Israel’s Netanyahu appears to hold lead in election
JERUSALEM – Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to hold a narrow lead early Wednesday in Israeli elections, according to exit polls, potentially paving the way for a return to power thanks to a boost from an extreme rightwing ally known for inflammatory anti- Arab comments.
The exit polls were preliminary, and the final results could change as votes are tallied. However, they pointed to a continued rightward shift in the Israeli electorate, further dimming hopes for peace with the Palestinians and setting the stage for possible conflict with the Biden administration and Israel’s supporters in the U.S.
Tuesday’s election was Israel’s fifth in less than four years, with all of them focused largely on Netanyahu’s fitness to govern. On trial for a slew of corruption charges, Netanyahu is seen by supporters as the victim of a witch hunt and vilified by opponents as a crook and threat to democracy.
The vote, like past elections, was tight. The exit polls on Israel’s three major television stations all predicted that Netanyahu and his hard-line allies would capture 61 or 62 seats in parliament, giving him the majority in the 120-seat parliament needed to govern.
But the polls showed a small Arab party close to crossing the threshold required to enter parliament – a development that could erase his slim majority.
Elections officials worked through the night tallying votes. In the early hours of Wednesday, 25% of the ballots had been counted, and the final outcome remained unclear.
If Netanyahu’s allies emerge victorious, it could still take weeks of negotiations for a coalition government to be formed. Continued deadlock and a new round of elections are also a possibility.
Speaking in Jerusalem in the middle of the night, Netanyahu asked his supporters to have patience and said Likud was “on the verge of a very big victory.”
Perhaps fearing that Arab voters would deny him victory, Netanyahu tweeted allegations of violence and vote tampering at Arab polling stations. He provided no evidence, and the country’s nonpartisan Central Elections Committee dismissed the “baseless rumors.”
Netanyahu later said he was “asking for total electoral purity because that’s the basis of democracy.”
Arabs make up some 20% of Israel’s population and have been a key factor in blocking Netanyahu in recent elections. But this time around their vote was split among three different factions, each of which was at risk of falling below the threshold, which would mean those votes were wasted.
Netanyahu was Israel’s longest- serving prime minister, governing for 12 consecutive years – and 15 years altogether – before he was ousted last year by a diverse coalition led by the centrist Yair Lapid.
But the coalition that Lapid cobbled together, which included the first Arab party ever to join a government, was ravaged by infighting and collapsed after just one year in power. Those parties were poised to capture just 54 seats, according to the
polls.
Lapid, addressing supporters early Wednesday, insisted that the race was not decided.
“Until the last envelope is counted, nothing is over and nothing is final,” he said.
The night’s strongest showing was by far-right lawmaker Itamar BenGvir’s Religious Zionism, which emerged as the third-largest party. At an all-male campaign gathering in Jerusalem, religious men wearing Jewish skullcaps and waving Israeli
flags danced in celebration.
Ben- Gvir is a disciple of a racist rabbi, Meir Kahane, who was banned from parliament and whose Kach party was branded a terrorist group by the United States before he was assassinated in New York in 1990.
Kahane’s agenda called for banning intermarriage between Arabs and Jews, stripping Arabs of Israeli citizenship and expelling large numbers of Palestinians.