By Asad Mirza
Israel’s election held on October 27 has produced a deadlock: neither Netanyahu nor Gadi Eisenkot has a majority, Likud remains the largest party, and record-turnout Arab parties hold the balance. Official results and coalition-building could take weeks or even months, perhaps forcing another vote. Whatever happens to Bibi, India–Israel ties look durable, if less personal.
The Israeli election’s central fact is that nobody won. Neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot appears within reach of the 61 seats needed in the 120-seat Knesset. The exit polls disagreed from the start. Channel 12 first showed Netanyahu’s bloc on 50 seats and Eisenkot’s on 52. Its revised poll flipped that to 52 for Netanyahu and 49 for Eisenkot. Channels 11 and 13 had the blocs tied at 51 each. The pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 gave him 60 seats to Eisenkot’s 43.
The real count is tracking the revised polls. With around 40% of ballots counted, Likud had 21.7% of the vote and Yashar 15.72%. The structural story is that Netanyahu’s right-wing and ultra-Orthodox bloc fell from 68 seats to roughly 50, yet Likud still looks like the biggest single party. That is a rebuke to the post-October 7 government, but not a transfer of power.
There are three clocks. The unofficial picture usually clears within about a day, though late ballots from soldiers and diplomats could decide marginal seats and parties near the threshold. Exit polls suggest several small parties will fail to enter the Knesset.
The official count comes next. Under Israeli law, results must be published within eight days, which means around November 4. After that, the president has a week of consultations before choosing a candidate. That candidate has 28 days to build a coalition, with a possible 14-day extension. If the first nominee fails, the mandate can pass to another, and if nobody succeeds, the Knesset is dissolved and a new election is called.
A nominee may emerge by mid-November, with a first deadline in early December and a hard stop in late December. Netanyahu stays caretaker prime minister throughout, which is itself a quiet advantage.
Both blocs’ arithmetic runs through the Arab parties. Estimates of their haul vary, from 16 seats in i24’s poll to a record 19 in one Channel 12 update. Turnout was the driver. Pollsters had projected 63% Arab turnout, up from 56% in 2022, motivated less by Gaza than by a crime wave in Arab communities where murders have doubled under this government.
The obstacle is political, not numerical. Netanyahu won’t work with Arab-led parties, and they have ruled out working with him. Eisenkot also says he won’t ally with them. Yet, his bloc falls short without Arab support, either in coalition or from outside.
The most plausible route is a confidence-and-supply deal, in which Arab parties back a minority Eisenkot government from outside. Mansour Abbas of Ra’am, who joined the 2021 Bennett coalition, is the likeliest interlocutor. Eisenkot’s election-night language complicates this. He hailed a victory for the “mainstream Zionist majority,” and a Haaretz analysis argued that this framing erases the record Arab turnout and walks into Netanyahu’s trap. Netanyahu’s campaign slogan was that Eisenkot has no government without the Arab parties.
Eisenkot therefore faces a dilemma. Leaning on Arab votes risks a government with a legitimacy problem among Jewish voters. Refusing them makes stalemate and a repeat election more likely.
Netanyahu is weakened but not finished. He is stressing that Likud is the largest party, with partial results projecting about 28 seats, and is urging a “strong right-wing government” built on a “Zionist majority.” Trump called it “a big come-from-behind stalemate, even a win for Netanyahu”.
His realistic paths are to peel off opposition defectors, wait for an Eisenkot coalition to fray, or force a second election while still in the caretaker’s chair. Each carries risk. His allies may grow restless if he cannot deliver office, and Likud has never had to face life after Netanyahu. If the bloc’s drop from 68 to about 50 hardens into a pattern, the succession question will stop being theoretical.
Still, Netanyahu has survived repeated “terminal” defeats, including the long cycle of elections from 2019 to 2022. Anyone declaring him finished now is ahead of the evidence.
New Delhi’s stake is large but cushioned. In February, PM Modi and Netanyahu elevated ties to a “Special Strategic Partnership” spanning defence, critical technologies, energy and science. A bilateral investment agreement was entered into force in July 2026 and free-trade talks are under way. Israel’s embassy in Delhi insists the relationship will not change “even for the slightest” whoever wins. Modi and Netanyahu reportedly spoke on October 22.
The Indo-Israel relationship rests on defence supply, agricultural technology and cyber cooperation, not on one friendship, and Indian analysts have long noted little foreign-policy difference between Netanyahu and his centrist rivals.
What could change is pace and tone. Protracted coalition haggling, or a prolonged caretaker government, would slow the free-trade negotiations. A government leaning on Arab votes may speak more about Palestinian rights, which is awkward for Delhi given that opposition figures at home pressed PM Modi to mention Gaza during his February visit. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), already stalled by the war, will depend on Gaza’s trajectory and regional diplomacy, whoever governs. The main near-term risk to India is therefore instability rather than ideology, because a weak government cannot sign deals. (IPA Service)
