Israelis cut Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc down to 53 seats. The parties opposed to him won 67.
Yet the man those 67 seats were meant to remove has the simplest path to staying in office. All he needs is for everyone else to keep their word.
With roughly 90 percent of ballots counted, the Central Election Committee had Netanyahu’s bloc of Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism, Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism at 53 seats, eight short of a majority, and Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc of Yashar, B’Yachad, The Democrats and Yisrael Beiteinu at 48 seats, thirteen short. The remaining 19 seats belong to the Arab parties, after Arab voters turned out in record numbers hoping to unseat Netanyahu and his far-right allies. Double-envelope ballots could still move a seat or two.
It was a bad night for Netanyahu. His bloc lost 15 seats compared with the 2022 election. It was a worse night for his opponents, who were expecting more. All three final polls from...
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