• An Israeli activist watches the exit polls on a wall-mounted TV as he waits to see who will form the next government.
• Hadash-Ta’al’s slate is likely to gain four seats in parliament.
• It would likely gain four members.

Six activists from the Arab-Jewish Hadash party’s Lydd (Lod) branch watched the exit polls of the fifth Israeli election in four years on the wall-mounted TV.

The three older men smoked water pipes while waiting to see if Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud party leader who has been prime minister longer than anyone else in Israel but is now on trial for corruption, and the Palestinian-hating hardliner Itamar Ben-Gvir will form the next administration.

The numbers showed that their slate, Hadash-Ta’al, had made it into parliament, known as the Knesset, and would likely gain four members.

Netanyahu’s bloc won an expected 61 or 62 of 120 Knesset members, enough to establish a government.

The moderate bloc of outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid was expected to win 54-55 seats. Netanyahu looked ready to join with the anti-democratic, anti-liberal, anti-Palestinian, homophobic “Religious Zionism” slate, whose leaders support subverting the Israeli legal system, introducing loyalty tests for Palestinian citizens, and expelling “disloyal” Palestinians. The far-right is expected to win 14 seats, up from six in the last election.

“The fanaticism in this country is rising,” claimed 53-year-old Anwar Ghazal. Arabs are at risk. We campaigned on the need to vote. Netanyahu’s dangerous. Unfavorable. Terrible.”

“I expected this,” said 30-year-old Ihab Aburubeia, seeing Ben-followers Gvir’s dance on TV with Israeli flags as big as humans. “Most Jews here are right-wing extremists. That’s why Likud and Ben-Gvir get so many seats.”

Palestinians are not alone in fearing Ben-changes. Gvir’s

“If the results we are seeing this evening hold true, the coalition that will form the next government is poised to propose a series of reforms that would seek to politicize the judiciary and weaken the checks and balances that exist between the branches of government and serve as fundamental components of Israeli democracy,” said Israel Democracy Institute president Yohanan Plesner.

Their proposals include deleting fraud and breach of trust, for which Netanyahu is on trial, from the penal code, stripping the High Court of Justice of its power to strike down unconstitutional laws, and giving MPs influence over judge selection.

“While some of these plans seem geared at removing former Prime Minister Netanyahu from his ongoing criminal trial, there is much more at stake. These plans would endanger our judiciary and expose Israel’s political system to widespread corruption.

Jewish-Israeli critics accused Palestinian Israelis for not voting. Jewish turnout increased while Palestinian turnout decreased.

Election officials reported 66.3 percent turnout at 8pm local time (18:00 GMT), the highest since 1999.

Maha Al-Nakib, another Hadash office activist, remarked, “What most bothers me is this arrogance.” They blamed Arabs for not voting. Why are we constantly liable for the country’s s**t? Why isn’t Israel’s left responsible? “Chutzpah,” she said in Yiddish.

Exit polls have been inaccurate before. If another Palestinian party, Balad, passes 3.25 percent of the vote, the vote distribution would alter.

At a post-election celebration, Lapid assured supporters, “Nothing is over” until all the votes are counted.

“Every Israeli has to know tonight that we’ll continue to battle for Israel to be Jewish, democratic, liberal, and advanced.”

If exit polls are correct, Netanyahu will form a government again, one that may be more stable than any since 2019, when he was charged.

Election officials should finish counting this week.

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