Jackson Richman

Two takeaways based on exit polls: First, neither camp has a a clear path to forming a coalition. That leaves us with a simple but unavoidable conclusion: for Israel to have a government in the coming weeks, someone is going to have to break a campaign promise. It could be Eisenkot deciding to form a government with the support of Ra’am, the Arab party led by Mansour Abbas. It could be Bennett, Liberman or even Eisenkot deciding to cross the partisan line and join a government with Netanyahu. The second takeaway is that a decisive majority of Israelis are opposed to Netanyahu and want to see him out of office. Based on projections, approximately 70 seats voted for parties - Jewish and Arab - committed to ousting Netanyahu. That does not mean all 70 support Eisenkot or that they can necessarily sit together in one government. But it does mean that Netanyahu and his coalition have lost the support of a majority of the electorate.