US midterm rout reshapes Israel's race to form a government

Republican losses in the US midterm elections are helping shape who becomes Israel’s next prime minister, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim to be the guarantor of strong US-Israel ties was undermined by the result.

Netanyahu had long presented himself as the leader best placed to protect relations with the United States, Israel’s most important ally. US President Donald Trump endorsed him before Israel’s parliamentary election last month, in the same year Washington and Tel Aviv jointly went to war with Iran. The Republican Party’s poor midterm performance has prompted early analysis focused partly on the Iran war and the US-Israel relationship, issues also highlighted by Vice President JD Vance.

That has left Netanyahu’s argument much weaker. Al Jazeera reported that his policies, including the war in Gaza, the Iran war and attacks across the wider region, have made Israel politically toxic in the US. Many Israelis now worry that unquestioned US support can no longer be relied upon. Opposition leaders seeking to replace him have blamed Netanyahu directly and said the fallout is another reason he should not form the next government.

Yair Lapid, a former Israeli prime minister whose party is part of the bloc opposing Netanyahu, stressed his ties to members of the US Congress in a social media post. He said US voters were not against Israel so much as “against extremist ministers who say crazy things,” settler violence and a government they do not understand, adding that they are “mainly against Netanyahu.”

Avigdor Lieberman, another opposition leader, echoed suspicions in Israel that Trump’s election-day announcement that US military aid to Israel would end had been traded for his endorsement of Netanyahu. “The price of Trump’s support for Netanyahu – $3.8bn dollars a year,” Lieberman wrote.

Ahron Bregman, an Israeli security analyst at King’s College London, said that if US funding stops, Israel’s defence budget — already 7 percent of GDP — will have to rise and Israelis will feel it. He also said Netanyahu continues to turn segments of the population against each other and is trying to delegitimise Arab citizens by saying they stole the election.

Election arithmetic

Israel’s general election on October 27 left Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc with 53 seats in parliament, eight short of the 61 needed to govern. The opposition bloc led by former army chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot won 48 seats, while Arab-led parties — the United Arab List (Ra’am) and the Joint List — have 19 seats and have both said they will support Eisenkot for prime minister.

Eisenkot and other opposition leaders have rejected a unity government with Netanyahu, leaving him without a clear path to a majority. Israeli President Isaac Herzog must nominate a politician to form a government, but has not yet done so. On Thursday, Netanyahu’s longtime ultra-Orthodox ally United Torah Judaism declined for the first time since 2009 to recommend him or anyone else, an apparent defection that weakened the prime minister.

Eisenkot’s self-styled Zionist bloc has previously ruled out serving alongside the Arab-led parties, so their support would come from outside the government, despite Netanyahu’s attacks.

Yet replacing Netanyahu would not necessarily reverse Israel’s declining popularity in the US. Pollster Shibley Telhami, director of the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll, noted an April Pew Research Center poll suggesting US attitudes towards Israel are as negative as towards Netanyahu. His own poll found most Americans would not change their view of Israel even with a new government without Netanyahu. “Any government of Israel would be swimming against the rising public tide,” he said.

Source: Al Jazeera.