Herzog Begins Talks on New Israeli Government After Deadlock

JERUSALEM — Israeli President Isaac Herzog accepted the certified results of last week’s parliamentary election as legally binding on Wednesday and began consultations with party leaders on forming a new government, according to The Associated Press.

Neither bloc won a majority in the Oct. 27 vote. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies hold 53 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, according to the certified results. The bloc aligned with his chief rival, opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot, holds 48. The Arab-led Ra’am and Joint List parties hold a record 19 seats between them, and 61 seats are needed to govern.

Herzog took the results on Wednesday from Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, who chairs the Central Elections Committee. The committee said it had examined claims of fraud from all parties and found “no evidence of irregularities that compromised the integrity of the election or affected its results.” Its review covered records from 9,069 polling stations, and the panel voted 15-2, with 14 abstentions, to certify the outcome.

Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly claimed, without substantiation, that Arab-led parties stole the election, possibly with foreign help. Acceptance of the certified results dealt a blow to that effort to discredit the vote.

First recommendations split between the two rivals

Herzog opened the consultations on Wednesday night, starting with the smallest factions. Three factions aligned with Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist base recommended that he get the first chance to form a coalition. A fourth faction, led by a former Netanyahu ally who is now a rival, recommended Eisenkot.

Eight more parties are due to meet Herzog on Thursday, including the two Arab-led factions. Eisenkot’s Yashar party and Netanyahu’s Likud speak last. A tally of expected recommendations reported by Ynet put Eisenkot at 48 and Netanyahu at 46.

Herzog is expected to take several days before announcing his choice. The lawmaker he picks, most likely Netanyahu or Eisenkot, will have 28 days to assemble a government, with a possible 14-day extension. If neither man succeeds, Israel would hold a new election early next year.

Herzog also told the factions that, to avoid another vote and build a stable government, they would have to accept that not every campaign promise can be kept.

Interference claims hang over the talks

A separate Shin Bet investigation into allegations of foreign interference in the election is still running. In a private meeting of the elections committee on Wednesday, Sohlberg read out a Shin Bet assessment saying the agency believed there had been a “widespread phenomenon involving the influx of substantial funds into Israel from foreign states,” including countries hostile to Israel. The agency provided no evidence for the assertion.

Sohlberg kept his public position unchanged. “At this stage, these are merely suspicions, and even if they are substantiated, the scope of their potential impact is limited,” he said at the ceremony. He called it dangerous to cast doubt on the results and warned that public trust in elections is “easy to destroy, yet very difficult to repair.”

Israeli media reported that Shin Bet sought approval on Tuesday to interrogate several elected officials, among them Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas and other senior Arab legislators. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara rejected the request in a statement. “It is not permissible to interrogate citizens or elected officials without evidence to justify such action,” she said.

The Joint List condemned the request as a “campaign of incitement” by Netanyahu and his allies to delegitimise the Arab vote. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right Netanyahu ally, called on Shin Bet to arrest all the leaders of the Arab political parties, an agency over which he has no authority.

Herzog said the Shin Bet investigation should proceed, but he cautioned that Arab Israeli voters “must not be smeared.” “I condemn the coarseness and racist expressions that we have heard recently,” he added.