Friday briefing: Israel has a dilemma – can its opposition govern with Palestinian parties? | Israel

Good morning. It was described by many Israelis as the most consequential election in their country’s history. And, as the final votes were tallied, it has delivered a result that presents Israel with a significant dilemma.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition has lost its mandate while the opposition has a clear majority: but only if the Jewish Israeli opposition bloc, led by retired general Gadi Eisenkot, is prepared to make a governing pact with Palestinian Israeli parties, which have secured a historic result.

But the country that is desperate for change remains bitterly divided. After a campaign mired in racism, during which Israel’s far-right demonised the Palestinian population as the enemy within, Netanyahu has gone further since Tuesday’s vote, claiming that Palestinian-led parties have “stolen the election”, despite Israeli authorities insisting there is no evidence of election fraud.

As coalition talks commence, I spoke to our chief Middle East correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison in Tel Aviv, about false narratives and the stark choice facing the country. But first, the headlines.

Five big stories

1. UK politics | John Healey has backed away from cutting the cost of welfare this parliament, amid dire warnings his first budget could lead to brutal spending cuts because of a £28bn shortfall in public finances.

2. Patrick Stewart | The acclaimed British stage and screen actor renowned for both Shakespeare and sci-fi, died at his home in Los Angeles after “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia”, his longtime spokesperson said.

3. Environment | One of the most ambitious nature recovery projects ever undertaken in England can go ahead after campaigners announced they had raised £30m to buy an estate in Northumberland.

4. Europe | Spain began three days of mourning on Thursday for at least 69 people who died in a high-speed rail collision, as hospitals continued to treat dozens of injured passengers and train drivers went on strike to urge more investment in railway safety.

5. US news | The Trump administration has opened a criminal investigation in California over claims that thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote in the state, and has begun subpoenaing election officials.

In depth: There is no evidence of election fraud

With the final results released early on Friday local time, Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 seats, compared with 48 for the grouping led by rival Eisenkot. Palestinian parties won 19 seats, a record high. No single party has ever claimed a majority of 61 seats, so Israel has always been governed by coalitions.

With neither bloc reaching the 61 seats needed for a majority in the Knesset, Israeli president Isaac Herzog is expected to invite the party most likely to be able to form a government to start coalition negotiations, and has already urged politicians to have an “open mind” before talks begin. The country potentially faces weeks of rancour and uncertainty.

Yair Golan, the leader of the centre-left Democrats, a junior partner in the Jewish Israeli opposition bloc, told Israeli media on Thursday that he was meeting Eisenkot and others for initial talks. If the opposition can’t agree some kind of coalition, or even secure Palestinian support for a minority government, Netanyahu may have a lifeline. He is already pushing for a right-wing governing coalition, and would probably welcome new elections or a lengthy period of uncertainty during which he will stay on as caretaker prime minister.

And yet throughout the campaign, voters’ discontent with Netanyahu was evident.

That didn’t mean a shift to the left: young Israelis are more rightwing than older generations, as Emma wrote about here. The national conversation ahead of the election was dominated by security at home and abroad. Although he was in charge on 7 October 2023, when Hamas attacks resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people, the majority of them civilians, the prime minister tried to shift blame on to the security services.

His opponents pledged a state commission of inquiry into the events of 7 October, and spoke to voters’ concerns about the social toll of three years of multi-front wars, and anger about the draft exemption for ultra-orthodox young men when other Israelis are spending hundreds of days on reserve duty.

Netanyahu’s false narrative

Throughout the campaign, Netanyahu and his far-right allies have framed Palestinian voters – who make up about 20% of the population – as a direct threat to ​the state, with Netanyahu repeating the slogan “the right or Palestine”, which rhymes in Hebrew.

“It’s both tragic and depressing,” Emma tells me, “attempting to paint Palestinians as untrustworthy citizens with dual loyalties, a racist trope that also appears in antisemitic attacks.”

This tactic extended to election day, when voters received a robocall purporting to come from the prime minister falsely claiming that Palestinian party leaders had been caught with envelopes full of cash. Netanyahu and his allies repeatedly made claims about high turnout in Palestinian areas, in a bid to get his own voters out.

Then on Wednesday night, Netanyahu reacted to the high Palestinian turnout and success of Arab Israeli parties by claiming, again without providing evidence, they had “stolen the election,” calling for the central elections committee and Shin Bet internal security agency to investigate foreign interference in the vote. These claims were amplified by far-right Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who called for the arrest of Arab Israeli leaders.

He was swiftly accused of using smear tactics to cling to power. Eisenkot warned that Likud and Netanyahu “have embarked on a coordinated, organised campaign seeking to delegitimise the results of the election”. President Herzog stepped in with a rebuke to the prime minister and said “we must avoid tarnishing an entire community”. Meanwhile, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson rejected “ridiculous and dangerous” accusations his country had interfered in Tuesday’s election.

It bears repeating: Israeli police and the central elections committee have said there is no evidence of election fraud.

The Palestinian-led parties who could be kingmakers

There was a surge in support for Arab parties after Palestinian citizens came out in historic numbers to vote.

Many had boycotted previous elections “on the grounds that participating endorses a discriminatory system or because they felt their representatives had little leverage”, Emma explains. But this year, the mood changed: “They’re watching ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, a genocidal war in Gaza, and are under huge pressure inside Israel from an openly racist government, which has allowed organised crime to soar, ramped up home demolitions, and targeted political speech. They felt that, if Netanyahu managed to get another mandate with his far right allies including [extremist security minister] Ben-Gvir, this would only accelerate.”

The Joint List – which represents a number of mainly leftist Israeli Arab-led parties – is led by Yousef Jabareen. He has previously said the Joint ​List could not join an Eisenkot-led government because of its support for Israel’s ‌military operation in Gaza and southern Lebanon, but has left open the possibility of bolstering a minority government through confidence votes.

