Bibi’s math: 55 > 60

At the end of May, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led his coalition in dissolving the Knesset and calling a second election in less than one year, it was because he could not form a coalition of more than 60 seats. It technically wouldn’t have been a minority coalition, but it wasn’t a majority either – it was a stalemate. Rather than have every single vote in the Knesset be an uphill battle, Netanyahu chose a different fight, and Israel went to another election.

Since then, Netanyahu’s goal was to reach 61 right-wing seats without Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu. But he failed.

As of Wednesday, there’s a new number in play: 55. After a meeting between Netanyahu and his “natural partners” – the leaders of Shas, United Torah Judaism and Yamina – they agreed to work as one rightwing bloc of 55 seats and negotiate together as a group.

How is 55 greater than 60? Call it Netanyahu’s new math.

“After we established the right-wing bloc, there are only two options,” Netanyahu said. “Either a government led by me, or a dangerous government leaning on Arab parties.”

Netanyahu’s only chance to remain prime minister is by making sure that his potential coalition partners don’t start wandering over to Blue and White’s side. The way to make sure they don’t do that is to promise he will stay with them and not follow what seems like the more obvious path to a coalition – to reach across the aisle himself.

The results as of Wednesday night with more than 90% of the votes counted gave the center-left bloc 43 votes on its own – significantly fewer than the Right. Blue and White leader Benny Gantz would need the Joint List’s recommendations – or at least 11 of them, without Balad – as well as Yisrael Beytenu’s in order to have more votes than Netanyahu.

So that’s the first place where the right-wing bloc of 55 could work to Netanyahu’s advantage.

If Yisrael Beytenu and most of the Joint List don’t go for Gantz, the minority bloc may still be enough to convince President Reuven Rivlin to task Netanyahu with forming the government.

Even if Gantz receives all of those recommendations adding up to 63, a majority of the Knesset, his path to a coalition remains unclear.

Liberman said that he would not be in a government with the Joint List “even in a parallel universe,” and the feeling is mutual. The Yisrael Beytenu chairman repeated that he will recommend only a candidate who will commit to creating a national-unity government – but as long as Likud remains loyal to Netanyahu, that requires Gantz to go back on his campaign promise not to sit with Netanyahu as long as he has indictments pending.

If Gantz tries to build a coalition without Liberman and without the Joint List, he’ll have Democratic Union and Labor-Gesher in the bag, but again, that’s only 44 seats.

Netanyahu wants the bloc of 55 to stick together so that in such a scenario, Gantz can’t win over the other 17 seats he needs to build a majority coalition. And then, if Gantz’s time runs out, Netanyahu would be the one to get the next shot at forming a government.

Of course, 55 does not make a majority either. But at that point maybe Netanyahu could win over all or some of Blue and White, or Labor-Gesher, or even Yisrael Beytenu, despite Liberman’s tough talk. He might be counting on everyone’s hope not to drag the entire country into a third election in less than a year – a hope that could sway these MKs to do something that they currently refuse to do.

And that is how, by Netanyahu’s calculation, not only is 55 today worth more than 60 was a few months ago, but 55 seems to be his only hope for remaining in office. •