Israel’s Election Is Far From Over – with Amit Segal

0:00 There's never been more coverage of Israel in the Jewish world, and there's never been less of it worth trusting. Our Arc Plus members provide the funding that allows us to cover Israel and the Jewish world honestly without compromise. When you join Arc Plus, you support our mission and get access to exclusive content as well as ad-free listening across all Arc Media podcasts. Sign up at arcmedia.org. And to our members, thank you.

0:27 [Instrumental music] You are listening to an Arc Media podcast. I've been covering politics since two thousand and one. I've never seen in my career a political camp as organized, as motivated, as energized as the center left in this election. A hundred thousand voters took flights to Israel from the United States, United Kingdom in order to actually change the results. Yet they ended up with give or take the same support they achieved in twenty twenty-two.

1:05 Which means that demography always defeats energy. As long as the average number of children in an ultra-Orthodox family is six, in a national Orthodox family is four, and in an Arab family is three, but in a secular Jewish family is two point two, you cannot win in the long run. And that's exactly what happened. We're actually left with two options. Either a unity government led by Benjamin Netanyahu or a new, uh, election around April.

1:35 [Instrumental music] It's seven forty-five AM on Wednesday, October twenty-eighth here in New York City. It's one forty-five PM on Wednesday, October twenty-eighth in Israel, where Israelis are wondering what coalition, if any, could emerge from yesterday's election. Before we get started, one quick housekeeping note.

2:04 This Thursday, October twenty-ninth at seven PM Eastern, we're holding the first live session of our new monthly book club in the fold, which is our private community for listeners of Call Me Back and the rest of the Arc Media family. I'll sit down with Rabbi David Wolpe to discuss this month's pick, which is The Pity of It All, one of my favorite books by Amos Elon. It's the story of German Jewry.

2:28 You can peg it, the arc of the story from the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn's arrival in Berlin in seventeen forty-three all the way through Hitler's rise to power in nineteen thirty-three. How did a community so deeply woven into German life fail to see what was coming? Obviously, many would argue that there are lessons here for today, which is why I've been so focused on this book and what history teaches for Jews today.

2:55 Uh, after our conversation, Rabbi Wolpe and I will take your questions, and I have a feeling we will also wind up reacting to recent developments in the Israeli elections, even though that's not the focus of the book club. But David's a smart guy, and I always appreciate his insights on current events too, not just on history and history books.

3:13 But to join the book club, go to arcmedia.org to subscribe to The Fold or follow the link in the show notes. Now onto today's episode, which whether you are an Arc Plus subscriber or not, you are getting today's episode on Wednesday. Our new schedule is the Wednesday episode is only released to Arc Plus subscribers, and then it is released on Friday to the main Call Me Back feed. But we are releasing it to everybody today. It's an outlier.

3:42 Normally, this episode would not come out for a couple of days for the main feed. But if you like the experience, we would of course encourage you to subscribe to Arc Plus, so you can always get these episodes two days before it goes out on the main feed. Okay. Based on seventy-seven percent of the count so far from the election, here are the results of yesterday's elections. Likud is at twenty-seven seats. Yesh Atid, which is Yair Lapid's party, is at twenty-two seats.

4:10 Bayit Yehudi, which is the Naftali Bennett, uh, party, is at twelve seats. The Joint Arab List, which is the combination of two Arab parties, is at eleven seats. The Democrats, led by Yair Golan, is at eight seats. The Ra'am party, uh, Arab party led by Mansour Abbas, is at six seats. The Shas is at seven seats. Yisrael Beiteinu is at seven seats. Otzma Yehudit is at seven seats. Religious Zionism is at six seats.

4:35 And United Torah Judaism is at seven seats, which means the current coalition, as it currently stands, has fifty-four seats. The opposition got sixty-six seats. Sounds like a landslide, right? Only problem is seventeen of the opposition seats, seventeen within those sixty-six seats, belong to Arab parties. Ra'am, led by Mansour Abbas, and the Joint List.

5:00 Since some of the key leaders in the opposition, namely Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett, have said in no uncertain terms that they would not sit in a coalition with the Arab parties or sit in a minority coalition supported by the Arab parties. So that means that Lapid cannot form a government with the Arab parties if he wants people like Naftali Bennett still in the government. So where does this leave us?

