The Caretaker Still Has The Keys

Benjamin Netanyahu may have lost his governing majority without losing access to the office. Israeli politics has reached the point where “temporary” describes the appointment, not necessarily the furniture.

Wednesday morning’s count produced a different picture from Tuesday night’s tight exit-poll contest. Reuters reported that, with about 70.7% of votes counted, Israeli media forecast 54 seats for Netanyahu’s bloc, 47 for Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc and 19 for Arab parties. Those are forecasts based on an incomplete count, not final parliamentary results.

Netanyahu’s bloc was ahead, but still short of a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. The election had not handed him a new governing coalition. It had, however, left his opponents with a particularly unpleasant onboarding problem: replacing the current manager requires assembling a replacement management team.

Until then, Reuters reported, Netanyahu remains prime minister in a caretaker capacity through coalition negotiations, or until another election. The caretaker gets the keys. Everyone else gets a meeting about the keys.

That distinction matters beyond the coalition arithmetic. Netanyahu used his overnight speech to raise the prospect of renewed joint military action against Iran with Donald Trump. A caretaker government is not a man watering the office plants until the adults return. It still holds power over decisions with consequences far beyond the office.

Eisenkot warned security chiefs and civil servants against allowing Israel’s security to be used for political purposes. That is his warning, not evidence that a new military operation has been ordered for electoral reasons. But it identifies the serious problem beneath the procedural absurdity: an unresolved election does not put state power into airplane mode.

Trump, meanwhile, credited his endorsement and described a tie as a kind of win in a big chess match. This is a wonderfully accommodating scoring system. Win, you win. Tie, you also win. Presumably losing means the board has failed to appreciate your strategy.

The remaining votes and coalition negotiations still matter. Reuters reported that Eisenkot’s bloc would need some form of Arab-party backing to displace Netanyahu, something many opposition parties have ruled out. Voters can produce seats; they cannot force politicians to accept the partners those seats require.

None of this makes the projected figures final, or Netanyahu’s next coalition inevitable. It does show why announcing that an incumbent has lost a majority is not the same as watching him leave.

The word “caretaker” sounds modest. Before taking comfort in it, check what the caretaker is allowed to do with the building.