Transcript

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

The election in Israel is still too close to call.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Israelis voted yesterday, and nobody has a majority. One of my kids asked yesterday how Israeli elections work, and here’s what I said. Israel’s legislature is the Knesset. It has 120 members. Israel has many parties, not just two, so nobody ever gets a majority, which means that after the vote, someone tries to build a majority coalition to become prime minister. To do that, Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot each would need to assemble 61 seats.

MARTÍNEZ: NPR’s Daniel Estrin is covering Israel’s historic election, the first since the October 7 attack. So, Daniel, what do those results mean so far?

DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: With a majority of the votes counted so far, the race is in a deadlock. We don’t know who will be declared the next prime minister, whether that’s Benjamin Netanyahu or the center-right Gadi Eisenkot. For now, it looks like Eisenkot will have the support of the majority of lawmakers in parliament, and that’s thanks to what looks like a historically strong performance by Arab-led parties. They want Eisenkot to be the next prime minister.

But most of Eisenkot’s camp has been very resistant to forming a coalition with Arab parties, even though it would help them win. That is because after the October 7 attacks, there has been a lot of mistrust and demonization of Arab political leaders, and so no one has a clear path to forming a majority coalition right now.

MARTÍNEZ: OK. So how are Israelis feeling about that?

ESTRIN: We’re hearing a lot of confusion and a lot of uncertainty. There have been very turbulent hours from the moment voting closed. Last night, the first exit polls came out, and they were showing Eisenkot having the advantage over Netanyahu. I was at Eisenkot’s campaign headquarters and witnessed a lot of celebrating and dancing. One of those who was dancing is Eisenkot supporter Mayan Eshel (ph), and she told us she was filled with optimism.

MAYAN ESHEL: A lot of hope that Israelis will be able to wake up tomorrow to a new day of democracy, of striving for peace.

ESTRIN: Many Israelis like her, were hoping for a big change after these last few years of war and Israeli far-right leadership. But Israelis went to bed thinking Eisenkot had the upper hand. Overnight, Netanyahu pulled ahead. And this morning, people here woke up to a race simply too close to call.

MARTÍNEZ: Wow. What are the candidates saying?

ESTRIN: Both of them spoke in the wee hours of the morning. And Eisenkot gave what really felt like a kind of victory speech – quite premature, I would say. And he had a very clear warning for Netanyahu.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GADI EISENKOT: (Speaking Hebrew).

ESTRIN: He says, “Netanyahu, don’t you dare use the security of Israel for your political needs.” He means, don’t take advantage of this precarious moment of transition to strike Iran. Netanyahu has been campaigning on that very promise. And Netanyahu gave a speech to his supporters, and he said he would try to form the next government.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: (Speaking Hebrew).

ESTRIN: He said, “We need to create a right-wing, strong government. That’s what has to be done.”

MARTÍNEZ: All right. Now what?

ESTRIN: Well, election officials are telling us that they expect to finish counting votes by tomorrow afternoon. And then the next step is that whoever of the two main candidates comes out on top, they get the first chance to try to form a governing coalition. They’ll have six weeks to do that. So we’ll likely see weeks of efforts, both by Eisenkot and Netanyahu, to try to even attract defectors from each other’s camps to try to form a coalition.

MARTÍNEZ: That’s NPR’s Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv. Daniel, thanks.

ESTRIN: You’re welcome.

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