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Tuesday's ballot saw out the centrist incumbent, Yair Lapid, and
his rare alliance of conservatives, liberals and Arab
politicians which, over 18 months in power, had made diplomatic
inroads with Turkey and Lebanon and kept the economy humming.
But with the conflict with the Palestinians festering and
touching off Jewish-Arab tensions within Israel, Netanyahu's
rightist Likud and kindred parties took 65 of the Knesset's 120
seats, according to a vote count due to conclude on Thursday.
"The time has come to impose order here. The time has come for
there to be a landlord," tweeted Itamar Ben-Gvir of the
far-right Religious Zionism party, Likud's likely senior partner
in the next government.
Ben-Gvir was responding to the latest violence, in which police
said a Palestinian stabbed an officer in Jerusalem's Old City
and was shot dead. Earlier, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian
during a confrontation in the occupied West Bank.
A West Bank settler and former member of Kach, a Jewish militant
group on Israeli and U.S. terrorist watchlists, Ben-Gvir wants
to become police minister.
However, with Netanyahu still not officially confirmed as prime
minister, it is still unclear what position he might hold in a
future government.
Though Netanyahu has vowed to serve all citizens, his ascendancy
has set off worries among the 21% Arab minority and centre-left
Jews - and especially among Palestinians whose U.S.-sponsored
statehood talks with Israel broke down in 2014.
While Washington has publicly reserved judgement pending the new
Israeli coalition's formation, a State Department spokesman on
Wednesday emphasised the countries' "shared values".
"We hope that all Israeli government officials will continue to
share the values of an open, democratic society, including
tolerance and respect for all in civil society, particularly for
minority groups," the spokesperson said.
(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
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