The ongoing political chaos of the days following the elections has yielded three possible scenarios in terms of the makeup of the next coalition: a government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a government headed by someone else, or yet another election, which would be Israel's fifth in the span of two years.
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The most likely scenario of the three is that Netanyahu will eventually be able to stitch together a coalition. This will not be an easy task but it remains the most plausible simply because the other two scenarios are far more complicated.
Chances of the Center-Left bloc to form a government – led by Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid or anyone else – are slim. The bloc, the party leaders in which have all pledged not to join a Netanyahu-led government, is simply not cohesive enough to sustain a coalition.
The political price of forming a Center-Left coalition doomed to fail for the sake of ousting Netanyahu will be too high for all those involved – and they know it.
Yesh Atid, Yisrael Beytenu, Blue and White, Labor, and Meretz can sign a coalition deal immediately and it can even include the Joint Arab List – but even then they will fall short of the 61-seats needed to form a coalition. New Hope leader Gideon Sa'ar or Yamina chief Naftali Bennett will have to join them as well, which is where things will get dicey.
Bennett and Sa'ar are about to face massive pressure to join the Center-Left bloc and oust Netanyahu. While they will be lauded for doing so for the obligatory 15 minutes, if they turn their back on the Right like that they are likely to lose everything.
Bennett and Sa'ar have never truly severed themselves from the Right. It is their ideological and political home and it is doubtful they are ready to throw it all away at this time.
The last three election campaigns have seen Netanyahu fail to gain the support of 61 MKs. He was only able to form a coalition last year thanks to a power-sharing deal with Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, who gained the keys to half of the kingdom.
The national unity government failed so epically, that from here on end, no one in the Center-Left bloc will ever agree to a power-sharing deal with Netanyahu again.
The fourth elections have, however, introduced two new players into the mix: Ra'am and New Hope.
True, turning to either will be very difficult and there is no telling if Netanyahu even succeeds, but if there is one thing the prime minister knows is that a fifth election could yield a result that is much worse, which is why he would do anything and everything to exhaust these two possibilities.
Between Sa'ar and Ra'am leader Mansour Abbas, Netanyahu would probably prefer the latter, despite what is expected to be vociferous objections by Religious Zionist Party leader Betzalel Smotrich and his partner, Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party.
It doesn't have to be like this, by the way. In a slightly more objective media climate, one in which the media sees the good of the public rather than its own pathological hatred for Netanyahu, outlets and pundits would be urged Sa'ar to do the right thing and join a Netanyahu-led government so as to save Israel from plunging further into political chaos.
The objective numbers show that Netanyahu won the elections – with a double-digit lead over his rival. In this sense, the people have clearly spoken. The fact that in Israeli reality politicians are allowed to break any promise unless it benefits Netanyahu, is what forces the prime minister now to find twisted solutions to realize his victory, instead of following the voice of reason and probably the will of the people.
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