In the “Bibi” elections, yes; Bibi, no”, Israel has voted yes. The scrutiny of 97% of the ballot papers in the elections held this Tuesday gives a comfortable majority to the Bibi bloc – as the former prime minister and leader of the conservative Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, is popularly known – over the broad coalition led by the centrist Yair Lapid who took the job from him last year. The key is the success of the far-right and racist Religious Zionism list, which jumps in just one year from six to 14 of the 120 deputies of Parliament, the Knesset. Israel is heading to return to power the leader who has held it the longest, 15 years, and to resolve the political deadlock that has led to five elections in three and a half years. It is the country that has gone to the polls the most since 1996, every 2.4 years.
The ballot, released this Wednesday morning, enlarges the advantage of Netanyahu’s bloc over its rivals compared to what the exit polls pointed to last night. However, in an electoral system like the Israeli one, the result can change until the last ballot, as Prime Minister Lapid stressed on Tuesday night. A 3.25% vote is needed to enter Parliament and crossing the threshold automatically gives four seats that can turn the political map. One of the Arab parties, Balad, is brushing against it as the count goes on and Meretz’s anti-war left is right on the edge.
The tally gives Likud victory with 31 seats, one more than in the elections a year ago. The other three lists of the pro-Netanyahu bloc add up to 34 deputies, with which they obtain 65 of the 120 seats.
One of them, Religious Zionism, becomes the third force in the Knesset. It has been the most benefited by the high turnout: 71.3%, the highest since 2015. “I will do everything possible to form a fully right-wing government. For the benefit of all, also of those who do not like me”, his number two, Itamar Ben Gvir, the sensation of the campaign, who marked the rest of the forces what was being talked about and how, declared on television this Wednesday. .
Ben Gvir is a disciple of Meir Kahane – the American-Israeli rabbi whose party, Kaj, was outlawed and designated a terrorist organization in Israel – and advocates the death penalty for “terrorists” (including anyone who throws a Molotov cocktail). , expel “disloyal” citizens, such as those who throw stones, and grant immunity to soldiers and police. Until recently he had in his living room a portrait of Baruch Goldstein, the settler who in 1994 entered the Hebron mosque during prayers and killed 29 Palestinians by opening fire on the crowd.
The ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party Shas rises notably, from nine to 12 seats, and the Ashkenazi United Judaism of the Torah, from seven to eight.
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The government bloc drops to 50, despite the growth (from 17 to 24) of Lapid’s party, Yesh Atid. National Unity, led by Defense Minister Benny Gantz, reduces its presence (12) compared to the 14 obtained separately in 2021 by the two parties that comprise it, Blue and White and New Hope. And Israel Beitenu, of Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman, falls from seven to five. They are two former associates of Netanyahu who changed sides.
The historic Labor Party saves the dishes by exceeding the 3.25% threshold, but the well-known journalist Merav Mijaeli has fallen far short of her goal of removing the Labor Party that led the country during its first three decades from irrelevance. She will have four seats, the minimum.
Nor has the veteran Zehava Gal-On managed to resurrect a Meretz still weighed down by stigmas and internal struggles. If she is finally left out of Parliament it would be a serious blow to the formation as it is the first time. In 2021 she entered the Government after two decades in the opposition.
The United Arab List wins one seat and stands at five, in an endorsement of its decision to become the first representative of the Palestinian minority with Israeli citizenship to enter the Government since the creation of the country in 1948. Another list also wins five deputies Arabic, Hadash-Taal, located outside the blocks.
Netanyahu appeared after three in the morning at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, where his followers had been gathering after learning the data from the exit polls. “We have to wait for the final results, but we are on the verge of a great victory,” he declared hoarsely and accompanied by his wife, Sara, on a stage decorated with posters with the slogan “Only Likud can.”
The former prime minister made a speech apparently aimed at reassuring the rise of his far-right ally. He said that he intends to form a government that “cares about all its citizens without exception” – which includes the Arab minority, in the crosshairs of Religious Zionism – and that will make a “balanced and responsible policy”. “It is clear that the people want a change. He wants not weakness, but strength, and he wants to return national pride and a Jewish state,” he noted. The barely 200 followers who remained at that time interrupted him on several occasions with chants such as “Bibi, come back”, “Bibi strong” and “Bibi, king of Israel”.
“Our turn has come again,” said Tami Cohen, 67, a party activist in Tel Aviv, as she waited for Netanyahu. Cohen, decked out in a T-shirt emblazoned with “A Leader for a Secure Future,” cared little that bolstered Religious Zionism might impose its agenda on Likud, which is only up one seat from 2021. “They also add to the bloc . And now what we need is a strong government that will restore security and calm to us”, she argued.
Shai Dayan proudly displayed the eleven WhatsApp groups, with some 2,500 members in total, with which Likud has mobilized taxi drivers. He is, at 44 years old, the leader of the party branch for this professional group. “There is a lot of work behind this result. Many calls, many WhatsApp… I even took my mother in a wheelchair to the urn. She doesn’t surprise me. She was expecting even three more deputies”.
Now, Netanyahu can form a 100% right-wing coalition, but that is his “biggest nightmare” and that is why he has always tried to govern with someone to his left, said Nadav Haetzni, a lawyer and columnist close to the right-wing colonist, this Tuesday in the daily Yisrael Hayom. “The only reason why he wants her now is because of the theoretical possibility that it will allow him to stop his trial,” he says, referring to the three cases of corruption for which he is being tried. His detractors take it for granted that Netanyahu wants to regain power to pass a law that shields him while he holds office.
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