Netanyahu's Coalition Falls Eight Seats Short of Knesset Majority

Projected results from Tuesday’s elections in Israel indicate that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not have enough seats to form a government. His coalition is projected to hold fifty-three of the 120 seats in the Knesset. This is eight seats fewer than the sixty-one required for a majority. The outcome leaves the path to a new administration unclear and sets the stage for weeks of negotiation.

The voting patterns revealed a sharp shift among Palestinian citizens of Israel. Turnout was estimated at eighty percent, a historic high. Arab parties are projected to nearly double their legislative presence, moving from ten seats to nineteen. The Joint List is expected to secure twelve of those seats, while the Ra’am party, led by Mansour Abbas, is projected to take seven. This increase in representation complicates coalition math for both sides of the political divide.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party remains the largest single entity in the parliament. However, the broader pro-Netanyahu bloc did not secure a majority among Jewish voters. Gadi Eisenkot, the main challenger, led the Yashar party. His party is projected to win twenty-one seats. While this is a strong result for a new entrant, it falls short of the groundswell that polls had suggested. Eisenkot has framed the outcome as a mandate for a Zionist majority, a characterization that critics say plays to Netanyahu’s base.

President Isaac Herzog will now determine who attempts to form a government. He will ask party leaders which candidate they support. The chosen candidate will have approximately one month to build a majority. Eisenkot may be positioned to lead the largest bloc of parties, but he requires support from Arab parties to reach the threshold. His campaign stance on this issue has been ambiguous, leading some opposition partners to reject the idea of an Arab-led coalition.

Netanyahu’s recent economic comments have added pressure to his position. He stated that the multi-billion dollar annual U.S. defense package is over and suggested Israel should use cryptocurrency to circumvent international sanctions. More than one hundred Israeli economists signed a letter criticizing this approach, calling it a bizarre solution common among criminal organizations. These remarks rattled markets and added urgency to the coalition talks.

The political landscape offers two primary paths forward. The first is a unity government involving Netanyahu, Eisenkot, and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. U.S. President Donald Trump has indicated a preference for a government that excludes Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister. The second path is a repeat election. Netanyahu may prefer this outcome because he believes the high turnout of Arab voters and the participation of sixty-seven thousand overseas Israelis will not be repeated. He currently leads a caretaker government and could emerge with a wider lead in a future vote.

Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats party, argued that the anti-Netanyahu bloc should use its combined majority. He stated that the vote of a citizen in an Arab city is worth the same as that in a Jewish city. Yousef Jabareen, leader of the Joint List, said his party is prepared to advance its values through political power. He described the choice as being between continued exclusion or genuine partnership. Both leaders have signaled willingness to work with non-Arab parties to end the current government’s rule.