TEL AVIV, Israel _ Exit polls in Israel's do-over election Tuesday pointed to a dead heat between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is fighting for his political survival, and his chief rival, former military chief Benny Gantz.
That was in line with pre-election surveys suggesting a neck-and-neck contest between Netanyahu's conservative Likud Party and Gantz's more centrist Blue and White. With all 120 seats in the Knesset, or parliament, up for grabs, the initial exit polls suggested each party had garnered 33 or 34 seats, with Likud appearing to falter slightly.
Both would need to form a coalition in order to rule.
Netanyahu, 69, has more at stake than extending his run as the country's longest-serving prime minister. Victory could give him the means to fend off likely criminal charges for alleged corruption. The prime minister frantically campaigned throughout the day of voting, at times in defiance of election rules, taking to social media and even hefting a bullhorn in Jerusalem's central bus station.
It was the second national election in five months. In April, Likud beat Blue and White by the slightest of margins, but Netanyahu failed to recruit enough allies to form a coalition.
Even if he wins this time, Netanyahu _ who has been prime minister for the last decade and also served for several years during the 1990s _ will again face difficult arithmetic in trying to assemble a coalition. A complicating factor for the prime minister is rival Avigdor Lieberman, who may be poised to assume a kingmaking role, particularly if his party, Yisrael Beiteinu _ Israel Is Our Home _ picks up more seats than the five it currently holds. Early indications were that his position may have strengthened.
Lieberman, whose party is secular, refused to enter into a coalition with Netanyahu unless the prime minister agreed to a new military draft law for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminarians. Their exemptions are a sore point with many secular Israelis.
Coalition politicking will be the key thing to watch after the vote. It's even possible that Netanyahu and Gantz, despite their differences, would agree to join forces in a "unity" government. Or there could be another stalemate, which could conceivably lead to yet another national vote, probably early next year.
Netanyahu has been shadowed by separate but intertwined long-running scandals, and the attorney general has recommended criminal charges in three of them. He faces accusations of accepting expensive gifts for political favors, ordering government action aimed at hurting a newspaper in exchange for favorable coverage from a competitor, and helping a friend receive regulatory concessions for his telecommunications company.
With an indictment expected pending a hearing in two weeks, some hard-line and ultrareligious potential coalition partners are willing to support measures that would grant Netanyahu immunity from prosecution while in office. But that would all but rule out an alliance with the secular Lieberman.
Netanyahu denies all the charges against him.
In the days and weeks leading up to the election, the prime minister stayed with his usual political playbook and took steps to appeal to Israel's far right. Last week he pledged to annex the Jordan Valley, which makes up a large part of the West Bank.
Seizing so much Palestinian territory would probably be a death knell for the so-called two-state solution, which calls for Israel and a Palestinian state to exist side by side.
But for many Israeli voters, bread-and-butter domestic issues are far more important.
Netanyahu, as in the past, has also been criticized for harsh anti-Arab rhetoric leading up to the vote, which might galvanize the Israeli citizens of Palestinian descent who make up about a fifth of the electorate. This time around, an inflammatory message on his Facebook page _ railing against "Arabs who want to destroy us all" _ led to a determination that it violated Facebook's hate-speech policies. The prime minister blamed a staffer and took the post down.
Like his ally President Donald Trump, Netanyahu has targeted the news media in the election run-up and launched stinging personal attacks on political foes, as well as law enforcement and the judiciary.
He has sought to depict himself as a master statesman, continually touting his warm relationship with Trump but also reaching out to leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom he met last week. As Tuesday's vote was going on, Russia announced Putin would visit Israel in January.
Before the April vote, Trump moved to bolster Netanyahu's prospects, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967. But the Israeli government was dismayed by Trump's recent firing of John Bolton, the hawkish national security adviser whose views on Iran aligned closely with Netanyahu's.
Another potential complication is the long-delayed peace plan being put together by Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner. If Netanyahu triumphs and is able to form a hard-right government, he would have a difficult time getting his allies to make any concessions to the Palestinians, which could torpedo the plan. But Gantz has expressed more willingness to negotiate with the Palestinians.
