Lapid concedes to Netanyahu, prepares to hand over reins of government
An array of international leaders began to congratulate Netanyahu on Thursday
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and wife Sara Netanyahu greet supporters at an election night event for the Likud party, Nov. 1, 2022. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid called his rival, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to concede this week’s election as most of the votes were counted by the end of Thursday.
“The State of Israel is above any political consideration. I wish Netanyahu luck for the sake of the people of Israel and the State of Israel,” Lapid wrote in a statement.
Netanyahu, meantime, has launched the negotiating process to form the next government with the far-right Religious Zionist party and haredi Orthodox parties. With a total of 64 seats, Netanyahu’s bloc surpassed poll predictions.
Amid rumors that President Joe Biden’s administration might not engage with Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of the Religious Zionist leaders who will likely be given a cabinet position, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides called Netanyahu to congratulate him on Thursday.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price had been less direct on Wednesday.
“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,” Price told reporters.
Ben-Gvir — who has said he prefers to be public security minister, which controls Israel’s police — has worried U.S. leaders with his extremist rhetoric about the use of police force against Arabs and his calls to expel people who are not loyal to Israel.
An array of international leaders began to congratulate Netanyahu on Thursday, including Viktor Orban, the far-right president of Hungary, and Giorgia Meloni, the right-wing prime minister of Italy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has criticized Israel’s unwillingness to supply Ukraine with weapons in its war with Ukraine, also sent congratulations. “We hope to open a new page in cooperation with the new Government for & benefit!” he wrote.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
