Israel's election count is finished, and it has settled almost nothing. The Central Elections Committee published final results early on Friday, Oct. 30, three days after the vote: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc won 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, down from 68. The opposition alliance around Gadi Eisenkot won 48. Arab-majority parties won a record 19.

Sixty-one seats form a majority. Nobody has them.

The arithmetic nobody can use

According to Fox News Digital, Likud emerged as the largest party with 27 seats, followed by Eisenkot's centrist Yashar with 21 and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's Beyachad with 12. Turnout reached 77.9%. CBS News reported that Arab-majority parties had their highest turnout ever, nearly doubling their representation from 10 seats to 19, and that this was one of the main reasons Netanyahu's bloc lost its majority.

On paper, Eisenkot's 48 plus the Arab parties' 19 is 67. In practice that sum is hard to reach. The heads of the two biggest Arab parties have said they would help oust Netanyahu, CBS reported, but most Jewish-led opposition parties vowed before the election not to rely on Arab support to govern.

That is the whole problem in one line. Every available route requires someone to break a campaign promise.

Four routes, four broken promises

Route one: an Eisenkot minority government backed by Arab parties, which means the opposition abandoning its pledge not to depend on them. Ra'am leader Mansour Abbas has reportedly been skeptical it can work, according to Channel 12 as relayed by Fox News.

Route two: ultra-Orthodox parties switch sides. Channel 12 reported that figures in United Torah Judaism were weighing outside support for an Eisenkot-led minority government, though the party chairman's office denied any instruction to open talks. The obstacle is Eisenkot's pledge to expand military conscription among ultra-Orthodox men, an issue on which the party reportedly signalled some flexibility.

Route three: a unity government of Likud and Yashar, which would require Eisenkot to drop his promise not to serve under Netanyahu.

Route four: a repeat election. Netanyahu, who remains in office as caretaker prime minister, would stay in post in the meantime, CBS noted.

The fraud claim

Netanyahu's party chose a different line of attack. On Thursday, Likud said the election had been stolen by Arab-majority parties with the help of foreign funding that amounted to vote-buying, CBS reported. Israeli media pointed to a claim that Qatar had funded efforts to raise Arab turnout. Qatar's foreign ministry denied it categorically.

The institutions that run the vote have rejected the framing. The Shin Bet said it had opened an investigation into possible foreign influence, but that such an inquiry is bounded and does not cast blame on an entire sector of voters. The Central Elections Committee's acting director-general wrote that there was no basis to claims of a systematic compromise of the election's integrity.

Eisenkot, for his part, accused Netanyahu of using the allegation to delay publication of results and delegitimise the new Knesset. A claim that a result was stolen, made before the winners have even been certified, is not unique to Israel; Brazil's election last week produced a contested result when Flávio Bolsonaro sought annulment of Lula's win. The test in both countries is whether the formal process outlasts the rhetoric.

What the calendar decides

The results are due to be formally submitted to President Isaac Herzog on Nov. 4, and the new Knesset is expected to be sworn in on Nov. 10, according to Fox News, citing the Times of Israel. Herzog has urged party leaders to negotiate with an open heart to avoid another election, NBC News reported.

One consequence arrives before any government does. CBS noted that once the Knesset is sworn in, Eisenkot's bloc and the Arab parties would control a majority in parliament and could begin passing laws, even with no government formed. That gives the opposition leverage while Netanyahu remains caretaker prime minister.

What to watch

In my reading, the talks will turn on who is first willing to pay a political price. Smaller parties hold the leverage, as they did in Thailand's censure fight over Prime Minister Anutin, and in Israel that means the ultra-Orthodox bloc and the Arab lists.

My read: the most telling signal in the next fortnight is not who Herzog taps first. It is whether the ultra-Orthodox parties deny or confirm the reports that they are open to a deal over conscription. If they are, Eisenkot has a path that avoids relying on Arab parties. If they are not, the choice narrows to a unity government or another election, and both options require someone to explain a broken promise to voters.