Eisenkot and Netanyahu have reason to celebrate, but Israel does not, yet - comment

If there are two clear winners from Tuesday’s election, at least according to the exit polls, they are Gadi Eisenkot and Benjamin Netanyahu.

The former IDF chief of staff began this campaign with his party polling in the single digits. If the projections hold, the ended it as the clear head of the bloc seeking to oust Benjamin Netanyahu.

That is no small achievement, and it sends a clear message to Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman: It is time to set aside their plans to force Eisenkot into a rotation agreement that would make one of them prime minister first. The opposition camp has spoken, and the voters have chosen Eisenkot. The others need to respect that decision, and if the opposition is to form a government, Eisenkot should lead it.

Netanyahu also pulled off an impressive win. Based on the projections, he is close to 27 seats, almost nine more than what the final polls said he would get. He couldn't increase his bloc, which is at about 50, but he led the Likud to an impressive accomplishment: ending, despite everything, as the largest party in the Knesset.

But while Eisenkot and Netanyahu scored personal accomplishments, the question is whether the Israeli people have won. That will take time to know.

The exit polls point to a problem that has long been known throughout the campaign: Neither camp has a decisive 61-seat majority, and neither has a clear path to forming a coalition. That leaves us with a simple but unavoidable conclusion. For Israel to form a government in the coming weeks, someone will have to break a campaign promise.

It could be Eisenkot deciding to form a government with the support of Ra’am, the Arab party led by Mansour Abbas. It could be Bennett, Liberman or even Eisenkot deciding to cross the partisan line and join a government with Netanyahu.

That is why the coming days will be so consequential. Because if no one is willing to compromise, Israel could find itself barreling straight toward another election. And after everything this country has endured in recent years, that would be a gamble we simply cannot afford.

Another conclusion from the exit polls is worth noting: a decisive majority of Israelis oppose Netanyahu and want to see him out of office. Based on projections, approximately 70 seats went to parties, Jewish and Arab, committed to ousting Netanyahu.

That does not mean all 70 support Eisenkot or that they can necessarily sit together in one government. But it does mean that Netanyahu and his coalition have lost the support of a majority of the electorate.

And this brings us to another disturbing feature of this election – the Arab turnout and the results that they brought, either 17 or 18 seats. That is unprecedented, despite the campaign that the Likud led in which it warned that Arab citizens were voting in large numbers. The message was unmistakable: high Arab turnout was presented not as a celebration of Israeli democracy but as a threat to Israel’s future.

We have become so accustomed to this rhetoric that we barely notice it anymore. But we should.

Imagine an American politician warning next week that too many Jews were turning out to vote in Michigan. People would be outraged, and rightly so. Why, then, do we accept similar rhetoric about Arab citizens in Israel?

Arab Israelis are citizens of this country. They have the same right to vote as Jewish Israelis. It is one of the founding principles of the state, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, a document this government has too often tried to cast aside.

Are there legitimate reasons to debate whether Arab political parties should be included in the next government? Yes. But portraying high voter turnout among Arab citizens as a threat to Israel’s future is something entirely different.

The real question now is whether the politicians elected on Tuesday will be able to translate the results into a functioning government.

Even if the exit polls show a decisive majority against Netanyahu, he will not simply step aside. He will hope that Eisenkot, Bennett and Liberman fail to agree on a path forward, fail to agree to sit with the Arabs, and if that happens, he will then have an opening to try to bring one of those parties into his camp.

But that will not be simple. Any party considering joining Netanyahu will come with demands. It will almost certainly refuse to let him take the first turn as prime minister in a rotation agreement; it will demand a state commission of inquiry be established into the failures of October 7, and it will need a real solution to the ultra-Orthodox draft crisis that has torn Israel apart.

Can Netanyahu agree to all of that? Probably not

For Eisenkot and his potential partners, time will be critical, and they will need to move fast if they want to form a government – whether with Arab parties or a minority government. Netanyahu will not sit quietly while they negotiate and he will try to recruit defectors and prevent the establishment of a coalition before it can even take shape.

There is also the looming possibility of another attack against Iran, potentially right after the American midterm elections next week. A new war could give Netanyahu an opening to try to force a national unity government.

In the coming days, we will find out the final results of the vote. Such a high turnout shows us just how concerned Israelis are for the future of their country.

The voters have done their part. Now the politicians need to do theirs.