5:24 Netanyahu and his current bloc of fifty-four seats can't form a government, but Lapid with his bloc of forty-nine seats doesn't seem to be able to form one either. Are the Arab parties who've gained historic political leverage in this election simply a force to be reckoned with? Will Bennett or Lieberman break their election promise?

5:41 Will any of them defect to Netanyahu's bloc and try to form some kind of national unity government with Netanyahu still as prime minister? Are there any other scenarios, or is Israel headed towards another election sometime next year? To answer these questions, I am joined by Arc Media contributor and Channel Twelve political analyst and columnist for Israel Hayom- Amit Segal, who has been going nonstop on Israeli television breaking everything down.

6:10 My conversation with Amit right after this short message. [gentle music] I'm Deborah Pardes, the host of Arc News Daily. What's happening in Israel and the Jewish world right now matters, but it can be hard to keep up, let alone make sense of it all. That's why we started Arc News Daily. Every weekday morning, I walk you through the most important news, give you the context you need, and let you know what to look out for next. I don't try to convince you of anything, and I don't waste your time.

6:45 On most days, I'll be in your ears for about 10 minutes or less. Then you can move on with your day, hopefully a little bit smarter than before. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or follow the link in the show notes. I hope to see you tomorrow. [upbeat jingle] And we're back with Amit Segal. Amit, did you get a lot of sleep? Uh, 25 minutes.

7:11 25 minutes [laughs]. I, I don't know if it's called to pull an all -nighter or just to burn the midnight oil. So you took, you got a nap. Great. You took a nap. Okay. That's what you did. You got a nap for 25 minutes, which given how many little kids you have, that's kind of not, like, uh, that different from a typical night for you.

7:26 Look, my, my mother is a nurse, has been a nurse in a, in a hospital in Jerusalem for the last 44 years, and she works three nights a week every week since 1984. Really? Even now? Even now, at the age of 66. So- Wow... in spite of this, every time there is election, I keep telling her, "You don't know how hard I work. I'll, I'll have to pull an all -nighter [laughs] every four years."

7:48 Yeah, so she's, she has only so much sympathy for you. Okay, so Amit, top line, what's your read of the election results? Bibi hasn't won the election yet, but we can say for sure that, uh, the opposition was defeated. Let's go back to examine the, the goals of both sides. The opposition's goal at the beginning was to achieve something like 63, 64 seats out of the 120, an outright Zionist majority for the opposition, what we call the, uh, block, the change block.

8:22 Then they saw that they are short of this majority, and they said, "Okay, if we, if we achieve 58 seats, we'll have a minority government sworn in based on the help, uh, of the Arab parties." They ended up with something like 47, 48, and I want to explain something which is crucial. And again, just, just for people to understand, 120 seats in the parliament, 120 seats in the Knesset.

8:47 The magic number is to get to 61 or at least get close to 61 to be able to form a government. And what you're basically saying here is both the Netanyahu block and the opposition block fell short of getting to 61. Netanyahu falling short is not a shock, but the opposition falling as far behind as it seems to have- This is a shock... is a big surprise. Absolutely. Right. Right.

9:12 And, uh, just, just to explain, the last poll on Channel 12 four days before the election put the opposition six seats ahead of Netanyahu. It ended up exactly the other way around. So it's something like a 10% change between the last poll and the results, which cannot be explained merely by, by a, you know, a statistical tools like margin of error, et cetera. Now, here is the thing.

9:40 I've been covering politics since 2001. I've never seen in my career a political camp as organized, as motivated, as energized, as heavily funded as the center left in this election. I've never seen anything like this. 100,000 voters took flights to Israel from the United States, United Kingdom. Is that the number? It's, it's about 100,000? Yes. Uh- Wow. Yeah... well, may- maybe 75,000, in order to actually change the results.

10:10 And I'll give you more examples. Um, there were, uh, WhatsApp groups for each and every building in Tel Aviv, in Hod HaSharon, in Ramat Hasharon, in the, um, heavily blue area of the country. Yet they ended up with give or take the same support they achieved in 2022, which means that demography always defeats energy.

10:33 As long as the average number of children per family in an ultra-Orthodox family is six, in a National Orthodox family is four, and in an Arab family is three, but in a secular Jewish family is 2.2, you cannot win in the long run, and that's exactly what happened. So what turned out is that the Arab vote and the Likud vote, they outnumbered the magical, legendary operation of the center left in Israel. Okay.

