Turnout for the election - Israel’s first since Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attacks - hit over 77%, according to Israel’s Central Elections Committee.
Exit polls in Israel’s key legislative election on Tuesday suggested no clear victor, with both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and main rival Gadi Eisenkot falling short of a majority.
The Arab parties’ 18 seats is the biggest game changer. The Netanyahu block will obviously never partner with them, and neither they nor the Eisenkot block is large enough to form a government coalition without them. So the only way we make it out of this mess is with some real Arab representation in the government.
I really hope that happens. But it’s worth noting that some (not all!) of the Arab parties don’t acknowledge Israel’s legitimacy, so obviously cannot be included in Israel’s government.
Please oh please let this work out. I want to get off this Bibi horror ride.
It’s more that the Arab Parties would be deeply reluctant to partner with them. But that hardly matters when Gadi Eisenkot is IDF to his bones, and fully in favor of ethnic cleansing of Arabs.
The biggest problem you’ve got is Itamar Ben-Gvir picking up and changing sides, on the condition he gets to keep massacring school children
He’s salivating at the thought
Really, I think smaller parties jumping bloc is a lot more likely than a deal with the Arab parties. Or new elections, of course, which I think trigger automatically if they let the clock run out