MADRID - Preliminary results of Israel's general election show Benjamin Netanyahu, the veteran prime minister, ahead of his rival Gadi Eisenkot, former chief of staff of the armed forces, but still short of a majority of parliamentary seats.
With 85% of the vote counted, Netanyahu's Likud and its allies on the far right and the ultra-Orthodox parties are on course to win 53 of the 120 seats in the Knesset (parliament). Eisenkot's Yashar party and three other non-Arab parties in his bloc would take 48; the remaining seats, to complete the 120, would go to Arab parties aligned with neither bloc.
Both leaders have declared they will attempt to form a coalition government.
The president will most likely task Netanyahu, as leader of the largest party and the largest bloc, with forming a government. If he fails to muster the support of 61 members of parliament, Eisenkot could then receive the mandate.
Eisenkot cannot dislodge Netanyahu's far-right and religious coalition without resorting to the Arab parties. In Israel's history, an Arab party has supported a governing coalition only once: Ra'am's backing of the Bennett government in 2021. Ra'am is expected to win barely four seats this time. The Joint List, however, which has traditionally remained in opposition, could win as many as 12.
This means that, to form a government, Eisenkot would need the support of the Joint List. For now, however, two of his allies, Lieberman and Bennett, firmly oppose any alliance with the Arab parties.
If neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot can assemble a majority, Israel could return to the polls. This scenario would not necessarily amount to a defeat for Netanyahu. On the contrary, it could give him the opportunity to buy time, rebuild his right-wing coalition and reshape the political agenda. In such a context, a major security crisis could eclipse every other issue, rally society and displace questions about the government's record.
This is where Iran comes into play. Netanyahu could seek to exploit the raising of an 'external threat' to force some of his adversaries to cooperate with him.
In this vein, several Iranian media outlets, such as the newspaper Khorasan, have suggested that Netanyahu's departure from government would benefit Iran not because his successor would necessarily adopt a friendly stance, but because the removal of one of the principal architects of the confrontation with Iran, responsible for ordering the assassination of senior leaders, would reduce the political and diplomatic capacity accumulated at the apex of that confrontation.
However, this analysis fails to account for the fact that the political divisions between the two camps are not deep enough to speak of a 'fundamental change in Tel Aviv's approach to Tehran' after the elections. Every political option in Israel, whether currents characterised as right-wing, liberal or centrist, regards Iran specifically its nuclear dimension as its principal threat.
In other words, what separates them are differences one might call ontic: different ways of confronting the 'Iranian threat', but no disagreement over its existence or the need to combat it, which does not change under any of them. In an interview given before the election, Eisenkot said that regime change in Iran should not be set as a direct objective of war. 'It is wrong to make regime change a military objective,' he declared.
Instead, he argued for focusing efforts on Iran's military and regional capabilities: 'The right thing is to destroy the Iranian nuclear programme, its missile programme and its subordinate forces.' Eisenkot added: 'And I know how to do it.'
If Eisenkot succeeds in building a durable coalition, the transformation is most likely to occur in the style of governance rather than in any substantial redefinition of foreign policy. He can be expected to prioritise accountability for the events of 7 October, the recovery of trust in institutions, a more circumscribed and selective management of crises, and the reduction of internal tensions. On issues such as Gaza, Iran and security, however, the differences with Netanyahu are likely to prove shallower at the level of political objectives than in the style of governance and the structure of decision-making processes. On Gaza, above all, the continuity is stark: neither bloc questions the war or its objectives.
What kind of differences, then, separate the two camps? The concrete ones those of policy and decision, which might be called ontic are the visible ones. Yet it is the ontological dimension, politics in the strong sense, that articulates these differences into a coherent whole: a deeper continuity in the logic and structure of power underlying the superficial changes.
The same applies to the racist policy of both men and, in general, to all Israeli political parties and to society as a whole. If there is one thing Israeli society can agree on, it is the genocide.