11:04 I mean, elections always provide a snapshot of the society in which they're held in terms of what's, what's going on. One would think that after, you know, the judicial reform protests in 2023, the failures of October 7th and the failures that led to October 7th, the exhaustion of the seventh front war, how- however impressive what Israel accomplished was militarily, there's no doubt that hundreds of thousands of Israelis, Israeli reservists who were serving were exhausted.

11:33 Their families were exhausted. The, the, the hostage crisis and all the divisions within Israeli society in terms of how to deal with the hostage crisis, Israel's growing pariah status around the world. Obviously, the big debate about the Haredi exemption, uh, whether or not ultra-Orthodox should be exempted from serving in the military.

11:52 Just long-term service of Prime Minister Netanyahu, the longest serving prime minister, you know, people are just fatigued with, with the length of time he served. One would think the result would look a lot different than the result of the election in 2022 that produced this government. So the, what's going on in Israeli society that this election, do you think, captures?

12:14 Okay, so let's explain something. There are two constituencies in Israel. There is the Zionist Jewish constituency that deals, I mean, th- they can be upset with Netanyahu because they feel he was too soft on terror or too strong on, I don't know, when it comes to Lebanon, or too soft on the ultra-Orthodox community.

12:34 And there are the anti-Zionist Arab parties who blame Netanyahu for genocide in Gaza. It's something totally different. When there is a war between Israel and Hamas, so the Arab Knesset members, there hasn't been a single one of them that dared to say the simple fact that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations.

12:56 Now I would like to explain. In the next Knesset, there are going to be 12 Knesset members who are relatives or who are bereaved parents, grandparents, grandchildren, brothers and sisters of, uh, soldiers or citizens who were killed by Hamas since October 7th. They are supposed to somehow cooperate- Including, including the leader of- Including Gadi Eisenkot...

13:21 including the leader of the opposition, Gadi Eisenkot, who lost his son and lost, uh, two other family members, I think. I mean- Exactly. Does someone really believe that they can somehow cooperate with Knesset members who believe that Hamas was right in targeting, for instance, soldiers? I think it, I find it ridiculous.

13:40 So when we take a look at the Zionist constituency, at the Jewish constituency, we see that the majority actually supports Netanyahu's perception and vision of the failure of the, uh, um, fighting with Iran, et cetera, et cetera. So maybe we should suspect that most Israelis didn't see the government as a, the, one who prefers hostages to die, or who didn't want the government to surrender to Hamas and withdraw to the perimeter in order to, to get back all the hostages.

14:16 I think the public says, "Okay, it wasn't a total victory," like Netanyahu tried to say, "but it wasn't a total failure either." And the main problem of the opposition was that they tried to depict the entire war, everything, as a total failure. Now, if you have to choose between this and that, you'll choose, I think most Israelis will prefer the vision that sees the war from October 8th as a success.

14:43 As for the Arab sector, they really came in droves to the ballots. The, the number is skyrocketing. I would like to explain how dramatic it is. So can you, can you explain some of the numbers? Yes. Because this is important because it's, it really is unprecedented. Never in the history, not of Israel, of the world, has a poor sector from the lower classes showed up to the ballots in a higher turnout than the upper classes. In 2022, the Arabs', uh, turnout, the Arab turnout was something like 53%. Last night it was 78.

15:20 It was actually higher than the Jewish turnout. It was more than the Haredi vote, the secular vote, the National Orthodox vote. Rahat, the Bedouin, uh, city in the Negev, in the south, voted way more than Tel Aviv. But I think that it ch- it has changed Israeli politics because once they have something like 18 seats, 15% of the popular vote, it prevents both the right wing and the left wing from having an outright majority.

15:51 Now, while hindering Netanyahu's efforts to somehow achieve 61, it killed, uh, the efforts of Gadi Eisenkot to actually unseat Netanyahu because it shrank the proportional, uh, uh, share of the, the secular voters in Israel. Just to explain this, two things. One, because the Arab vote turnout was so high, it expanded the overall size of the electorate, which then made the opposition, the Gadi Eisenkot bloc, relative to the overall electorate not do as well.

16:25 It diluted the strength of the opposition. Is that right? Absolutely. Now, in the Arab parties there is a Jewish Knesset member, Ofer Cassif, one of the most extremist anti-Israeli Knesset members, and there are Arab Knesset members in the Zionist parties. But their pro-Palestinian approach prevents them from being a part of a coalition that will have to, uh, deal with Gaza, to bomb in Lebanon, to, uh, attack Iran.

