Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won a come-from-behind victory in Israel’s election after tacking hard to the right in the final days of campaigning, including abandoning a commitment to negotiate a Palestinian state.
In a pre-election blitz, Netanyahu made a series of promises designed to shore up his Likud base and draw voters from other right-wing and nationalist parties. He pledged to go on building settlements on occupied land and said there would be no Palestinian state if he was re-elected.
With 99.5 percent of votes counted on Wednesday, Likud had won 29-30 seats in the 120-member Knesset, comfortably defeating the center-left Zionist Union opposition on 24 seats, Israel’s Central Election Committee and Israeli media said. A united list of Arab parties came in third.
It amounted to a dramatic and unexpected victory - the last opinion polls published four days before the vote had shown the Zionist Union with a four-seat advantage.
