Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who seems to have won a resounding election victory as most of the votes were tallied on Wednesday, vowed he would “return Israel to its place as a rising power among the nations” when he takes office.
Israeli voters want “to return the national pride that was taken from us. And this we’ll bring as well,” Netanyahu said.
“It’s become clear once again that the Likud is the largest party in Israel, above all the other parties by a wide margin,” Netanyahu said of his party.
Netanyahu, who is currently the leader of the opposition, also pledged to restore public security and lower the cost of living.
He said he would work towards “expanding the circle of peace” known as the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel and several Arab Muslim nations sign Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements establishing ties under his previous tenure.
Likud party leader and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets his supporters after giving a statement following the exit polls of the 2022 Israeli general election, the fifth parliamentary election in just three and a half years. The conservative Likud party has come out on top in Israel’s parliamentary election. (Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images)
As of Wednesday afternoon, 86 percent of the votes had been counted, with the right-wing bloc led by Netanyahu predicted to win 65 seats, well over the 61-seat majority to form a governing coalition in the 120-seat Knesset.
The nation, Netanyahu said, “wants another way. It wants security. It wants to lower the cost of living. It wants strength. It doesn’t want shame. It doesn’t want to lower its head. It wants an upright stance. It wants political understanding, but with firmness.”
Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, serving in 1996-1999 and again from 2009-2021, before the center-left government led by Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Alternate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett ousted him from power.