16:55 While most Israelis oppose Netanyahu's leadership, they cannot agree, those Israelis, on why they oppose him. I mean, I, I guess, uh, it's quite frustrating if you don't like Netanyahu because you see there are so many around you dislike him, but you cannot agree on the reason, hence you cannot form a coalition.

17:14 So this is the main reason why Netanyahu is still in office even after losing some 6 to 7% of the popular vote. We'll be back in a minute. Ever listen to Call Me Back and think to yourself, "This would be so much better if Amit went on a rant about the latest celebrity who said something stupid about Israel"?

17:32 Or if Nadav ranked every member of Knesset by how hot they are. Tune into our show, Chosen People Problems, for the real news. Yeah, because that's what the world needs, more Jews in media. Yeah, like more Jews with strong opinions about things. [beep] I think we need to do it one more time. Okay. I don't want to do, "Yeah." I can't s- Yeah. You could say it. I just don't want to say it. What did I say?

17:51 We both did, "Yeah." Like we're not... Why are we doing that? It sounds so [beep]. Sorry for those listening and editing this. It's gonna get worse from here, by the way. [laughs] Listen to our [beep] show, Chosen People Problems. [laughs] This should actually be the intro. Okay. [beep] Chosen People Problems. We're like Amit and Nadav, but more so.

18:11 Please tune in or Dan Senor will be mad at us. You can find Chosen People Problems wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen ad-free and get access to our weekly exclusive bonus episode by joining Arc Plus at arcmedia.org. There's never been more coverage of Israel in the Jewish world, and I'd say there's never been less of it worth trusting.

18:32 But because our Arc Plus members fund most of what we do here at Arc Media, we're free to cover the stories that need to be told, honestly and without compromise. When you join Arc Plus, you support that mission, and you also get access to members-only episodes of Call Me Back and other shows in the Arc Media network.

18:50 Each of these shows covers everything from Israel's security and rising antisemitism to American politics and what it means to be Jewish in this moment. If you're able to, consider becoming a member. You can sign up for Arc Plus at arcmedia.org, or follow the link in our show notes. And we're back with Amit Segal.

19:13 Okay, now the opposition bloc, so the, so the Eisenkot-led bloc could still go for a minority government. I do wanna make that clear. So the thinking before the election was if the opposition led by Eisenkot couldn't get to sixty-one, they-- and they couldn't serve with the Arab parties, for all the reasons we've talked about, they could ask, when there's a vote in the Knesset on a new government, they could ask the Arab parties to abstain.

19:36 So instead of a hundred and twenty people voting, the number would come down to, say, a hundred and thirteen or a hundred and fourteen because the Arabs-- Sorry, a hundred and three or a hundred and four because the Arab parties would abstain, and then Eisenkot could form, get, get a majority within that smaller denominator, that lower denominator, and therefore what's called, form of what's called a minority government.

19:55 Yes. Um, that now sounds more challenging. Can you explain the difference between a coalition with the Arab parties and a minority government supported by the Arab parties? So in order to, to actually have a government sworn in, one does not need a, an outright majority. All you need is a regular majority.

20:12 So if the Arab Knesset members, for instance, abstain, and you have a majority, you can actually become a prime minister. That was Gadi Eisenkot's plan. Now, there are two problems. One is that unlike in the United States, once you get elected, you are on the verge of defeat every single week, every single vote. It's not a four-year term. Every S- Monday there is a no confidence vote.

20:34 Every Wednesday there are crucial, uh, votes. You need to actually recruit voters for each and every vote. And that's why if you have a government sworn in with the Arab Knesset m- members being abstain, it means that you go ex- directly to the polls. Uh, and, and then j- you just earn, you know- Meaning, meaning, meaning it's, uh, inherently a weak government, meaning every week you're at the mercy of these votes in the Knesset that could turn on you- Yes...

21:02 if you're dependent on them, and you could-- if you don't have a strong majority government that's reliable. Absolutely. But, but th- th- this is one problem. Right. So, so- Right... it is not going to be a stable four-year government. But the second problem is that Gadi Eisenkot no longer has the majority he had thought he would have. Right.

21:21 If he lags six seats behind Benjamin Netanyahu, it necessarily means that he needs them to actively support him, and then he starts paying huge prices in the public opinion. Prior to the election, Eisenkot, Lieberman, and Bennett sworn that they are not going to ask for the support of the Arab parties.

