Israel’s Yair Lapid congratulates Benjamin Netanyahu on election victory

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Israel’s prime minister, Yair Lapid, has called Benjamin Netanyahu to offer his congratulations on the opposition leader’s election win following the conclusion of vote counting in this week’s election.

Netanyahu, the chair of the conservative Likud party and Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is expected to begin an unprecedented third term as PM after holding coalition negotiations with his religious and far-right allies on forming a government.

The bloc, which includes the extremist Religious Zionist party and two ultra-Orthodox parties, won a comfortable majority in Tuesday’s election, the country’s fifth in four years.

“The state of Israel comes before any political consideration. I wish Netanyahu success, for the sake of the people of Israel and the state of Israel,” Lapid said in a statement, adding that the prime minister had instructed his office to prepare for an “organised transition of power”.

Netanyahu was removed from office last summer by a diverse coalition which formed a so-called “government of change”. Infighting led to its downfall a year later, sending a frustrated electorate back to the voting booths.

As with the four other elections since 2019, this week’s poll was another referendum on Netanyahu’s suitability to govern: the 73-year-old is on trial for corruption charges, which he denies.

Polling consistently predicted that the pro- and anti-Netanyahu blocs would yet again end in deadlock, with the camps on about 60 seats each in the 120-seat Knesset. Exit polls on Tuesday night, however, suggested that the longtime leader and his allies would scrape a majority with 61, and their lead had extended to a comfortable 64 seats by the time the vote counting finished on Thursday afternoon. Official results will be released by next Wednesday.

Netanyahu will in all probability return to office in a few weeks’ time at the head of the most rightwing government in Israel’s history. He was able to end the four-year political crisis by persuading three small far-right fringe parties to merge into one slate called the Religious Zionists before the 2021 election, pushing them over the electoral threshold and into the Knesset.

This time around, the rocketing popularity of Itamar Ben-Gvir, a leader of the Religious Zionists, helped the party more than double their number of seats. With 14, they will now be the third-largest party in parliament, and will probably receive important ministerial positions in the new government.

A former follower of the banned Kach terrorist group, with a conviction for inciting racism, Ben-Gvir supports altering Israel’s legal code, which could help Netanyahu evade a conviction in his corruption trial. He has also lobbied for the deportation of “disloyal” Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The Arab-Israeli politician Aida Touma-Suleiman said on Wednesday that Netanyahu would be forming a government “with fascists by his side”.