Israel's president begins consultations with party leaders after election deadlock

TEL AVIV — Israel’s President Isaac Herzog has accepted the certified results of last week’s parliamentary elections and begun consultations with party leaders on forming a new coalition government as the vote had no clear winner.The move on Wednesday dealt a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to discredit the vote, in which he and his allies lost their majority in the 120-member Knesset, while Arab-led parties made historic gains.Herzog told party leaders that “not every commitment and promise can be fulfilled” if they want to avoid a new election.Neither the bloc of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his rival Gadi Eisenkot secured a majority in parliament.Earlier, electoral officials said there was no evidence of irregularities and that unsubstantiated claims by Netanyahu’s camp of Arab-led parties “stealing” the election did not justify delaying the results’ certification.The Shin Bet security service is investigating allegations of foreign interference in the election, but the head of the Central Elections Committee stressed that they would not fundamentally change the outcome.In the election on 27 October, Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party and its far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies won 53 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. Eisenkot’s centrist Yashar party and three other Jewish opposition parties in his bloc won 48.Two Arab-led alliances, the United Arab List and the Joint List, together won an unprecedented 19 seats following a surge in turnout among Arab voters.That makes them potential kingmakers. However, all but one of the Jewish parties pledged before the polls not to work with them to form a government.The role of Israel’s president is largely ceremonial, but after an election they have the role of inviting a Knesset member to form a government. That person will be given 28 days to do so, with a potential 14-day extension.The president has wide discretion to pick someone they believe has the best chance of building a coalition. They do not have to choose the leader of the party with the most seats.On Wednesday morning, Herzog was presented with the official results by Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg at a ceremony in Jerusalem.”In recent days, we have heard voices trying to cast doubt on the election results and to undermine their legitimacy. This is a real danger,” Sohlberg said.”One of the foundations of democracy is the ability to have a peaceful transfer of power. This stems from the understanding that the will of the electorate obligates us all.”Herzog began the consultation process on Wednesday night.Three factions aligned with Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist base recommended that he be given a chance to form a coalition, while a fourth, led by a former Netanyahu ally turned rival, backed Eisenkot.Eight more parties, including the two Arab-led factions, are scheduled to meet with the president on Thursday, with Eisenkot’s Yashar party and Netanyahu’s Likud going last.”In order to prevent another round of elections and to build a stable and good government here for the people of Israel, I expect the factions and their representatives to understand that, in the current reality, not every commitment and promise can be fulfilled,” he said.The president also expressed confidence in the Shin Bet’s ability to investigate the allegations of foreign interference in the election and appealed for patience.But he warned that Arab Israelis, who make up about one-fifth of the population and often refer to themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel, “must not be smeared”.”I condemn the coarseness and racist expressions that we have heard recently. There is no place for them toward any community in Israel,” he said.Earlier, Sohlberg told a meeting of the Central Elections Committee that the Shin Bet’s intelligence appeared to point to a “widespread phenomenon involving the influx of substantial funds into Israel from foreign states”, some of which were hostile.It believed further investigation was needed to “connect the dots and determine the scale of the phenomenon with a high degree of certainty”, he said.Last week, Israeli media reported that the committee had been presented with a claim that Qatar had provided funding aimed at increasing voter turnout in Arab communities. Qatar’s foreign ministry said it categorically denied the allegation.Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the Jewish Power party and an ally of the prime minister, called on the Shin Bet to arrest all the leaders of Arab parties and interrogate them “until these suspicions are fully clarified”.Joint List chairman Yousef Jabareen accused Ben-Gvir and the prime minister of attempting to “steal the election from the public”.On Tuesday, Eisenkot alleged that Netanyahu and his Likud party were “trying to carry out a veritable pogrom against democracy and the rule of law”.His comments came after Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara rejected a reported demand by Shin Bet chief David Zini – an appointee of the prime minister – to interrogate four Arab politicians, saying no evidence of wrongdoing had been presented.Likud accused Baharav-Miara of trying to “obstruct the investigation and to cover up this serious case of manipulation of the electoral process by foreign actors”.