A decisive defeat of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition in the Israeli general election might have placed a significant obstacle in the way of Israel and the US launching a third round of their war against Iran. But he has done better than pre-election polls predicted, potentially allowing him to retain power and pursue hyper-militaristic policies at home and abroad.
As Israelis were going to vote and later listening to the first exit polls, the US was warning Arab states in the Gulf to be prepared for the US and Israel to launch a short but devastating bombing campaign against Iran after the US midterm elections next week. This would most likely target Iranian leadership and military capacity, along with its oil refineries, electric power plants, bridges and key parts of the civilian infrastructure. Iran would retaliate in kind against the Arab oil states of the Gulf and US bases, leading to a further surge in world energy prices.
Netanyahu’s messianic far right bloc lost seats in the 120-seat Knesset, but with 53 seats against 48 for the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot – with votes still being counted – Netanyahu is in a stronger position than many had expected. In any case, he will remain as caretaker prime minister during a period of negotiations as each side seeks to build a coalition able to command a majority.
Netanyahu will seek to lure to his side the right-wing leaders, like former prime minister Naftali Bennett and former Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who are currently part of the opposition. Eisenkot’s only realistic route to becoming prime minister is a deal with the Israeli Arab parties who won an unprecedented 19 seats – after a high turn-out of Israeli-Arab voters who make up 20 per cent of the electorate.
But with several of the opposition parties committed to rejecting Israeli-Arab support – a pledge they may find it difficult to wriggle out of without discrediting themselves in the eyes of Jewish Israeli voters – this will be a difficult manoeuvre for Eisenkot to carry through, while keeping his existing coalition partners on board.
Addressing his Likud party faithful as the results came in, Netanyahu made clear that he intends to go back to war with Iran side by side with Donald Trump: “Israel faces a singular historical opportunity, together with our partner President Trump, to remove the existing threat of Iran once and for all. But ulterior motives must not divert us from this sacred mission.”
Trump himself said that his endorsement of Netanyahu “helped him a lot” and the prime minister was heading for a win or a tie: “The tie is sort of considered a win in that case because it’s a big chess match.”
Creating a coalition out of a medley of competing parties is indeed like a chess match, and one at which Netanyahu is skilled at winning. Again and again after close elections in the past, he has tempted opponents to give his own coalition a majority, before dumping them when it is politically convenient for himself.
His reputation for doing this is so notorious that bitter former allies, whom he has discarded over the years, might just refuse to join him now. A unity government might also be difficult to put together since hatred of Netanyahu and a desire to get rid of him is the most important factor uniting a disparate opposition.
In his late-night address as the results came in, Netanyahu lauded Israel’s military successes under his leadership, though wars continue in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon and, above all, potentially against Iran. “A bottle of poisoned pills awaits the next prime minister on his night table,” writes Anshel Pfeffer in , “because the outgoing government inflamed each and every one of Israel’s crises and resolved none.” This is a legacy that Israel must cope with for years to come.
This election has been portrayed around the world as the most decisive in Israel’s history, but Pfeffer points out that this is not the case. It was the last general election in 2022 that marked the real calamitous rupture in traditional Israeli politics, ushering into power messianic ethno-religious zealots like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, fundamentalist fanatics long on the fringes of Israeli politics.
They make no secret of their wish to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank and establish a Greater Israel as an exclusively Jewish state. Though far to the right himself, Lieberman described this new administration in 2022 as “a government of darkness”, and everything that happened in the following years shows him to have been correct.
Arab Gulf states are desperate to avoid another round in a war that has wrecked their economies, spread conflict across the Middle East, and shows no sign of coming to an end. Senior Saudi, Turkish and Pakistani officials met with Iranian leaders in Tehran at the weekend to try to stall the race towards renewed war. The Omani Foreign Affairs Minister Badr al Busaidi called on the Arab Gulf states – Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Oman – to unite with Iraq and Iran in a single non-aggression pact.
Brent Crude oil is already at $114 a barrel and any full-scale war between the US and Israel against Iran would send prices soaring far above the maximum seen earlier in the year. If Iran’s oil production facilities are targeted, then Iranian missiles and drones will likewise strike Arab Gulf production.
Much still depends on the outcome of the midterm elections in the US. If the Republicans suffer an electoral catastrophe, then Trump might find it difficult – though not impossible – to relaunch a war deeply unpopular war in the US, though theoretically he has the authority to do so.
Netanyahu may calculate, on the contrary, that another war with Iran will strengthen his position as iconic national leader and tempt at least some of the opposition to join him in some type of national unity government.