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Netanyahu Vows to Work Quickly to Form New Government Win in Israel Sets Netanyahu on Path to Rebuild and Redefine
(about 7 hours later)
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel pledged on Wednesday to work quickly to form a new government after his clear-cut election victory, as Isaac Herzog, the center-left opposition leader, conceded defeat. JERUSALEM — Israelis emboldened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a clear mandate in balloting on Tuesday, paving the way for him to lead a right-leaning and religious coalition that could be far easier to control, since his own party holds many more seats now.
“Our country’s everyday reality doesn’t give us the luxury for delay,” Mr. Netanyahu of the conservative party Likud said in a statement. But despite the resounding victory after Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-line statements in the campaign’s final days, the direction he will take in what would be his fourth term is as much a mystery as the man himself. While the new coalition will almost certainly be more purely conservative, it is also more narrowly tailored, potentially freeing its leader of the constraints that often guided his last government.
“The citizens of Israel rightfully expect that we will act quickly and responsibly to establish a leadership that will work for them in areas of defense, the economy and society just as we promised in this campaign — and just like we will now set ourselves toward doing,” he added. As he puts together a government in the next few weeks, Mr. Netanyahu may no longer have the center-left factions that he relied on to ease Israel’s relations with the world and that pushed him back into negotiations with the Palestinians in 2013. But he also has gotten rid of extremists in his own party, Likud, and shrunk the Jewish Home party, which he often placated over the last two years by expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The new government will probably be made up mostly of right-wing and Orthodox parties. According to the statement, Mr. Netanyahu had already consulted overnight with the heads of the parties he expected to become coalition partners: Naftali Bennett of the pro-settlement Jewish Home; Moshe Kahlon of Kulanu, a new center-right party focused on economic issues; Avigdor Lieberman of the hard-line nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu; and the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism. Analysts said Mr. Netanyahu would undoubtedly continue his strong opposition to the Iranian nuclear program, but might well limit settlement construction and make other gestures to soothe the Palestinian situation, while also seeking to address calls to lower the cost of living. Crucial players in the coming coalition are a new center-right party and two ultra-Orthodox factions, whose kitchen-table concerns are sure to shift the overall agenda.
Such a coalition would give Mr. Netanyahu a majority of 67 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, or Parliament, with Likud commanding 30 of them, according to unofficial election results. Allies, antagonists and average Israelis have long struggled to understand just what Mr. Netanyahu, a deft political strategist, actually believes in, beyond his passionate commitment to Israel’s security and to the Jewish people. After a campaign widely seen as a referendum on his rule, the result may let Netanyahu be Netanyahu, which his former national security adviser, Uzi Arad, said meant more “tough pragmatism” than “stiff defiance.”
The prospect of a right-wing government prompted a hostile response from the Palestinian leadership, which has been inflamed by Mr. Netanyahu’s provocative campaigning tactics, including a reversal of his support for the establishment of a Palestinian state and scaremongering about the high turnout of Israeli Arab voters. “Now that his position has been vindicated by his own base, he can take certain liberties,” Mr. Arad said. “He will not use that to take a contrarian view and then to relish the fact that he is standing firm in the face of pressure. He would probably, while fighting for Israel’s interest, and rhetorically presenting Israel’s case, and not appearing soft, he would concede here and there.”
“The results of the Israeli elections show the success of a campaign platform based on settlements, racism, apartheid and the denial of the fundamental human rights of the Palestinian people,” Saeb Erekat, the longtime chief Palestinian negotiator, said in a statement. With a commanding 30 of Parliament’s 120 seats, compared to the 24 won by his center-left opponent, Mr. Netanyahu said he would work quickly to solidify a new government. He went to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday, and thanked voters for backing him “against all odds and against strong forces.”
“Such a result would not have been possible had the international community held Israel to account for its systematic violations of international law,” he added. A day after expressing alarm about Israeli Arabs voting in droves in a Facebook video that prompted charges of race-baiting, Mr. Netanyahu made an attempt at mending fences by saying he would “take care of the welfare and security of all Israeli citizens.”
