Israel coalition math: Both blocs lack a majority
Neither Netanyahu's Likud nor Eisenkot's Yashar can reach 61 seats without breaking campaign pledges.
By Ethan Cook ·
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and challenger Gadi Eisenkot each fell short of the 61 seats needed to govern Israel after the election. Netanyahu's Likud and allied parties won 53 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. Eisenkot's bloc took 48. Nine parties cleared the threshold to enter parliament.
Both leaders now face the same problem: building a majority requires working with partners they campaigned against. Eisenkot's coalition includes four Jewish Israeli parties: Yashar, B'Yachad, Israel Beytenu, and the Democrats. Adding the Arab parties Ra'am, with 8 seats, and the Joint List, with 11, would give him 67 seats. Three of his four partners pledged during the campaign not to sit with Arab parties.
Eisenkot set conditions for any government he joins, including a commitment to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, mandatory military or national service, and recognition of Hamas as a terrorist organization. He told Channel 12 News in late September that the Arab parties did not meet those conditions. Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Liberman, and Yair Golan have all weighed in on the question. Liberman said he would form a coalition of "Zionist parties only." Yair Golan has urged the other three parties in the bloc to work with Arab parties.
The Joint List issued a statement after the election saying it was open to "political cooperation to bring down Netanyahu's government." It did not say whether it would back an Eisenkot-led government. Ra'am leader Mansour Abbas told Channel 12 News before the election: "I will know how to bring a government to the Knesset."
A second option for Eisenkot is the 13 seats held by Shas and United Torah Judaism. Both sides campaigned on opposite positions. Eisenkot's four parties made ending the ultra-Orthodox exemption from military service a central promise. Shas and UTJ told their Haredi voters they would block forced conscription.
The third path is a unity government with Netanyahu. All four parties in Eisenkot's bloc campaigned on removing him. Eisenkot said in a late-October radio interview: "I unequivocally commit that I will not sit under Netanyahu, not even in a rotation." Bennett said in a radio interview: "I am not going to sit under him because he is the person destroying the State of Israel." Liberman posted on X two weeks ago: "With Netanyahu, even if the world turns upside down, we will not sit with him under any circumstances." Yair Golan said: "We will not sit with Netanyahu and his partners. Period."
Netanyahu needs eight more seats to reach 61. He called cooperation with Arab parties "a disgrace" in a speech on the eve of the election. His ultra-nationalist partners, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, ruled out such cooperation during the campaign. Netanyahu held talks with Abbas about forming a government after the 2022 election.
If no candidate assembles a government, Israel heads to another election.
