Morning Update on the Israeli Elections

As I’ve told you many times, there is an inflexible tradition in Israeli elections. Exit polls show Netanyahu’s long hoped for defeat. But as the votes actually come in, the picture changes. By morning, it usually becomes clear that Netanyahu actually won. That didn’t happen this time. The exit polls ended up being pretty close to the mark. With more than 90% of the votes counted, the results are a bit better than the worst predictions for Netanyahu and the Likud last night. But not by much.

Let’s run down the results and what they mean. As usual, they’re complicated.