Israeli parties jostle for position amid inconclusive election results

After the publication of the Israeli legislative election results on Friday left no party with a clear path to forming a governing coalition, both the main camps were scrambling for creative solutions to avoid Israel having to endure a fifth round of elections in just more than two years.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud emerged as the biggest party by far in the latest vote, winning 30 seats in the 120-member Knesset, but only parties representing a total of 57 legislators are expected to recommend Mr Netanyahu for another term.

The anti-Netanyahu camp, representing a wide spectrum of ideologically opposed parties, also falls short of the magic 61-majority needed, with this cohort representing 52 MKs in total.

Two parties not tied to either camp hold the balance of power and will determine who heads the next government: the right-wing Yamina with seven seats, and the Islamist Ra’am, or United Arab List, which has four.

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Mr Netanyahu’s plans to tempt both of these parties into a coalition received a blow when Bezalel Smotrich, head of the extreme-right Religious Zionist Party, which has six seats and is a natural Netanyahu ally, made clear his opposition to governing with Ra’am.

“There will be no right-wing government that is based on the United Arab List. Period. Not from the inside, not from the outside, not by abstention and not in some other guise,” he said. “Terrorist-supporters who deny the existence of Israel as a Jewish state are not legitimate partners in any government.”

Plan B

Mr Netanyahu’s plan B didn’t work either. Likud officials put feelers out to Gideon Sa’ar, who split from Likud to form a rival right-wing party, New Hope, but Mr Sa’ar made it clear that he was not interested in such a government deal.

The desperate search by Likud for potential defectors from the anti-Netanyahu camp will continue apace over the next few weeks.

The parties opposed to Mr Netanyahu will find it difficult to come up with a consensus candidate for prime minister. The centrist Yesh Atid, led by Yair Lapid, is the largest party in the camp with 17 seats, but New Hope – and also Yamina – declared during the election campaign that they wouldn't join a government headed by Mr Lapid, preferring a candidate from the right.

One possibility is that Yamina leader Naftali Bennett may be tempted to join this camp if this guarantees him the position of prime minister. Such an “emergency government” would probably serve for a limited period and deal exclusively with the health and economic aspects of the Covid-19 crisis.

It’s a long shot but the desire to end the political chaos and avoid a fifth election, while at the same time finally replacing Mr Netanyahu as prime minister, could propel political rivals into previously unimaginable compromises.