Netanyahu's Party Wins More Seats Than Opposition, Garnering a "Clear Majority" of Jewish Votes; Left Wing Coalition May Cross the Rubicon and Ally with Arab Parties Which Support Hamas

Explaining a bit: Netanyahu's party won the most parliamentary seats, but not an outright majority of parliamentary seats, which means the next government will be supported by a coalition of various parties.

The Arab parties won a highest-ever 19 seats-- which would be enough, if combined with the left wing Jewish parties, to take a majority.

But the Arab parties are, get this, pro-Hamas, and there is a longstanding taboo in Israel against allying with terrorist-supporting groups. For some reason. I don't know why.

But my guess is that the left wing has abandoned all restraints in Israel, as they have in America, and will in fact implement the Red-Green Alliance, even in Israel, which just experienced its own 9/11 three years ago.

Netanyahu survives another day with unexpectedly clear backing of Israeli Jews

By Steven Scheer, Rami Ayyub and Lina Obeid

JERUSALEM, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Benjamin Netanyahu won the support of an unexpectedly clear majority of Israeli Jews in an election billed as a major turning point in his nation's history, ​apparently ensuring he will survive as prime minister at least in a caretaker role.

With nearly 86% of votes tallied on Wednesday morning, Israel's three main broadcasters reported Netanyahu's bloc of right-wing, far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties on course to ‌win 53 seats in parliament, well ahead of the 48 for the opposition bloc of rival Gadi Eisenkot.

Huh, polls overstated support for the left and understated support for the right.

Must be the first time that has ever happened.

Parties representing Israelis of Arab descent would win an unprecedented 19 seats, following high turnout from passionately motivated voters.

The results could still change as counting continued, but a victory for Eisenkot appeared increasingly out of reach, as his bloc of anti-Netanyahu parties from centre-left to hard-right underperformed pre-election polls that forecast a tight race.

While Netanyahu lost his bloc's narrow majority in the 120-seat Knesset, his opponents were left with scant hope of unseating him without an unlikely deal to ​accept broad backing from Arab parties, which many Jewish leaders reject.

I wish I believed that. But the left is now untethered and is increasingly comfortable with supporting actual terrorism and murder against their opponents.

...

Trump, who had called on Israeli voters to keep Netanyahu in power so the two leaders could "finish the job" in Iran, said Netanyahu had done "very well" thanks to his own endorsement that "helped him a lot".

Of course.

The ‌election was the ⁠first held in Israel since Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people and carried off 251 hostages in attacks that shattered the country's sense of security and plunged it into war in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

The war in Gaza, which flattened the territory and killed 74,000 Palestinians, has left Israel increasingly isolated on the world stage, with a decisive shift in global public opinion against it, including in its closest ally the United States.

Ed Morrissey adds some analysis.

None of the Arab parties will declare Hamas a terrorist group, nor will they stand for Israeli policies in either Gaza or the West Bank. While Israeli politics is famously fractious and far more to the Left than the US, those positions are far enough to the extreme that most other parties will not abide a coalition that includes the Arab parties. That may be even more true after the October 7 massacres; voters blame Netanyahu for ignoring the threat, but they are not going to back a government that has to let Hamas off the hook to boot Netanyahu out of office, either.

Yeah I don't know about that.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:10 PM

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