21:41 Now, if they do it, and the pro-Palestinian nationalist communist parties support them, it necessarily means that they are going to suffer heavier damage. Without speaking even about the political question, why will Avigdor Lieberman take the bullet for Gadi Eisenkot becoming a prime minister? I mean, why would he support it, and vice versa?

22:04 If we are going to go to the polls again, so why would I support my rival only to give him an advantage of running a Rose Garden campaign and me suffering the damage for cooperating with the Arabs? So it doesn't make any sense. So this is off the table. We're actually left with two options, either a unity government led by Benjamin Netanyahu or a new, uh, election around April. Okay, so let's get into that.

22:29 Let's go with your first scenario. So do you see a scenario in which Bennett or Lieberman join Netanyahu to form a right-wing government? I would say this. Since we understand that there isn't an opportunity for the center left to reinvent enthusiasm, energy, funding, and then only in order to achieve those miserable forty-eight seats, we understand that the law of the, of the rules of nature lead them to the conclusion that they are going to be defeated in an election held in April because Netanyahu will be motivated, energized, on the verge of winning an outright majority, while they are going to be poor, isolated, and, uh, without any support.

23:13 And that's why Netanyahu has w- w- w-- i- in this poker game, he has, uh, the upper hand. He has better cards. He can actually tell them, like Moshe Dayan told the Arabs after the Six-Day War, "This is my phone. Call me when you are serious," and to go, you know, run the country for the next forty-two days when he, uh, technically is trying to form a coalition. That's, that's the main thing. Now, what happens then?

23:40 Will they join him? And the same applies maybe for Eisenkot because I-- Eisenkot's rivals within the opposition might say, "I mean, you had one job, and you failed it, so give us a go. This time, we are going to lead the opposition." Okay, so I wanna come back to that in a moment. But just to be clear, you think it's likely or unlikely that Bennett or Lieberman will join Netanyahu to form a right-wing government? Is that a, a realistic scenario right now? It has less than fifty percent chance.

24:08 I would say even less than thirty. But yes, it's still on-- it's, it's still in the cards for three reasons. One, Bennett was part of the right wing of Netanyahu's camp until a few years ago. Defection is not something which is not a, an experience unfamiliar to Mr. Bennett, okay? This is one thing. Mm-hmm. Second, he has nothing to gain from Sitting in the opposition waiting for his political death verdict.

24:34 He ended up this election with something like seven Knesset members. He began his journey as the front runner with something like 25% of the popular vote. Mm-hmm. And he can reinvent himself, and this applies to Lieberman too. They all see Netanyahu's end of career, career in sight. Now, their dream has always been to lead the right wing.

24:57 They lost patience because they saw that Netanyahu was going nowhere. But now, if they get the chance to be hugged again by the right wing and being part of the government and, you know, competing on leading the right wing after Netanyahu's resignation maybe in '28, 2028, 2029, I think for them it's a wild card. So I wouldn't rule it out. Okay. And what would be their price for doing so? What would they demand? I hear what you're saying is they don't, they, there's only so much they can demand.

25:28 They don't have that much leverage. Exactly. So but what, what could you imagine they would demand? Uh, just senior cabinet posts, basically? Netanyahu is not going to give them to be a, the alternate prime minister. It's not going to happen. Right. And just for our listeners to understand, there, there is precedent for these unity governments where you have a rotating, Netanyahu in this case would serve as prime minister for, say, 18 months, and then one of the others would serve as prime minister for 18 months.

25:51 Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir did this many several decades ago. Bennett and, and Yair Lapid did a version of this in the, in the government that preceded this one. There is precedent for it, but you're saying Netany- there's no way Netanyahu will give that up. So then what does he have to offer them? The Defense Ministry, the Treasury Ministry, the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Right.

26:09 The, I, I mean, Netanyahu doesn't really care about the, you know, the Likud senior Knesset members. I mean, the sky's the limit for them. I would give more chances to Bennett than Eisenkot and then Lieberman, something like this. Okay. So you keep throwing Eisenkot in there. We were, so we were just talking about Bennett and Lieberman.

26:27 Why would Eisenkot do this? Why would Eisenkot join a Netanyahu-led government? Because he has three very bad options. One is to go to the polls again and, you know, most likely be defeated. Second, to try and form a minority government heavily supported by the Arab parties. I, I, I think I, I, I made the case for not doing it. And the third is to join forces with Netanyahu.

