When the vote count is almost complete, Bibi would have the numbers to take back the government after twenty months in opposition. Voter turnout was over 70 percent
JERUSALEM — He waited at 3 a.m. until night faded to dawn for the data to stabilize. Benjamin Netanyahu is at least hesitant in the formulation – “we are one step away from a great victory” – and responds to the crowd in the Likud headquarters, who are hailing him as “King”: “It’s not me, you elected me” .
With almost 100 percent of the vote (we’ll have to wait for the final results tomorrow), the Likud has 31 MPs and the right-wing coalition – now ultra-nationalist and extreme – consolidates a majority of 65 out of 120. There is a future of Yair Lapid who is the second party at 24 and Religious Zionism at 14 in third place. Labor is still on the verge of disappearance (4), the threshold blocking entry into Parliament, Meretz – up to that point the count – it remains outside the Knesset, where the main Arab formations hardly ever enter.
Netanyahu would have the numbers to take back the government, having remained in opposition for some twenty months after serving as prime minister for twelve consecutive years. Voter turnout of over 70 percent is the highest since 2015, and voter fatigue (fifth in less than four years) hasn’t kept Israelis at home. The ultra-Orthodox add the weight of 20 representatives and the alliance between the Jewish power of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich – religious ultrar, homophobic – becomes a central force in the coalition: the movement supporting the colonies opposes everyone in agreement with the Palestinians he had never gathered so many MPs. If Netanyahu gets the job, he’ll have to give the two what he promised: Smotrich (who dubbed him a “liar, son of a liar” in one audio) even asks the Defense Ministry when — and it’s a rarity in this country — he was a soldier never; Ben-Gvir wants to be Minister of Public Security: he has dropped the campaign to “law and order”, on both sides of the Green Line this morning a Palestinian hit a military man with a van at a checkpoint and killed him trying to stab him . Above all, together they want to overthrow the judicial system, put it to the political test and pass a law that retrospectively prohibits the indictment of an incumbent prime minister in order to get Bibi, as everyone calls him, out of the corruption process. You owe it to him: it was he who, two years ago, pushed for an understanding between the extremist factions, perhaps without realizing that he was creating future contenders for his role as the undisputed monarch of the Conservatives. “He just wanted to build a zombie to hold the voices of the fringe groups together – writes Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz, the left-wing newspaper -. He didn’t want to give his blessing to so many Likud voters to move even further to the right. His ridiculous claim that not to be photographed with Ben-Gvir is not fulfilled, the message issued is: Itamar is Bibi squared».
Lapid proves he’s not the famous journalist-turned-politician anymore. He was interim prime minister for a few months, signed the maritime border agreement with Lebanon, and led operations with the generals in the West Bank to disband the new militias. In the upcoming government negotiations, there is the unknown Benny Gantz and his party of former chiefs of staff (12 deputies). As he has already done, he could accept – despite promising during the campaign campaign that this would never happen – to ally with Netanyahu in order to lighten the extremists’ weight.
November 2, 2022 (change November 2, 2022 | 11:04)
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