Israelis await final election results as Netanyahu rivals weigh joining forces with Arab parties

Jerusalem: Anxious Israelis watched election results near completion Wednesday, as no clear winner emerged and weeks of negotiating could lie ahead for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an array of opposition parties trying to unseat him.

Arab-led parties made a historic showing, but it's not clear if the other opponents of Netanyahu's far-right government would form a coalition with them for a majority of seats in parliament. Issues around the Palestinians and their descendants remain incredibly sensitive in Israel.

Netanyahu seeks to remain the country's longest-serving prime minister. In defiant comments after the vote - which showed his Likud party losing ground since the 2022 election - he dismissed the idea of partnering with Arab parties as treasonous.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu warned against a "dangerous government" that might include them. He won't work with the Arab-led parties, whose constituents make up 20% of Israel's population, and they have also ruled out any partnership with him.

His top challenger, centrist former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, has left the door open to partnering with Arab parties under certain conditions, including their recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and of Hamas as an extremist group.

It's not clear whether some of Eisenkot's likely partners who have ruled out such an alliance will change their minds to force Netanyahu from office.

Israeli voters choose parties, not individuals. With 85% of votes counted, Netanyahu's Likud party has 20.8% and Eisenkot's Yashar party has 16.1%. Arab-led parties had 14.9%.

Emerging results indicated that neither Netanyahu's nor Eisenkot's coalition blocs would reach the 61 seats needed for a majority in parliament, the 120-seat Knesset. Local media projected 53 seats for Likud and allied parties, 48 for Yashar and allied parties and 19 for Arab-led parties.

Counting absentee ballots will last until Thursday evening, said Elad Naveh, control manager at the Central Elections Committee. There are an estimated half-million of them from military personnel and diplomats.

Nearly 78% of eligible voters turned out, the highest since 1999.

Voting reflected unease over Netanyahu's alliance with the far-right and anger in a war-weary nation over military draft exemptions for the significant ultra-Orthodox Jewish population. The Likud party's share of the vote declined from 23.4% in 2022. But results suggest opponents were unable to capitalize on the grief caused by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack to decisively push him from office.

One far-right partner losing support was national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. For many Israelis, he represented the worst strain of Netanyahu's government, openly taunting Palestinian detainees and asserting that many in Gaza are "not even people."

Vote-counting suggested Likud would remain the largest party and most likely to be tapped to form a government by Israel's president, Isaac Herzog. The president, however, isn't required to task the leader of the party holding the most seats.

"We must do everything we can, certainly after yesterday, to avoid another round of elections," Herzog said Wednesday.

The most obvious path to a parliamentary majority could involve Eisenkot partnering with Arab-led parties - which have 14.9% of the votes counted - but that's politically challenging.

If no one can put together a majority coalition, new elections could be held early next year. Israel held five elections between April 2019 and November 2022 because of a similar stalemate. It is unclear whether thousands of Israelis living abroad would again fly back home to vote, and whether Arab voters would again surge to the polls.

"After an election with such high voter turnout, it would be a mistake to hold another election," Eisenkot told supporters early Wednesday. "It is our duty, and my personal duty, to do everything possible to respect the will of the people."

Minority governments also are possible, but they must rely on cooperation from parties outside the government to pass legislation.

Confronted with Arab parties' strong election showing, Israelis renewed a debate about identity.

"We have no future here if we do not stop being afraid," said Yair Golan, whose Democrats party supports bringing Arab-led parties into a coalition. "We must no longer accept Netanyahu's racist division between Jewish votes and Arab votes."

Israel's Arab citizens are descendants of Palestinians who remained in the state after its creation in 1948. They often face discrimination and are viewed with wariness because of their solidarity with the Palestinian cause. That suspicion intensified after Oct. 7, even though Arab citizens were also among those killed and abducted.

The mood was joyful overnight at the headquarters of the United Arab List, the lone Arab party to ever join a governing coalition, briefly, in 2021.

"We are here, we are not on the sidelines," party leader Mansour Abbas declared.

Some Israelis found that an unusual, if not uncomfortable, prospect.

"We are little by little coming to a situation where we have to face reality," said Hanna Doukhan, a voter in Tel Aviv. "I don't see a possibility to form a government without the Arabs."

Others were hopeful. "This would open the door to repairing our society" while preserving Israel as the national home of the Jewish people, said Eti Wissotzky-Cohen in Tel Aviv.

And in Nazareth, one of Israel's largest Arab cities, Awni Zoabi thanked God for a possible return to rationality in a country where extreme rhetoric has increased. "The Arabic language has become as if it were a crime," Zoabi said.

Netanyahu's supporters believe he is protecting Israel's security and Jewish identity in the face of international pressure and liberal elites at home.

"I prefer that (Netanyahu) assembles the coalition," said Ran Cohen, a Jerusalem resident. "He's the only one who knows how to do the job properly, knows how to speak to the world."

Detractors say Netanyahu, facing an ongoing corruption trial, dragged out the war in Gaza and its hostage crisis for political reasons. They say he is undermining Israel's independent judiciary. And they accuse his government of allowing ultra-Orthodox religious Jews to avoid military conscription.

The treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and rising settler violence in the occupied West Bank, have stoked worldwide outrage, straining ties with Israel's closest allies and fueling a rise in antisemitism.

Eisenkot is viewed by supporters as a capable leader with sterling security credentials. His son was killed in Gaza, and his backers believe he feels deeply the country's pain. Parties that likely would partner with him have vowed to improve Israel's international standing and work to conscript ultra-Orthodox men while bolstering the independence of the judiciary.