Expecting continued confrontation between Mr. Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, whose relations have been in a downward spiral since the breakdown of American-brokered negotiations last year, Mr. Erekat added: “Now, more than ever, the international community must act. It must rally behind Palestinian efforts to internationalize our struggle for dignity and freedom through the International Criminal Court and through all other peaceful means.” Isaac Herzog, the head of the center-left Zionist Union who had challenged Mr. Netanyahu, called to congratulate him and concede defeat, and later said that the “realistic option” would be to continue to lead the opposition.
The stalled peace process has exacerbated American and European frustrations with Israel. “I pledge that one day, we will bring about the desired change,” Mr. Herzog said at a meeting of his slate’s newly elected lawmakers, according to Israeli news reports. “The public is waiting for us to raise our heads and march on with our way.”
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, congratulated Mr. Netanyahu on his victory in a statement on Wednesday and said the bloc was “committed to working with the incoming Israeli government on a mutually beneficial relationship, as well as on the relaunch of the peace process.” First, Israel — and the world — will be watching which way Mr. Netanyahu marches.
But Ms. Mogherini added: “More than ever, bold leadership is required from all to reach a comprehensive, stable and viable settlement of a conflict that has already deprived too many generations of peace and security. It’s time to turn this page.” On Iran, expect little change, analysts said. There is broad agreement across Israel with Mr. Netanyahu’s critique of the emerging deal between six world powers and Iran over its nuclear program. There was plenty of internal criticism, though, of his attempt to undermine it by making a speech to Congress against White House wishes. That, apparently, did not dissuade many voters.
Secretary of State John Kerry telephoned Mr. Netanyahu Wednesday morning to congratulate him but they did not discuss “substantive issues” during the call, a senior State Department official said. “The outcome represents, basically, the fact that Iran decided who will be the prime minister in Israel,” said Yedidia Z. Stern of the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan research group. “Iran was and is the ultimate demon for masses here in Israel. Israelis fear the future, and they trust only a strong nationalistic leader.”
Mr. Kerry called from Lausanne, Switzerland, where he was participating in nuclear talks with the Iranians. He did not respond to a question shouted by a reporter at the start of a negotiating session asking for his response to the Israeli election. As for Mr. Netanyahu’s declaration on the eve of the election that no Palestinian state would be created on his watch — contrary to his avowed support of one since 2009 — several experts said they expected him to walk it back. People close to him have already suggested that he meant only that current conditions in the region and the attitude of the Palestinian leadership make a state unrealistic now.
Mr. Herzog, the Labor Party leader, and his center-left alliance, the Zionist Union, appeared to be headed back into the opposition. Several analysts also said they would not be surprised to see Mr. Netanyahu soon release the $300 million in taxes Israel collects on the Palestinians’ behalf that he has withheld since January as punishment for their joining the International Criminal Court.
“In the last few years we have proved that we know how to be a fighting opposition,” Mr. Herzog said at a news conference on Wednesday. “At this moment the only real possibility appears to be to go into the opposition,” he said, adding, “We will be a worthy alternative in all spheres to the narrow right-wing government that will be short-lived.” And he will have more leeway on settlements, the issue that raises the most international ire. The new Parliament includes fewer settlers than the last. The pro-settler Jewish Home party shrank to eight seats from 12 and will have less sway; the last housing minister, a Jewish Home member who angered Mr. Netanyahu by announcing construction without his approval, is bound to be replaced.
Most Israelis went to bed with exit polls that inaccurately showed Likud and the Zionist Union in a close tie, with about 27 seats each, although Mr. Netanyahu appeared to have the advantage in forming a coalition. “He not only defeated the left, he defeated the right,” said Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, a research organization in Jerusalem. Mr. Halevi said he did not “see a strong lobby within the coming coalition” for building outside the so-called settlement blocks Israel expects to swap for other lands in a potential deal with the Palestinians.
On Wednesday morning, Israelis woke up to very different results once the majority of the votes had been counted, with Likud winning up to 30 seats and the Zionist Union 24. Building only within the blocks, Mr. Halevi noted, appeals to Moshe Kahlon, the leader of the new center-right party Kulanu — who is likely to become finance minister and have the coalition’s second-largest faction, with 10 seats.
