Israel's President Isaac Herzog has formally accepted the certified results of the parliamentary election held on October 27 and started consultations with party leaders over who should be asked to assemble the next government, Al Jazeera reports. The meetings began on Wednesday and were set to continue on Thursday. The step undercuts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's attempts to cast doubt on the vote, in which his bloc lost its majority in the 120-seat parliament while Arab-led parties recorded their strongest result yet.
Why it matters
Neither side emerged with the 61 seats needed to govern. According to Al Jazeera, Netanyahu's coalition took 53 seats and the bloc led by opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot won 48, leaving both short of a majority. That arithmetic gives the Arab-led parties, Ra'am and the Joint List, unusual leverage: together they hold a record 19 seats, and their choices could decide who gets the first chance to build a coalition. The outcome will shape both Israel's domestic agenda and its approach to the Palestinians, and it carries weight for a region already watching closely.
A divided parliament and a pivotal minority
Herzog spent Wednesday meeting representatives of Religious Zionism and Zehut, Shas and Yisrael Beytenu, and said on X that he had received their recommendations on which member of the Knesset should be given the task of forming a government. Three factions tied to Netanyahu's religious-nationalist base urged that the prime minister be given the opportunity, while a fourth, led by a former ally who has since broken with him, backed Eisenkot, according to Al Jazeera.
Eight more parties, including the two Arab-led factions, were scheduled to see the president on Thursday, with Eisenkot's Yashar party and Netanyahu's Likud booked last.
Eisenkot's position strengthened when Ra'am said it would put his name forward. That lifted his expected support to 56 lawmakers, the Israeli news site Ynet reported, still five short of a majority. The Joint List has not stated its position. Israel's Channel 12 reported that the party was expected to coordinate with Eisenkot, either endorsing him if asked or abstaining if he preferred that course. Its 11 seats would carry him past the 61-seat threshold.
One ultra-Orthodox faction, Degel HaTorah, which holds four of United Torah Judaism's seven seats, said it would recommend neither man. According to The Times of Israel, the group split with Netanyahu over his coalition's failure to pass a law exempting Haredi men from military service.
Fraud claims rejected
Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly alleged, without substantiation, that the Arab-led parties took the election improperly, possibly with help from abroad. Israel's elections commission said on Wednesday that it had examined every fraud claim thoroughly and found nothing that damaged the vote's integrity or changed the result. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara also turned down a request to question elected officials when no supporting evidence was presented, Al Jazeera reports.
Herzog called on both camps to give ground to avert another election, saying they had to accept that not every pledge could be kept. With no clear victor, he asked for fresh thinking, courage and goodwill so that the country itself comes out ahead. He also supported looking into suspected outside interference but cautioned against casting suspicion on Palestinian-Israeli voters, who make up roughly a fifth of the population, and said he held them in high regard. He condemned what he described as crude and racist language heard in recent days.
Once the consultations close, Herzog will name the candidate he judges best able to put together a coalition, which in practice means Netanyahu or Eisenkot. He has several days to announce his choice; the nominee then gets 28 days to form a government, with the possibility of a 14-day extension.
The next signal to watch is the Joint List's decision, since its stance could determine whether Eisenkot crosses the majority line or the country is pulled toward another election.
