Herzog Starts Coalition Talks After Israel Deadlock — SkimNews
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- Isaac Herzog began consultations with political parties on Wednesday evening over whom to task with forming a new government, and told party leaders that "not every commitment and promise can be fulfilled" if Israel is to avoid another election; he also warned that Arab Israelis — about one fifth of the population — "must not be smeared."
- Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party and its far-right and ultra-Orthodox allies won 53 of the 120 Knesset seats, while Gadi Eisenkot's centrist Yashar party and three other Jewish opposition parties took 48 — neither side securing a majority.
- Joint List and the United Arab List won an unprecedented 19 seats after a surge in turnout among Arab voters, making the two Arab-led alliances potential kingmakers even though all but one Jewish party pledged before the polls not to work with them to form a government.
- Noam Sohlberg presented Herzog with the official results Wednesday morning, saying there was no evidence of irregularities and that unsubstantiated claims by Netanyahu's camp that Arab-led parties "stole" the election did not justify delaying certification; the Shin Bet's foreign-interference inquiry, he said, would not fundamentally change the outcome. Whoever Herzog taps gets 28 days to form a government, with a possible 14-day extension, and the president need not choose the leader of the party with the most seats.
- Shin Bet intelligence pointed to "a widespread phenomenon involving the influx of substantial funds into Israel from foreign states," some of them hostile, and Israeli media reported a claim that Qatar provided funding aimed at boosting Arab-community turnout — which Qatar's foreign ministry categorically denied.
- Itamar Ben-Gvir called on the Shin Bet to arrest all the leaders of Arab parties and interrogate them "until these suspicions are fully clarified," while Joint List chairman Yousef Jabareen accused Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu of trying to "steal the election from the public."
- Gali Baharav-Miara rejected a reported demand by Shin Bet chief David Zini to interrogate four Arab politicians, saying no evidence of wrongdoing had been presented; Eisenkot then alleged Netanyahu and Likud were "trying to carry out a veritable pogrom against democracy and the rule of law," and Likud accused Baharav-Miara of trying to obstruct the investigation and cover up foreign interference.
Why it matters: Herzog's pick gets 28 days to try to form a government, and with 53 seats for Netanyahu's bloc, 48 for Eisenkot's and 19 for Arab parties, nobody commands a majority — his discretion over the nominee is the whole arithmetic. Arab parties' pivotal 19 seats also put their leaders squarely in Ben-Gvir's arrest demands and the Shin Bet's foreign-funding inquiry.
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