The Netanyahu Divide: Five Elections, Two Blocs

The short version

From April 2019 to November 2022, Israel held five elections in about three and a half years. Almost every one was framed the same way: Netanyahu as prime minister, yes or no.

That framing explains a lot. Parties lined up on one side or the other. Voters mostly moved within a side, not between them. And the question each time was whether one side could reach 61 seats.

This article lays out the seat totals for each election, shows where the two sides broke, and says what is different this year. It describes how commentators and the results framed these votes. It does not say which side is right.

Why the label stuck

Press coverage at the time used the same language each round. An AP report before the March 2021 vote called the election effectively a vote on Netanyahu, with Likud and its religious and nationalist allies on one side and a mixed group of opponents led by Yesh Atid on the other. A London analysis of the 2022 vote described it as largely a judgment on whether Netanyahu should return to power, with his right-wing and religious bloc facing a mixed coalition of opponents.

Most of the parties did not change much between rounds. The names of lists changed. The two sides did not.

The seat totals, election by election

How we grouped the parties:

• Netanyahu bloc: Likud, the Haredi parties, and the right-wing parties that backed him as prime minister that year.
• Opposition, non-Arab: the other Jewish-led parties that opposed him.
• Arab lists: Hadash-Ta'al, Ra'am, Balad and the Joint List. They sat outside both blocs, except Ra'am in 2021.
• Neither side: Yisrael Beytenu in 2019 to 2021, and Yamina in 2021.

These groupings are ours. Seat counts come from the results tables. A bloc is only a label, and the lines moved.

61 seats are needed for a majority.

Who is in each bloc

• April 2019: Netanyahu bloc is Likud 35, Shas 8, UTJ 8, Union of Right-Wing Parties 5, Kulanu 4. Opposition is Blue and White 35, Labor 6, Meretz 4. Neither side is Yisrael Beytenu 5.
• September 2019: Likud 32, Shas 9, UTJ 7, Yamina 7. Opposition is Blue and White 33, Labor-Gesher 6, Democratic Union 5. Yisrael Beytenu 8.
• March 2020: Likud 36, Shas 9, UTJ 7, Yamina 6. Opposition is Blue and White 33 and Labor-Gesher-Meretz 7. Yisrael Beytenu 7.
• March 2021: Likud 30, Shas 9, UTJ 7, Religious Zionism 6. Opposition is Yesh Atid 17, Blue and White 8, Labor 7, Meretz 6, New Hope 6. Neither side is Yisrael Beytenu 7 and Yamina 7. Arab lists are the Joint List 6 and Ra'am 4.
• November 2022: Likud 32, Shas 11, UTJ 7, Religious Zionism 14 (the bloc includes Otzma Yehudit). Opposition is Yesh Atid 24, National Unity 12, Yisrael Beytenu 6, Labor 4. Arab lists are Ra'am 5 and Hadash-Ta'al 5.

What the table shows

The Netanyahu bloc stayed in a narrow band, then jumped. It won between 52 and 60 seats in the first four elections, and 64 in 2022. It never reached 61 until the last one.

The non-Arab opposition was steadier than it looks. It won 40 to 46 seats every time. What changed was who led it: Blue and White in 2019 and 2020, Yesh Atid in 2021 and 2022.

Small parties held the balance. In 2019 and 2020 Yisrael Beytenu, with 5 to 8 seats, sat between the blocs. After April 2019, Netanyahu could not assemble 61 and the Knesset dissolved. The reports at the time tied this to a dispute with Yisrael Beytenu over the draft law.

Arab-party seats rose, then fell back. The Joint List won 13 seats in September 2019 and 15 in 2020. In 2021 the Joint List and Ra'am ran separately and together won 10.

Where the divide broke

Two moments are worth knowing, because they show the blocs were not permanent.

2020: the unity government. After the March 2020 vote, Netanyahu's bloc had 58 seats and no majority. Blue and White's leader Benny Gantz then agreed to join a government with Netanyahu, with a rotation in the top job. Blue and White split over the decision. The government fell apart in December 2020 when the budget deadline passed, and the rotation never happened.

2021: a government across the line. After the March 2021 vote, the Netanyahu bloc had 52 seats. Even with Yamina's 7 it would have been two short of a majority. The opposite side built a government of eight parties and 62 seats: Yesh Atid 17, Blue and White 8, Yamina 7, Labor 7, Yisrael Beytenu 7, New Hope 6, Meretz 6 and Ra'am 4. It included right-wing parties and Ra'am, an Arab party. The Knesset approved it on 13 June 2021 by 60 votes to 59, with one abstention. It lasted until it was dissolved in June 2022.

2022: the bloc wins

The final polls had Netanyahu's bloc at about 60 seats. It won 64. The opposition's own arithmetic was harder, because it depended on Arab-party seats and on small parties passing the threshold. Meretz, Balad and Jewish Home all fell under it, and their votes did not count.

That is the point where the divide and the polls meet. When the main question is who gets to 61, a miss of four seats on one bloc decides the election. See How Wrong Were Israeli Polls? Six Elections, 2015 to 2022.

Why polls were closer when the blocs were fixed

In the back-to-back elections, voters mostly shifted within their side. That makes bloc totals steadier than single-party numbers. It also gave pollsters recent results to calibrate against. We think these factors helped the polls in 2019 and 2020. It is a reasonable explanation, not a proven one.

What is different in 2026

• The last election was almost four years ago. Pollsters have little recent data, and several of the biggest lists did not exist in 2022.
• The opposition is split across more lists. Yashar and Together are among them. Benny Gantz, who led Blue and White, left the race on 19 October. Where his voters go is one of the open questions. See Gantz Is Out: What It Means.
• The 61 line is still the test. Whatever the lists are called, the contest is still whether the Netanyahu-led bloc or the opposition side can reach 61. The poll tracker shows where the averages stand, and the coalition builder lets you test the maths.
• The threshold still decides who is in. Parties near 3.25% can swing the bloc totals by a few seats each.

For each government Netanyahu has led, see The Netanyahu Era: Every Government He Has Built.

Sources

Seat counts for each election come from the results shown on the Wikipedia opinion-polling pages for each election and from the Wikipedia page on the thirty-sixth government of Israel (coalition parties, seat counts and the 13 June 2021 confidence vote). The 2020 bloc total (58) matches an Axios report on the final results. The 2022 total of 64 matches a JNS report. Bloc groupings are our own and are explained above. The April 2019 reports of the right-religious total of 65 count Yisrael Beytenu in that bloc, which we list separately.

• Election seen as referendum on divisive Netanyahu (AP, March 2021)
• Analysis: Fifth time lucky? Israelis head to the polls again (LFI)
• Thirty-sixth government of Israel (Wikipedia)
• Israel's opposition uniting in bid to bring down Netanyahu (Axios, 2020)
• Decisive victory: Netanyahu's bloc secures 64 mandates (JNS)
• April 2019 results report (Algemeiner)