Benjamin Netanyahu has encountered an awkward opponent: parliamentary arithmetic.
Provisional results from Israel’s election placed his bloc on 53 seats, eight short of the majority required in the 120-member Knesset. Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc stood at 48, with Arab parties holding 19.
Those figures, with approximately 85.6 per cent of the total vote counted, offered the possibility of Netanyahu’s departure. They did not establish it.
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The distinction matters.
An election can deny a leader a majority without producing an agreed replacement. Netanyahu’s opponents must still turn their combined numbers into a workable political arrangement.
On the provisional tally, Eisenkot’s bloc and the Arab parties together would cross the 61-seat threshold. Yet Eisenkot’s resistance to an alliance with Arab parties exposes the distance between possessing the numbers and being prepared to use them.
Be that as it may, Netanyahu cannot claim a governing mandate merely because Likud emerges as the largest individual party. The test is whether he can assemble sufficient parliamentary support.
Nor can his opponents declare the job completed while leaving their own route to government unresolved.
Outstanding ballots could alter the balance. Coalition negotiations could alter it again.
For those asking whether Israel will finally be shot of Netanyahu, the answer remains conditional: the door to his departure is open, but someone must still construct a majority capable of walking through it.
