AA Edit | An Uphill Task for Bibi to Become PM Again

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have played many roles in his chequered career, but can he play Houdini to get out of the blurry choice the public made in the polls and be sworn in as the Prime Minister again? That is the million-dollar question as a record number of voters, including the Israeli Arabs, turned up to mark their ballots in the most consequential election in decades.

As the laborious physical counting of paper ballots in the proportional representation system wore on past the three-fourths mark, the Netanyahu camp was marginally ahead of that of his main rival, the retired army chief Gadi Eisenkot. The huge turnout and the Arab vote indicate a popular upswing against Mr Netanyahu who has been waging wars against Hamas and the Palestinians of Gaza, the Hezbollah of Lebanon and Iran, all after the barbarous Hamas attack on Israel three years ago.

Since neither camp, mostly pegged to the right and the far-right, may be willing to invite the Arab parties — projected to get as many as 19 seats in the Knesset of 120 seats — into the coalition for the fear of upsetting their Jewish supporters and their nationalist urge, it is likely that negotiations could prove arduous and another election may be needed in due course as per the Israeli poll protocol.

Since the Arabs resident in the West Bank have no vote, they might be missing their say in this moment of national reckoning for Israel. The leftists, part of the Eisenkot camp, are calling for a big change in accepting the support of Arab parties to form an unprecedented national coalition, but that might call for a political construct that appears a bridge too far for Israel.

Conditions difficult to fulfil for both sides may be set for what may seem an impossible political and religious union, but the situation is so compelling as to not to rule out any permutation and combination, more so considering an Arab party — the United Arab List — was part of the ruling coalition for a while in 2021.

In this historic show of strength, the Arabs, descendants of the Palestinians who chose to stay on in Israel after 1948 — can be said to be the biggest winners in the 2026 poll. The Arabs may hold the key to government formation though Mr Netanyahu cannot countenance a non-Zionist regime while Mr Eisenkot has pledged to build “a stable Zionist government”.

A persistent gridlock might, however, mean that Mr Netanyahu stays very much in charge as the caretaker PM and, despite being warned about any excessive actions in the name of Israeli security imperative, might feel emboldened to continue the attacks on Hamas and Hezbollah and try convincing the US President Donald Trump into resuming the bombing campaign against Iran that he has been threatening for weeks now.

The 54-47 lead that the Netanyahu camp was projected to be holding at around the 75 per cent mark in the counting enthused even ‘Bibi’s’ benefactor Mr Trump enough to posit that his endorsement may have helped Mr Netanyahu. At any rate, being so near and yet so far away is not a situation that Mr Netanyahu is unfamiliar with.

Whichever way the Israeli government formation issue swings, what will remain unchanged will be Israel’s security situation in a restive region and its belligerence in attacking enemies post-October 7, 2023 and its strategic aim that Iran should never possess a nuclear weapon that could be used against it.