26:51 Now, I think for Eisenkot it's not only a breaking of political pledges, but something emotional too. His son and two nephews were killed in this war, which in his opinion, Netanyahu is to be fully blamed for it. And that's why I think it's very hard for him and for his family alike to actually join forces with Netanyahu.

27:11 But, you know, when politicians have to choose between three very bad options, I wouldn't put my money on each of the options. Another question is whether or not he just wants to, I don't think in his playbook was toiling in the opposition waiting for the next election. Like, the, the whole idea was he was gonna be like this kind of, you know, rocket ship campaign, leader of the opposition in the post October 7th world and get elected prime minister.

27:34 The idea of just becoming a, a career politician that's toiling in the, in the Knesset for however long is, is probably not what he had imagined doing. Look, two weeks ago, Benny Gantz, his former ally, uh, stepped down. Benny Gantz was the- Mm-hmm... I mean, the, the Israeli equivalent of Barack Obama, something like this in 2019.

27:55 He won more than a million, a million votes three times in a row, the highest number ever achieved by any politician, and he had to step down seven years later because he wasn't sure that he, he'll achieve even 1% of the popular vote. Now, Gadi Eisenkot, he knows how short is the distance between the white hope of the change, uh, camp and being, uh, um, rejected by the camp. It's very rapid.

28:26 Uh, they like to change, um, uh, candidates every election campaign. So I don't think personally that he'll just want, as Margaret Thatcher once said, to manage his own decline. He won't step quietly into the night. And, uh, that's why I think there is an option that he'll join forces with Netanyahu. Now, you have to take into account the Iran issue.

28:50 I think we are on the verge of a third round between Iran and the US-Israeli alliance, which means that we can find ourselves in a, a, next week in a brand new atmosphere, not of an election campaign and, you know, making, um, and swearing not to sit with each other, but under missiles and rockets, and President Trump might call, and President Herzog might offer something, and things can look different next week.

29:17 Okay, before we move off this, if Eisenkot is hell-bent on forming a government and he basically says, "I know we pledged not to serve with the Arab parties, but it's the only way to get rid of Netanyahu, so we have to break our pledge to not sit with Arab parties and bring Arab parties into the government," is there a world in which Lieberman or Bennett...

29:38 I know you, you're saying that they are, they want to position themselves for the leader of the right, the post Bibi right, and that would be, you know, nails in the coffin, uh, uh, in terms of their, their future, in terms of their hope to lead the post Bibi right if they serve with an Arab party on the one hand.

29:52 On the other hand, what if Lieberman and Bennett said to Eisenkot, "Fine, we'll do it," but in the case of Bennett, "I have to be prime minister"? It's exactly how he, you know, it's a version of how he won the prime minister last time. Netanyahu will not enable anyone else to serve as prime minister. Now- No, no, no, I'm talking about if he says that to Eisenkot.

30:09 No, no, no. If he says to, if Bennett says to Eisenkot, "I'll agree to the Arab parties coming into our government, but I have to be prime minister." So then why would, why would Eisenkot agree? And if, even if they agree, why would Lieberman enable it? You cannot actually, uh, organize a majority for this, taking into account the, um, you know, the, the, the, the numbers. Right.

30:30 So your point is I, I can make the argument that Eisenkot would agree to it because he wants to form an opposition government, and he's willing to be defense minister instead of prime minister, and he wants to get rid of Netanyahu. Absolutely. And if it means having Bennett become prime minister. Yeah, so that, that's why Eisenkot would agree to it, but I think what you're saying is there's no way Lieberman will agree to it. Absolutely. Right.

30:48 Okay. So, so the point is you need all three of them to agree to it, and you're not going to get all three. I mean, not even one, in my opinion. Okay. So what happens now? How's the coalition building phase going to work now? Well, the, so the president will actually decide who will be the candidate to form the coalition. I guess it's going to be Benjamin Netanyahu.

31:05 Then Netanyahu has 42 days, six weeks, trying to form a coalition. If he fails, the president will enable someone else, the candidate with the second highest chance to form a coalition, I guess it's going to be Eisenkot or Lieberman, to form a co- a coalition. Then, uh, this candidate will have four weeks, and then we go to the polls again if they, uh, both, uh, fail to form a coalition. And if they go back for elections, when will those elections be, in next spring?

