The Israeli election results seem to grant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a better showing than expected. But they also clearly leave his bloc in the minority with no way to avoid new elections without cutting a deal with Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot.
How do those results impact a possible new conflict with Iran?
In recent weeks, Netanyahu was seriously considering renewing the conflict with Iran.
It seems that a mix of opposition by US President Donald Trump and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir prevented Netanyahu from doing so, although it is also possible with the hard-to-pin-down prime minister that he just wanted Tehran to think he might attack to deter it from doing anything provocative.
But Zamir’s opposition was only to an attack before Israeli elections were held, and Trump’s opposition was only to an attack before the US midterm elections on November 3.
In fact, Trump has made numerous rumblings about resuming strikes on Iran soon after the US midterm elections, and in his endorsement of Netanyahu, he made reference to wanting Israel involved again as well.
If Eisenkot had won the battle of the blocs over Netanyahu, as forecast by the polls, he might have been able to start to form a government before the US midterm elections.
In such a scenario, it is doubtful that Netanyahu could have ordered a new attack against Iran.
As matters now stand, however, one of Eisenkot’s allies, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman, will not even start serious talks about forming a government before Friday, when the final vote results are in.
At that point, Liberman must make the excruciating decision of breaking a promise: either making a deal with the Arab parties, making a deal with Netanyahu, or going to a second round of elections.
Even if Liberman moves toward forming a new government, it would just start complex negotiations about what each side would need to do to pave the way to a partnership.
Once there would be agreement on that, there is a whole separate negotiation on who gets what ministries and other jobs.
All of these issues are likely to take more than the four days between Friday and the US midterm elections, given that they usually take weeks or even months.
This means that Netanyahu will likely have the freedom to attack Iran if Trump wants to or would not stop him.
Zamir is in favor of attacking Iran under two conditions: The first has been and remains if Iran was either about to actually strike Israel; and the second was and is if Trump restarted the war first, and Israel had full backing offensively and defensively from the US for engaging in another round of conflict.
Generally, Zamir’s instinct has been that he is ready to strike Iran if it starts recovering its threat capabilities too fast, which it has not yet done, or if such a strike would be part of a well-thought-out and considered strategy to finally push Tehran into making key nuclear concessions to the US.
He was against attacking before the election so as not to undermine Election Day voting by a potential Iranian ballistic-missile counterstrike and to avoid the cloud of impropriety that an attack leading into the election might have been carried out to help Netanyahu’s chances.
Netanyahu's main obstacle would be Trump
Post-election, there is no reason to bar an attack, although Zamir also is not rushing toward an attack, given that he does not view Tehran as having gotten much closer to any growing substantial nuclear or ballistic-missile threat.
To be sure, both issues remain threats, but both have been put off by some period of years due to US-Israeli airstrikes in June 2025 and early 2026.
This means that Netanyahu’s main obstacle would be Trump.
Trump did not want to attack leading into the midterms because the Iran war is already dragging him and the Republic Party down in the polls. But post-midterms, and with him unable to run for a third term, he will be unrestrained and could follow his whim to hit Iran again.
Why might he still not?
His top advisers have been and are mostly against a return to war, and while some think a few days of war might loosen Iran up some, others think Iran’s refusal to crack since February has shown a few more intense days will not sway them either.
So, he may have little to gain, and some of his advisers have also warned that Tehran has shown it is willing to keep firing after a US ceasefire, meaning the conflict might last longer than a few days even if Trump wants to stop.
This could lead Trump to walk away from the price tag of another round and continue his long-term attempt to slowly wear down Iran economically.
In fact, this series of Trump’s dizzying switches from economic pressure to a sudden threat to go to war, to backing down back into economic pressure, happened in August, earlier in October, and at other times.
These inconsistent switches probably have also undermined the viability of his threat in the eyes of the Iranians.
Another possibility is that the Iranians finally get scared by his latest threat of force and offer a real deal on the nuclear issue. That would surely lead to a delay of an Iran attack.
But if Trump ultimately favors attacking, it could not come at a better time for Netanyahu.
If Netanyahu is involved with attacking Iran – as he holds a Jewish majority in the vote count, while Eisenkot and his camp are trying to rally together – a return to a focus on war with Iran would place the nation’s focus where Netanyahu prefers it.
Will Eisenkot and company find it harder to cut a deal with the Arab parties while Israelis have ballistic missiles raining down on them?
Might they feel more ready to cut a deal with Netanyahu if Iran has pushed out the October 7 massacre and haredim (ultra-Orthodox) serving in the IDF as the focus of the national conversation?
None of this means that Israel attacking Iran may not be justified on its own. Until Tehran makes new nuclear concessions, such an attack could be justified in theory, based on the idea of getting it to make those concessions.
And anytime the US offers to assist with cleaning house, many Israelis would say that Israel should not miss the chance to jump on board – as opposed to having to fight Iran solo at some later date.
Still, as long as Zamir is in no rush to strike Iran, Netanyahu would need to justify the attack with more than vague statements about Iran making new progress toward threatening Israel.
It is hard for him to both claim he succeeded at removing the nuclear and ballistic-missile threat in one sentence, and to then demand a new strike now, because time is running out.
How Netanyahu explains a third round of conflict, if it happens during coalition negotiations, will be crucial to the success of any attack and its legitimacy among the wider Israeli public.