Israeli Politicsupdated 27m ago3 min read
Archive photoNetanyahu Faces Opposition Push After US Midterms, Right-Wing Bloc Falls Short in Knesset
“Netanyahu’s continued rule could lead to international sanctions, deepen Israel’s isolation and further damage ties with Washington”
“Mr. Netanyahu’s critics and political rivals seized on the results as proof of his mishandling of Israel’s national security interests.”
Photo: Shlomo Spitzer (שלמה שפיצר), CC BY 2.5 · Cropped for layout
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US midterms erode Netanyahu's support and spur opposition to remove him. Israeli opposition warns Netanyahu's continued rule could trigger sanctions and isolation by Washington.
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Midterms reshape Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s argument that he is the US-Israel relationship’s “secret sauce” looked weaker after the US midterm elections delivered a “disastrous performance” for President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, according to Al Jazeera. US Vice President JD Vance highlighted the war with Iran and the United States’s relationship with Israel, and Netanyahu’s policies have left Israel “politically toxic in the US.” Israel’s parliamentary arithmetic also tightened as Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc won 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, leaving it eight short of the 61 needed to form a government, while the opposition bloc led by former army chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot won 48 seats.
Al Jazeera reported that the Arab-led parties, the United Arab List (Ra’am) and the Joint List, have 19 seats and said they “will support Eisenkot for prime minister,” while Eisenkot and other opposition leaders rejected suggestions of a unity government with Netanyahu. Al Jazeera said it was up to Israeli President Isaac Herzog to nominate a politician to form a government, but it reported that Herzog “has yet to do so.”
Opposition targets Netanyahu
Yair Lapid, a former Israeli prime minister whose party is in the bloc seeking to unseat Netanyahu, stressed his ties to members of the US Congress and said he believed US voters were “against extremist ministers who say crazy things.” Lapid added that voters were “mainly against Netanyahu — for them, anything connected to him is toxic,” as Al Jazeera described the opposition laying blame squarely at Netanyahu’s feet. Avigdor Lieberman echoed the opposition’s framing of a tradeoff, writing on social media that Trump’s election-day announcement that US military aid to Israel would end had been traded for his endorsement of the prime minister.
Lieberman wrote, “The price of Trump’s support for Netanyahu – $3.8bn dollars a year,” and Al Jazeera reported that Ahron Bregman said Netanyahu was trying to “delegitimise the Arabs by saying they stole the elections.” Al Jazeera reported that United Torah Judaism (UTJ), Netanyahu’s longtime ultra-Orthodox ally, declined for the first time since 2009 to recommend him or anyone else to form a government, a move Al Jazeera said weakened Netanyahu’s position while boosting his opponents.
What is at stake next
Eisenkot’s prospects were boosted when UTJ declined to recommend Netanyahu, and it reported that Eisenkot replacing Netanyahu “does not necessarily mean” he could reverse Israel’s declining popularity in the US. Al Jazeera cited an April Pew Research Center poll and said pollster Shibley Telhami, director of the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll, noted that “public attitudes in the US are as negative towards Israel as they are towards Netanyahu.” The New York Times said the Democrats’ rout of the Republican Party left Israel with “fewer friends in Congress,” and it described the results as showing “how far their country’s relationship with the United States had deteriorated.”
The New York Times also said the outcome came as Israel faced another possible round of conflict with Iran and reported that “billions of dollars in annual U.S. military assistance” were “on the line.” Haaretz said the Democratic Party’s capture of the US Senate and the House of Representatives “marks the beginning of the translation into policy of the massive shift in opinion on Israel,” framing the midterms as the start of a policy change Israelis had not prepared for.