**The Defeat of the Change Bloc and the Surge in Arab Voter Turnout Increase the Chances of a Different Kind of Politics**
Last night’s exit polls sent one clear message: Netanyahu lost, but it was unclear who had won on the other side.
Here is an update as the actual results come in: Netanyahu has not yet won, but the Change Bloc has been defeated.
I have been covering politics since the beginning of the century. Never have I seen a political camp prepare for elections so impeccably, so systematically, and with such energy as the Change Bloc. Exemplary vote-sharing agreements, an unprecedented operation to fly voters in from abroad. And yet, according to the actual vote count, it ended up with roughly the same number of seats as in the previous election.
Demographics defeated energy, and the messaging also proved problematic and unsuccessful. The public was not convinced that the war had been a complete victory, but it also refused to accept the claim that it had been a complete failure. Voters were repulsed by ultra-Orthodox draft evasion, but they did not believe the solution was a minority government dependent on draft refusers and anti-Zionists. They were disgusted by the chanting of “We Do Not Believe in the Rule of the Zionists,” but they were equally shocked by the singing of “Biladi, Biladi” at the Joint List’s headquarters yesterday.
Netanyahu’s position changed dramatically between the closing of the exit polls and the emergence of the actual results. Last night, it seemed certain that the Speaker of the Knesset would be removed and that, one way or another, a minority government headed by Eisenkot would be formed.
Now, according to the criteria Eisenkot himself established, he has lost the legitimacy to form such a government. They would need the active support of the Joint List to establish it, and that seems both futile and pointless.
There is simply no chance that, in post-October 7 Israel, a coalition could survive for long with six immediate family members of people murdered by Hamas sitting alongside Knesset members who explain that Hamas is actually a charitable organization.
And so, much like Moshe Dayan once said to the Arabs, Netanyahu effectively told the Change Bloc in the early hours of the morning: “Here is my phone number. You are welcome to call.”
Lieberman, Bennett, and Eisenkot now face a dilemma from hell: head into another election, this time without the thousands of Israelis abroad rushing home to vote; attempt to join Netanyahu’s bloc under difficult conditions and in violation of their campaign promises; or go begging to Ra’am and the Joint List, both intoxicated by victory.
And one final observation: Throughout the entire election campaign, we searched for the third bloc — the unity bloc.
There were Gantz and Erdan, Winter and Zelekha, Tropper, and who even remembers who else. They all collapsed, evaporated, or disappeared.
And now, it turns out that perhaps the real unity bloc was the Arab parties all along.
Their extraordinary and historic voter turnout, at levels that will require thorough examination, shattered both sides’ dreams of reaching 61 seats.
It reminded Jews on both sides of the political divide that perhaps, after years of division, they will have to learn to sit together after all.