Netanyahu's Likud trails Eisenkot's Yashar as Israeli election heads to coalition talks

Nearly 78% of eligible voters turned out in Israel's election, the highest level since 1999, as counting reached 85% completion on Wednesday with no coalition bloc crossing the 61-seat threshold needed to form a government.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party stood at 20.8% of the vote, down from 23.4% in the 2022 election, while centrist challenger Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party polled 16.1%. Local media projected 53 seats for Likud and allied parties, 48 for Yashar and allied parties, and 19 seats for Arab-led parties. Arab-led parties took 14.9% of the votes counted. The official count does not indicate how many seats each party will hold in the 120-seat Knesset.

Final results are expected by the end of the week and include about half a million absentee ballots from military personnel and diplomats that remain to be counted. Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, is expected to tap Likud as the largest party to begin forming a government, though the president is not required to task the leader of the party holding the most seats. "We must do everything we can, certainly after yesterday, to avoid another round of elections," Herzog said Wednesday.

Netanyahu told supporters he would not work with Arab-led parties, whose constituents make up 20% of Israel's population, and dismissed the idea of partnering with them as treasonous. He warned Wednesday against what he called a "dangerous government" that might include them. The Arab-led parties have also ruled out any partnership with him. Eisenkot has left open the possibility of partnering with Arab parties if they recognize Israel as a Jewish state and Hamas as an extremist group, though some of his likely partners have ruled out such an alliance.

Yair Golan, whose Democrats party supports bringing Arab-led parties into a coalition, said, "We have no future here if we do not stop being afraid." He added, "We must no longer accept Netanyahu's racist division between Jewish votes and Arab votes." Mansour Abbas, leader of the United Arab List, which briefly joined a governing coalition in 2021, addressed supporters at the party's headquarters as results came in: "We are here, we are not on the sidelines."

In Tel Aviv, voter Hanna Doukhan said, "We are little by little coming to a situation where we have to face reality," adding, "I don't see a possibility to form a government without the Arabs." Eti Wissotzky-Cohen, also in Tel Aviv, said coalition with Arab parties "would open the door to repairing our society" while preserving Israel as the national home of the Jewish people. In Nazareth, Awni Zoabi said, "The Arabic language has become as if it were a crime."

Eisenkot addressed supporters early Wednesday on the theme of national unity, pledging to form a government and promising "a new era, an era of hope." Ran Cohen, a Jerusalem resident, said he prefers Netanyahu assembles the coalition: "He's the only one who knows how to do the job properly, knows how to speak to the world." If no party assembles a majority, new elections could be held early next year.

Israel held five elections between April 2019 and November 2022 amid similar stalemate. Minority governments are possible but must rely on cooperation from parties outside the government to pass legislation.