PM Lapid concedes defeat to Netanyahu in election
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Thursday conceded defeat to Benjamin Netanyahu in this week’s election, setting the stage for the former Israeli leader to return to power.
Lapid congratulated Netanyahu and instructed his staff to prepare an organized transition of power, his office said.
“The state of Israel comes before any political consideration,” Lapid said. “I wish Netanyahu success, for the sake of the people of Israel and the state of Israel.”
Lapid, who has served as interim prime minister for the past four months, made the announcement after a near final vote count showed Netanyahu securing a parliamentary majority with his religious and ultranationalist allies.
The former prime minister is expected to form the country’s most right-wing government in history when he takes power, likely in the coming weeks.
Israel held its fifth election in four years Tuesday, a protracted political crisis that saw voters divided over Netanyahu’s fitness to serve while on trial for corruption.
The final ballots were still being counted late Thursday. Netanyahu and his ultranationalist and ultraOrthodox allies were expected to control 64 or 65 seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, or Knesset. His opponents in the current coalition, led by Lapid, were expected to win 50 or 51 seats, with the remainder held by a small unaffiliated Arab party.
Netanyahu’s victory and his comfortable majority put an end to Israel’s political instability, for now. But it leaves Israelis split over their leadership and over the values that define their state: Jewish or democratic.
Netanyahu’s top partner in the government is expected to be the far-right Religious Zionism party, whose main candidate, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is a disciple of a racist anti-Arab rabbi.
Ben-Gvir says he wants to end Palestinian autonomy in parts of the West Bank and until recently hung a photo in his home of Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli who killed 29 Palestinians in a West Bank shooting attack in 1994.