JERUSALEM — Drawn-out uncertainty over Israel’s election results is benefiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, despite losing his mandate, will remain in power until a new government is formed — a process that has taken weeks in recent Israeli election cycles.

For opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot to oust Netanyahu, Eisenkot would have to break a campaign promise and join with the Arab parties, who are likely to have won an unprecedented 17 to 19 seats in the Knesset — depending on the final vote tallies.

And yet, Eisenkot and most of his Yashar party’s opposition allies have not indicated they would break their promises to exclude both Arab parties — the Joint List and Ra’am — from any government he leads.

Netanyahu is capitalizing on his opposition’s political dilemma, now fomenting distrust in the Israeli electorate by accusing the Arab parties of stealing the election from him “through serious criminal offenses of bribery, threats, violence, forgeries, and the use of prohibited software to mobilize voters.”

On Wednesday, Netanyahu’s Likud party announced it was providing the police, Shin Bet intelligence service and the Central Elections Committee with “hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence regarding election theft in many Arab polling stations” and demanded an investigation. The Arab parties have not publicly commented.

Meanwhile, the Arab parties are signaling they are ready to join a coalition to replace Netanyahu.

“We are ready and prepared to pave the way for the ousting of the Netanyahu government,” Joint List leader Yousef Jabareen wrote on X. “Against a government of bloodshed, against a politics of supremacy, racism, and exclusion, we offer a completely different alternative.”

Jabareen proposed a “true and equal” Jewish-Arab partnership.

But even though the Arab vote could seal Netanyahu’s fate by pushing his opposition bloc across the 61-seat threshold for a majority, even the more moderate Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas — who tapped a Jewish former minister and lawmaker to rank second on his slate — is palatable to most of the opposition coalition.

Eisenkot set four conditions for any party joining his coalition, including declaring Hamas as a terrorist organization that needs to be disarmed and destroyed. In an interview on election night, Abbas refused.

“I condemned what they did time and time again,” he told i24 News, but he said he needed certain conditions met before he disavowed the terrorist organization. “I wanted to see if there’s an option for a government, then we’ll deliberate it,” he said.

Yashar Knesset member Lianne Polk-David said not supporting all four principles is a nonstarter.

”We cannot have any party in our government that does not support our very core basic values,” she told MS NOW. “If that changes, if any party on any side decides to go ahead and support our values, then things could change, and we are open for discussions. But those core values, we’re not going to compromise on them.”

Israeli political coalitions have relied on Arab parties only twice, most recently in 2021. Both times, the move sparked a backlash that emboldened the right and led to the governments’ collapse.

“We can’t have a repeat of that, and we learn from that,” said Reuven Hazan, political science professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

“You cannot form a government that mathematically is skating on thin ice, because to undo what this government has done, you need stability and you need time in office, you need to give Netanyahu the notion that he’s finished, that he has to leave,” Hazan said.

“The Arabs, if they are the kingmakers,” he added. “They assume too much power, and Israeli society might not be willing to give it to them.”

Some in Eisenkot’s coalition are willing to take the risk.

“The picture of reality must teach us one resounding lesson: We have no future here if we don’t stop being afraid. And if we don’t stop with the racism,” The Democrats’ leader Yair Golan wrote on X. “We must no longer accept Netanyahu’s racist division between Jewish votes and Arab votes.”

“We have an opportunity to form a government of change in partnership with Israel’s Arab citizens,” Golan added. “A government that will serve all Israeli citizens.”

Israel’s two million Palestinian citizens turned out at nearly 80%, reportedly driven by outrage against the policies of Netanyahu and his far-right allies Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, leading to roughly double the seats they had in the last Knesset.

Arab-Israeli Fouid Abu-Gosh was one of those voters. His cousin was killed in Gaza in an airstrike days after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

Voting in the election, he said, “was an emotional feeling. It was mixed with pride and concern at the same time.”

“They basically turned us and they turned the Arab representative to monsters, to mean enemies, while we are part of this state, we are citizens. We face the same destiny. We face the same threat that the rest of the people of Israel are facing,” Abu-Gosh said.

“We are part of the state,” he added. “You cannot ignore us.”

Josh Einiger contributed reporting.

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