No, it is not 56-56 in Israeli elections

From JPost, looking at the latest numbers from the elections:

Based on these results, without Yisrael Beytenu's eight mandates, the Center-Left bloc would have counted on 56 seats and the Center-Right bloc 56.

I don't know the inside baseball of Israeli politics, but I do know arithmetic. There is no "Center-Left" bloc. Blue and White is not going to enter into a coalition with the (Arab) Joint List. Without those 12 seats, suddenly it is 56-44.

The only way I can see Gantz put together a razor thin coalition would be if he can convince the religious parties to join him and the Left, that would be 61.  This would be difficult, since those parties campaigned as supporting Bibi. (And the religious parties won't be in a coalition with Liberman, so he is not part of the equation.)

So, yes, this election is not a victory for Netanyahu, but it is less of a victory for Gantz. For some reason - probably because they hate Netanyahu - no one in the media seems to be pointing this out.

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