I told Congress: After October 7, we need to look reality straight in the face. We would like to live in warm peace with our Palestinian neighbors. But we have to recognize reality- according to the best Palestinian polling, 53% of Palestinians think Hamas' decision to launch the Oct. 7 terror attack was correct. And Hamas remains the most popular Palestinian party by far. This is not an issue of Israeli "trauma". It is an Israeli refusal to go back to the pre-Oct. 7 paradigm of ignoring hard realities - even in the face of pressure from our friends. @HouseForeignGOP @RepMikeLawler

Precisely. We could see mergers, splits, second attempts and new players joining existing parties.

Remember that Liberman was the reason we ended up in five election cycles back in 2019-2020. He will likely be the decisive voice in the question of whether we head to another election cycle once again.

So it turns out Israel is as bad at “apartheid” as it is at “genocide”

A critical question to understand the political developments in the coming weeks- which parties fear most the results of a second election campaign?

Listening to @meridors on @i24NEWS_HE, it sounds like Eisenkot is going to make a major effort to bring Smotrich or parts of the Likud into a Yashar-led coalition. Unlikely to happen.

Very impressive turnout and electoral achievement for Israel’s Arab parties. They will give Eisenkot control of the Knesset. But will Eisenkot rely on them to establish a government, given their opposition to the fight against Hamas and other problematic positions? If not, we may well have another election.

Looks like I was right about this

I think this is highly unlikely. The party that will underperform as compared to the polls, in my estimate (for good or for bad, whatever your position) is Bennet’s B’Yachad party.

I debated for a while who to vote for. When I finally decided, I still felt conflicted. Each of the possibilities had important advantages - but also substantial drawbacks. I have no data but I suspect many Israelis felt the same way.

Exactly

I agree but there may be a difference in the degree to which an Eisenkot government works to strengthen and support the PA (while ignoring in practice Palestinian pay to slay). I think it’s unlikely Netanyahu works for the PA’s collapse, but he may be less likely to take active steps to strengthen it in the event of a post-Abbas disarray.

Prediction: Given that Eisenkot will likely get the first opportunity to form a government, the most important political question will be whether Liberman keeps his promise not to join a government that relies on the Arab parties for its majority. If so, we may well have another election. If not, Eisenkot will be able to form a government, that will last 6-12 months. Not saying good or bad, just that this is the most likely scenario.