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With All Votes Counted in Israel, Netanyahu Is Still Weakened With All Votes Counted in Israel, Netanyahu Is Still Weakened
(about 5 hours later)
JERUSALEM — The final ballots in Israel’s national elections were tallied on Thursday, giving a right-wing religious party one more seat in Parliament and the Arab-dominated parties one fewer, but the result did nothing to alter the political shift that weakened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and left him scrambling to form a stable coalition. JERUSALEM — The final ballots in Israel’s national elections were tallied on Thursday, giving a right-wing religious party one more seat in Parliament than had been expected and the Arab-dominated parties one fewer. But the results also sustained the political shift that weakened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and left him scrambling to form a stable coalition.
Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud-Beiteinu ticket had 31 of 120 Parliament seats, while the new, centrist Yesh Atid Party led by Yair Lapid — a former celebrity journalist and first-time candidate — held its second-place finish with 19. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Lapid have already begun negotiations over forming a governing coalition. The last votes counted, mostly those of active-duty soldiers, gave the right-wing and religious factions that make up Mr. Netanyahu’s current coalition a one-seat majority. But the prime minister has indicated that he wants to form a broader government, partnering first with Yair Lapid, the leader of the new, centrist Yesh Atid party, whose second-place finish stunned Israel.
While the new tally, fed mostly by votes of active-duty soldiers, gives a slim majority to Mr. Netanyahu’s current coalition of right-wing and religious factions, those close to the prime minister say he wants to build a broader government, starting with Mr. Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Hebrew for There is a Future. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Lapid, who together control 50 of Parliament’s 120 seats, met for two and a half hours on Thursday in Jerusalem and “discussed the challenges facing the nation and the ways to deal with them,” according to a statement from Mr. Lapid’s party.
The likeliest candidates to join that coalition are Habayit Hayehudi — the Jewish Home — the rightist faction whose total grew to 12 from 11 with the soldiers’ votes, and Kadima, another centrist party, which has two seats. Tzipi Livni, the former foreign minister who quit Kadima and started another new party, Hatnua, which won six seats, is also a possibility, though she has an opposite view on the Palestinian conflict from Habayit Hayehudi. What remains unclear is whether Mr. Netanyahu will push to continue his alliance with the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, which has 11 seats, given Mr. Lapid’s strong desire to curtail the draft exemptions for thousands of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students — exemptions that Shas has long sought to protect. Most analysts expect them to build a majority of at least 64 seats by adding Habayit Hayehudi, or Jewish Home, the rightist faction whose total grew to 12 seats from 11 with the soldiers’ votes, and Kadima, another centrist party, which has two seats.
Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Lapid have both indicated that making the ultra-Orthodox “share the burden” — in military service as well as taxes and other aspects of society — would be a foundational goal of the new government. The other priorities they mentioned were affordable housing and government reform, including a reduction in the number of ministers. It remains unclear whether Tzipi Livni, the former foreign minister whose new party, Hatnua, garnered six seats in the election, or the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, with 11 seats, would join the coalition, since they have fundamental disagreements with Habayit Hayehudi and Yesh Atid — whose name means There Is a Future.
On Thursday, Shai Piron, a rabbi who was elected to Parliament as No. 2 behind Mr. Lapid on Yesh Atid’s list, said coalition negotiations had not officially started, but “everyone is holding talks to feel each other out.” One thing that seems clear, though, is that the three Arab-dominated parties, which had 10 seats combined before the vote and 11 seats after it (instead of the 12 seats that initial results had projected), will be left out in the cold. They have never been part of any Israeli government, and on Wednesday Mr. Lapid went out of his way to say that he would not ally himself with politicians like Hanin Zoabi, who was arrested in the 2010 flotilla protesting Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. Mr. Lapid previously said he loathed Ms. Zoabi.
“Matters are very simple, very,” Rabbi Piron said on Israel Radio. “Without an equal sharing of the burden, in the simplest sense of the word, without compromise, without games, without a great reduction in the number of ministers and canceling the ministers without portfolio and without peace negotiations, we will not join the government.” About 56 percent of Arab voters cast ballots on Tuesday, according to the Israeli news media, a stronger showing than had been widely predicted. It was thought that frustration with the performance of Arab lawmakers and a call to boycott the elections in protest of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians might depress turnout among Israel’s 1.5 million Arab citizens to below 50 percent; instead it rose a bit from the 53 percent in 2009.
“It’s always a tension,” said Diana Buttu, an Arab-Israeli lawyer and analyst. “People do not want to legitimate Israel as a Jewish state on the macro level, but then on the micro level, they look at their personal concerns and think maybe it would be better to have someone representing us.”
Ahmad Tibi, who has served in Parliament since 1999 and was re-elected Tuesday, called the election “a missed opportunity,” according to Ynet, an Israeli news site. If 10 percent more Arabs had voted, he was quoted as saying, “we could have toppled the right’s rule” and ousted Mr. Netanyahu.
Arab citizens may now face renewed pressure to do national service in lieu of joining the military, something many Arab community leaders virulently oppose. One of Mr. Lapid’s signature issues is to end the widespread draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews and Arabs; those who did not serve would probably be ineligible for housing and education subsidies.
“In other words, rights would no longer be automatically given to citizens, but would have to be earned,” Nadim Nashif, leader of an Arab youth program in Haifa called Baladna, wrote in an e-mail to supporters on Thursday. “This sets a dangerous precedent which would facilitate the further erosion of Palestinian civil rights in Israel.”
Ms. Buttu said that in reality, it would make little difference if Arabs turned out in droves, since there are such fundamental differences between their elected leaders and the rest of the Parliament. “Even if they got 20 seats, there will never be a coalition formed with them,” she said. “They’ll never be part of the system, because the system is defined as a Jewish state.”