With 96.22% of ballots counted in Israel’s national election, the anti-Netanyahu blocs hold 67 legislative seats, while the Netanyahu bloc has 53. Next week, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, after meeting with at least the present Prime Minister Netanyahu and the leader of the ‘Change’ bloc, former Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, is to choose whom he judges has the best chance of forming a new government. It takes 61 members of the 120-member Knesset to form a majority-rule government.

Netanyahu’s government had been based upon a coalition of 68 Knesset members. However, having lost 15 seats, he would need to get 8 members who just ran opposed to him to desert the opposition and join him. The big winner in the election, the two so-called ‘Arab’ parties—Joint List and Ra’am—are on target to secure 12 and 7 seats, respectively.

The chairman of Joint List, Yousef Jabareen, offered to cooperate with Eisenkot’s anti-Netanyahu Zionists, if it meant dumping Netanyahu. According to the Times of Israel, he stated: “Anyone who wants to offer a substantive and genuine alternative to Netanyahu’s government of bloodshed will have to talk to us in order to pave the way for the change that the Israeli public longs for. It is either continued racism, continued exclusion and continued supremacy, or genuine Jewish-Arab partnership.” His party is prepared to “pave the way for ousting the government of Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich, and send them home.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-october-28-2026/#liveblog-entry-3923160

The central problem for Eisenkot’s 48-member ‘Change’ bloc is to ally with the ‘Arab’ parties, when parts of his bloc, unless saner heads prevail, may rather cut a deal with Netanyahu than to work with the ‘Arab’ bloc. The ‘Change’ bloc’s weakest link is the erratic Avigdor Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beytenu party also has the least members, only 7. Under the present math, if Lieberman pulls his 7 out of the ‘Change’ bloc, there would a 60-60 tie; so, Eisenkot would have to get one of those 7 to desert Lieberman. And if Lieberman could deliver all 7 to Netanyahu, the latter would still need to get one more of the ‘Change’ bloc to desert Eisenkot.