With practically the entire vote counted, the victory of Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud) and his allies was even more overwhelming. Exit polls pointed to 62 deputies for the right-wing bloc, but the final count of ballots has raised the figure to 65. "Bibi, the king of Israel, is alive and he exists!" It was the thunderous song with which his followers celebrated, ecstatic for the return to power of the politician with more years (15) at the head of the Jewish state.
Likud learned from previous lessons: despite the initial victorious omen, on election night the party's heavyweights avoided popping the champagne. "We must wait for the final count, then we will discuss the division of ministries," they insisted to the press. The strengthening of a minority Arab faction -which finally disappeared- or the transfer of a seat to the centrist Yair Lapid's bloc could disrupt Bibi's triumphant return to the official residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem. The surprisingly high turnout (71.3%, the highest since 2015) favored his return.
In the winning bloc, Likud added 32 deputies, the extreme right of Religious Zionism 14, and the ultra-Orthodox factions United Judaism for the Torah 8 and Shas 11. The center-left front, which suffered a bigger blow than expected, adds Yesh Atid with 24, National Unity with 12, Israel Beitenu with 5, and Avodah with 4. The two Arab factions, Ra'am and Jadash-Ta'al, added 5 each. The great absentee: the leftist Meretz, who did not pass the minimum percentage of votes.
Like a communicative beast, Netanyahu hit the right button. When there were barely twelve minutes left to close the polling stations, he kept insisting: “There is still time, go out and vote. We're still tied, and we won't win without your help." When his acolytes were already celebrating in style the first result of the exit polls, he demanded calm and mentioned "previous bad experiences", in which they sinned from early triumphalism.
Bibi's closest advisers puffed up their chests after confirming the turnaround: "This campaign will end up being studied in schools," they celebrated. The corruption cases opened against him or the alerts unleashed before the construction of an executive supported by Jewish supremacists did not decimate his support. In the end, Netanyahu won two more seats than in the fourth election in 2021. He built his victory on the promise to restore stability with "a stable right-wing government for the next four years," and the urgency to "restore national pride" in the face of what that he considered excessive lukewarmness of the previous executive in the face of the security threats facing Israel.
However, the big party was held at the electoral headquarters of Religious Zionism, which jumped from 6 to 14 seats and consolidated itself as the third force in the country. “Death to the terrorists!” euphoric supporters chanted, most wearing skullcaps and Israeli flags. Itamar Ben Gvir, the controversial and charismatic extremist deputy, made his priorities clear: "We will return to show who owns this house." The populist could become a minister of internal affairs (police), whose responsibility is to calm the waters in critical places such as the Mosque Ground (or Temple Mount) in Jerusalem. Given the concern unleashed among his deserters, he recalled that “we are all brothers. We represent secular and religious, traditionalists or ultra-Orthodox, Ashkenazim or Sephardim.” The heirs of the supremacist rabbi Meir Kahana are already an inseparable part of the mainstream of the Jewish state. They promise freedom of action for soldiers in the face of Palestinian rioters, more security in the streets and to continue settling in “Greater Israel”.
One of the keys to the meteoric rise of the radical Jewish coalition was the demise of Yamina, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's right-wing faction. “Bennett betrayed promises, avoided ideological confrontations with his partners and allied himself with the left. Now the grassroots (the West Bank settlers) have not forgiven, stopped complaining and supported Ben Gvir,” said Amichai Stein of Kan11 channel.
The euphoria of nationalists and messianics contrasts with the collapse of the center-left. "Mistakes were made, they ended up paying a high price for their egos," said a former minister of the leftist Meretz. Labour's Merav Michaeli (Avodah) was blamed for dreams of grandeur, stuck in the days when the late Itzhak Rabin was winning big. Both formations avoided merging into a list, and now accumulate four seats irrelevant to Labour. “In hindsight, it seems we made a mistake,” another Avoda official commented.