31:31 I think it was April 13, for those who want to plan their flights to Israel. April 13, 2027. Right, right. It's crazy to even discuss it, but it's- I know, I know. I want to ask you a different question. So just so f- in terms of what people should look out for now, Amit, they should look out for the mandate being given by Herzog to someone, most likely Netanyahu, to try and go form a government.

31:54 And what will probably happen is whether or not there are real, uh, the w- the one big movement could be whether or not there are negotiations between Netanyahu and Lieberman and Bennett or Netanyahu and Eisenkot or all three of them to create this national unity government. That is where all the action is going to probably be, right? Mm-hmm. Over the next couple weeks. Absolutely. And, and I think we are going to see it.

32:14 I mean, in a week from now, if we talk again on the podcast, I, I guess we're not going to talk about the coalition negotiations because it's going to be, I mean, to play a second violin here, and, uh, the security issues are going to move forward. It's not like in the States when politics turned into a high gear. No. It's going to be something, you know, in the news, item number six, seven. It's going very, very slowly.

32:39 So we are going to see a pause from the political negotiations. Okay. And the top news will be the security situation and Iran. There was a highly contested meeting apparently between Netanyahu and his security chiefs in which Netanyahu pushed for an attack on Iran. This is according to reports. You and I, you've reported on it.

33:00 Uh, Yael Zamir, the chief of staff basically, according to reports, blocked Netanyahu from moving forward. Mm-hmm. How likely is an Israeli confrontation with Iran? And, and what will happen with Zamir, by the way? Okay, so it's very likely that we are going to see another confrontation. I don't think that the description of Bibi wanting to attack Iran and Zamir stops him at the very last moment from, you know, pressing the, the red button is, is somehow accurate. It was more vague than this.

33:26 He dealt mostly with, you know, specific Israeli military steps or measures taking that in Zamir's eyes would probably lead to a miscalculation with Iran, something like this. Especially prior to the election. At the end of the day, it's not between Bibi and Zamir. It's between Bibi and Trump. And I think Trump is highly interested in attacking Iran after the midterms.

33:51 And since everybody knows it, there is a fear in Israel and in the US alike that Iran is going to attack before because they're not going to wait patiently for the US and Israel to attack them. So next week is going to be very, very, uh, hectic, fragile, dangerous, you name it. And the week after, of course. Yeah. Okay, Amit, usually we have both you and Nadav on together, but Nadav was on a flight today.

34:18 He fled from the country. He fled from the country. Fearing to get arrested. He was so, he was so horrified by the, by the election results. Like Bolsonaro in Brazil. Yeah. Yes. [laughs] Exactly. He got out of Dodge. But on, uh, but on Friday of this week, we will drop Nadav's take, uh, on the Arc Plus feed. So for those of you who want to hear Nadav's take, you'll be able to hear it on Friday if you have Arc Plus.

34:39 I just, uh, want to apologize for my, I mean, if it was, it wasn't, um, as, uh, um, I don't know, verbal and consistent as usual because it's qu- Sure... it's quite hard to speak your s- It is... non-native, uh, tongue after [laughs] after you put in all night. Language when you're exhausted. And all night. I get it. Yeah. I get it.

34:56 It's, it's an interesting thing, actually, the, one's ability to speak in a second language in, when you're, when you're fatigued. It's real- it's a really a thing. It's interesting, yes. It's definitely a struggle. But yeah. Um, Amit, we'll leave it there. Thanks so much. To members of The Fold, Arc Media's private community.

35:10 Um, to members of The Fold, Arc Media's private community, we just heard Amit's ideas about what coalitions could emerge from this election. But what are your ideas? Please share your ideas with our community, including me, Amit, Nadav. Do it on The Fold. To subscribe, go to arcmedia.org/fold, where I'm sure the conversation will continue. Until next time, Amit, thank you.

35:32 Get some sleep, man. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Laila tov. Laila tov. Bye-bye. All right. Bye. [upbeat music] At Arc Media, we're not sponsored by a government, nor are we an advocacy group. We are only accountable to our listeners. That means we're free to cover Israel and Jewish life honestly and without compromise.

36:04 When you join Arc Plus, you support that mission, and you also get access to members-only episodes of Call Me Back for Heaven's Sake, Arc News Daily, and Chosen People Problems. Each of these shows covers everything from Israel's security and rising antisemitism to American politics and what it means to be Jewish in this moment. If you're able to, consider becoming a member.

36:27 You can sign up for Arc Plus at arcmedia.org or follow the link in our show notes.