zionism as a national liberation movement compatible with equality, rather than a colonial project creating an apartheid reality. In Israeli coalition politics, however, “Zionist” frequently functions as an ethnic boundary between legitimate Jewish partners and Palestinian representatives. The opposition’s emphasis on Zionism and conscription excludes ultra-Orthodox parties and Palestinian citizens, including Jewish Hadash voters.

This is racism operating as a principle of coalition formation. Palestinian representatives have indicated willingness to help remove Netanyahu, while his opponents hesitate to accept their participation. Eisenkot has left some conditional room for cooperation, but his Zionist requirement remains. The opposition’s exclusions give Netanyahu an advantage he might otherwise lack.

Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, launched in 2023, sought to weaken judicial independence and increase political control over the courts. Hundreds of thousands protested, yet Palestinians under occupation and the Supreme Court’s role in administering it remained marginal to much of the movement.

The international debate over apartheid and genocide has entered much of the Jewish opposition’s discourse mainly as a question of Israel’s reputation and its failure to communicate the supposed justice of its war. Even the Democrats, who oppose ethnic cleansing and settler violence, supported the disqualification of Balad’s Sami Abu Shehadeh, also advocated by Ben-Gvir. This reveals the limits of their solidarity since their argument against occupying the West Bank relies on their insistence on a Jewish majority within the 1967 borders, commonly referred to as the Green Line.

For Palestinians, a government openly advocating ethnic cleansing differs from one maintaining the structures enabling it. But that is not the difference between occupation and freedom. Nevertheless, both the Joint List and Ra’am have offered to help bring about a change of government.

Should Palestinian Israelis Save Themselves or Their Brothers and Sisters?

For Palestinian citizens of Israel, roughly one-fifth of the population, the choice is painful. The Joint List, comprising Hadash, Ta’al and Balad, emphasises Palestinian identity, equality and opposition to occupation. Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am instead seeks participation in government in exchange for improvements in housing, policing, services and funding. In 2021 it joined the Bennett-Lapid coalition.

This time Ra’am placed Yoav Segalovitz, a Jewish former senior police officer from Lapid’s party, second on its list, potentially making it more acceptable to politicians reluctant to cooperate with Palestinian representatives.

As Palestinian sociologist Ameer Fakhoury suggested in Local Call, should Palestinian citizens focus on improving their conditions within Israel, even if that means setting aside Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank? The dilemma also concerns class and personal safety amid killings associated with organised crime. Ra’am appeals to poorer, religious Palestinian communities, including parts of the Negev Bedouin population, where immediate material concerns are pressing. Segalovitz’s inclusion also attracted Jewish liberals, including some of my relatives who are former Meretz supporters, who wanted to see Jewish-Arab cooperation enter mainstream politics rather than remain confined to the socialist, anti-Zionist Hadash.

High Palestinian turnout suggests the urgency of these questions. Yet 19 seats could leave Palestinian parties able to deny Netanyahu a majority while still unacceptable to much of the opposition as partners. Palestinian voters may have made change possible. Will the Jewish opposition allow it?

Netanyahu’s 53 seats leave him eight short of a majority. Eisenkot could seek a government with Ra’am inside and the Joint List providing external support. But Bennett and Liberman would have to revise their red lines.

Another, perhaps more realistic, possibility involves the ultra-Orthodox parties. Eisenkot could seek a minority government relying on external support from Ra’am (eight seats) and United Torah Judaism (seven), bringing the parliamentary total to 63. Unlike Shas, UTJ, which represents predominantly Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox voters, is less firmly attached to the Israeli right. Recent statements by some of its leaders suggest that cooperation with an alternative government should not be ruled out.

Such an arrangement would require a more moderate conscription law than Eisenkot has promised, alongside substantial budgetary commitments to Arab and ultra-Orthodox communities. Alternatively, Eisenkot could rely on the Joint List’s 11 seats, although that would bring his bloc to only 59, requiring further parliamentary support or abstentions.

Both scenarios remain unlikely, not least because of Bennett’s and Liberman’s positions. Liberman is the hardest obstacle: his opposition to both ultra-Orthodox exemptions and cooperation with Palestinian parties effectively blocks the two most plausible routes to replacing Netanyahu.

A unity government involving Netanyahu could reduce his dependence on Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, weaken his opponents and prolong his rule. As TheMarker founder Guy Rolnik warned, such an arrangement might neutralise the opposition without delivering the reforms its voters expect. Otherwise Israel could face another election, recalling the four votes of 2019–2021. Such turnout might be hard to reproduce.

Now what?

My greatest concern is that Netanyahu could initiate another military confrontation with Iran or escalate operations in the West Bank to reshape coalition negotiations. Netanyahu has repeatedly invoked security emergencies to demand national unity. Renewed conflict, potentially involving the United States, might pressure opposition leaders to join an emergency government or encourage some of the newly elected MKs from Bennett’s or Eisenkot’s parties to defect, even if their leaders refuse to fall into this trap themselves.

For some of us on the Jewish Israeli left, including those living abroad who spent considerable money travelling home to vote, the election was never about expecting a historic breakthrough towards peace. Even an Eisenkot-led government would offer little prospect of a political solution for Palestinians. Our motivation was more modest, and perhaps more urgent: an act of solidarity with Palestinians, something that could be called a humanitarian vote.

It rests on three hopes: slowing ethnic cleansing and settler violence in the West Bank; significantly reducing torture and abuse of Palestinian prisoners; and reversing enough of the judicial overhaul to restore some protection for Palestinians in Israel and under occupation. As Guli Dolev-Hashiloni wrote in nd.aktuell, explaining why he travelled home to vote: “Jede Verbesserung, sei sie noch so klein, bedeutet, dass Leben gerettet werden. Deswegen bin ich nach Hause gefahren.”

An Eisenkot or Bennett government, as the results show, might reverse judicial changes, curb settler violence, and improve relations with Europe. For Germany, a government without Ben-Gvir and Smotrich might be easier to engage. But it would not necessarily end settlement expansion, occupation or the denial of Palestinian rights.

Palestinian voters have helped create the parliamentary possibility of replacing Netanyahu. Will the Jewish Israeli opposition accept their political legitimacy, or would it rather leave him in power?

Redacción: Ute Löhning