The other main Palestinian party, Ra’am, is led by Mansour Abbas, and includes a Jewish former chief of police as number two on their slate, a signal of their commitment to working with Jewish Israelis but also their desire to tackle organised crime, which is a big issue for the Palestinian population.

Ra’am joined Naftali Bennett’s government in 2021, the first time a Palestinian party entered an Israeli coalition, but their pact collapsed after 18 months, partly because of disagreements over the occupied West Bank.

The big dilemma

A survey taken as polls closed on Tuesday showed that a clear majority of opposition voters supported forming a government with Ra’am in order to unseat Netanyahu.

While Eisenkot has not ruled out cooperating with Palestinians because of their race, he has effectively barred them from a future coalition by laying out conditions for any partner which are politically impossible for them to accept.

Still, Emma notes an inconsistency: Palestinian citizens play a key role in Israeli life, with outsized representation in professions from medics to security guards, including much of the team at Eisenkot’s election night HQ. “You would think some of these parties might ask, if you trust Palestinian citizens to secure your campaign events why don’t you trust them to be part of your government?”

Emma points to a rarely referenced precedent from three decades ago, when Yitzhak Rabin relied on Palestinian support for a minority government as he sought a negotiated end to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Might such a compromise be possible now?

“This whole campaign has been based on Israeli voters urgently wanting change, because Netanyahu has led them to the brink of disaster. And now they have voted, this is an existential moment,” she said

“You have a parliamentary majority to bring about that change. Is your racism ultimately more important to you? What matters more: the desire to exclude Palestinians or the desire to get rid of Netanyahu?”

What else we’ve been reading

• Tim Burrows’ deep dive on how Romford might actually be the birthplace of jungle was surprising and gave me a sense of nostalgia for a time that I wasn’t really part of. Poppy Noor, newsletters team

• The latest instalment of our US politics film series, Anywhere but Washington, really captures the vibe in Texas where all eyes are on a hotly contested midterm Senate race. Michael

• Adrian Chiles on the cryptic sign outside his local pub was a lesson in when not to brag. I now know far more about pub tubes, mould and yeast than I ever cared to know. Poppy

• Andy Beckett’s ode to the British Library comes as some of its silent, free-to-access reading rooms face a #coworking space fate. Fun fact, I once fell asleep for a whole hour inside one … Michael

• Readers’ reactions to the budget was a real take on the different ways people in the country live. Poppy

Sport

Women’s Champion League | Paris Saint-Germain’s Tara Elimbi Gilbert had a late equaliser moments after Khadija Shaw scored a penalty as Manchester City drew their third league phase game in a row.

Cricket | England beat Sri Lanka in the One Day International by 55 runs but still do not progress to the final on Sunday.

Football | Everton beat Newcastle 3-1 with goals by James Garner, Hayden Hackney and Thierno Barry to set up a Carabao Cup quarter-final with Fleetwood Town.

Something for the weekend

Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now

Film

Wicker (in cinemas now)
| ★★★☆☆

Olivia Colman stars as a depressed and bullied fisher in medieval England. Fortunately, Peter Dinklage’s basketmaker delivers the answer to her dreams – an Alexander Skarsgård made of wicker. Read Peter Bradshaw’s full review.

TV

Nocturne (Apple TV) | ★★★★
☆

Stephen Graham plays a sadistic murderer still pulling the strings from behind bars. With his high-pitched giggles and fatal whispers, it is a perfectly terrifying show for Halloween. Read Lucy Mangan’s full review.

Music

The Big Moon: Forever | ★★★★
☆

After front person Juliette Jackson lost half her hearing, she wrote sad songs and felt frustrated. So she pivoted, writing herself a happy ending. The results are joyfully convincing. Read Dave Simpson’s full review.

Book

Are You With Me Now? by Hanif Kureishi

After his catastrophic accident, the rebel writer’s musings on everything from sex chatbots to film stars have become gloriously unleashed. Read Melissa Denes’s full review.

The front pages

“Netanyahu accused of smearing Arab voters to hold on to power”, is the Guardian’s front page today.

The Times leads with “Defence to benefit from off-the-book spending”, the Telegraph writes “Prepare for decade of pain, warn IFS”, and the i Paper leads on “No welfare cuts before election – as Britons face ‘worst decade’ for pay growth”, while the Mail has “Humiliation for Healey”.

The FT says “Alphabet shares battered as cash burn deepens investor fears over AI returns”. Metro writes “Manosphere ‘as bad as smoking’” and the Sun splashes “Fright of the round table”.

The Latest

Shock and anger in Spain after deadly train crash

Spain has begun three days of mourning after at least 69 people were killed and more than 100 were injured in a crash between two high-speed trains. The town of Urda has become the site of a major operation, as emergency services continue to search through the wreckage and relatives wait for news of their loved ones. There is growing public anger over the incident, which is the second fatal train collision in Spain in less than a year. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s Madrid correspondent, Sam Jones.

Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

Moving away from diesel-powered ferries to electric vessels has not been an easy task. Batteries are heavy, which means more power is needed to propel electric boats forward through significant resistance. But more companies are finding solutions to the problem and creating workable vessels that reduce emissions.

One such company is Vessev, whose electric ferries rely on underwater wings called hydrofoils that lift the boat above the water. This dramatically reduces drag by up to 66%, making their boats more energy-efficient. Swedish company Candela are designing boats, they claim, which can reduce energy use by 80% compared with conventional vessels of a similar type. “I think in a more sustainable future we’re likely to see more and more vessels like this around the world,” Eric Laakmann, the chief executive and co-founder of Vessev, said.

Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday

Bored at work?

And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.