For some, there was a feeling of status quo, as Mr. Netanyahu was re-elected to a third consecutive term, and a fourth in total, counting his first term in the 1990s. Internal Israeli issues are also being looked at in a new light, after a turbulent few months of fierce fighting.
“Anyone hoping to wake up today to the dawn of a new day will wake up instead this morning to another yesterday,” Sima Kadmon, a political columnist, wrote in an article published on Wednesday in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot. Mr. Kahlon’s demands to lower housing costs and root out corruption will have to be addressed. The return of ultra-Orthodox parties to the coalition after a two-year hiatus will likely lead to a backtrack on recent legislation that pushed more yeshiva students into the military draft and work force.
“If yesterday morning there was still a feeling that there would be a shift in power and an atmosphere of change, overnight it became clear that nothing would change,” she wrote. Among the issues that led Mr. Netanyahu to call these early elections in December was dissent in his old coalition over a “nationality bill” that would emphasize Israel’s Jewishness over its democratic nature. The bill outraged Israel’s Arab citizens — a constituency whose Parliamentary presence grew to 14 seats from 11 — as well as Jewish leaders in the Diaspora. Reviving it, especially after Mr. Netanyahu’s statements against Arabs, could deepen the societal cleavages exposed in the campaign.
The decisive nature of Mr. Netanyahu’s comeback came as a surprise to most, since Likud had been trailing the Zionist Union by four seats in several opinion polls released on Friday, the last day that polls were allowed to be published under Israel’s election law. “You can understand the sort of realpolitik, hawkish position that’s within the pale of serious argument, but this is purely debased politics, and appealing to the lowest emotions, divisive, racist,” Moshe Halbertal, a philosophy professor at Hebrew University, said of the prime minister’s Election Day “droves” video. “The very identity of the state, its soul as a democratic nation-state, is at stake, and he shouldn’t mess with that or touch that.”
Avi Degani, an Israeli pollster, told reporters on Wednesday that many longtime Likud supporters who had tired of Mr. Netanyahu “got scared” when they saw the last pre-election polls suggesting the Zionist Union would come out on top, and simply “came home.” What Mr. Netanyahu and other Likud leaders have already begun talking about is electoral reform, like a law that automatically gives the premiership to the leader of the largest party. It will be interesting to see whether Mr. Herzog, who asked Mr. Netanyahu to endorse this idea when it looked like Zionist Union might become the largest party, will still support it.
Mr. Degani, president of the Geocartography Knowledge Group, said that over recent months, more than 60 percent of Israeli voters had indicated that they would like to see someone replacing Mr. Netanyahu as prime minister, but that only about a third thought that person should be Mr. Herzog. Then again, it may not much matter.
Israel, Mr. Degani said, had a history of 10 percent to 15 percent of undecided voters making up their minds on the day of the election. He said he was sure that this was the pool from which Mr. Netanyahu had received his unexpected margin of victory. Mr. Netanyahu’s “victory is a personal victory,” noted Efraim Halevy, a former intelligence chief and confidant of several prime ministers, which “enables him to take a variety of decisions from a position of strength.
After years of decline, there was a sense of deflation and disappointment on the left. “The question of what is the true feeling of the prime minister is a very, very difficult question to answer, because he has been known in the past to make conflicting statements on various occasions, which have been attuned to his immediate political and other constraints of the moment,” Mr. Halevy added. “The question will be what are the political constraints he feels he has to meet.”
Zehava Galon, the leader of the leftist Meretz party, which scraped through the electoral threshold to win the minimum allocation of four seats in Parliament, announced that she would resign if the party remained at four seats once the final, official results were released. Meretz won six seats in the 2013 election.
Mr. Herzog presented the Zionist Union’s 24 seats as an achievement and pledged to continue to lead the bloc together with Tzipi Livni, the leader of a small, centrist party and co-founder of the new alliance.
Merav Michaeli, another Zionist Union politician, wrote on Twitter: “As difficult as it is, it’s just another round. We have to raise our heads, recover and start preparing for the next round. This is our country. This is our society. We are here to work for both.”