Israel Legislative election 2015 (Knesset) — Results

The snapshot

Israel elected its 20th Knesset on 17 March 2015, two years ahead of schedule, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the centrist ministers Yair Lapid and Tzipi Livni in December 2014 and dissolved his fractious third government. Final polls pointed to a narrow lead for the centre-left Zionist Union, but the result was a clear victory for Likud, which surged in the campaign's last days to 30 seats on 23.40% of the vote — six ahead of the Zionist Union (a joint list of Labor under Isaac Herzog and Livni's Hatnuah) on 24. Turnout, at 72.34%, was the highest since 1999.

A new threshold reshapes the ballot

The Knesset's 120 members are elected by closed-list proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency, with seats allocated by the d'Hondt (Bader–Ofer) method. For this election the threshold was raised from 2% to 3.25% — a change that pushed the four main parties of Israel's Arab minority (Hadash, Ra'am, Balad and Ta'al) into an unprecedented Joint List, which promptly became the third-largest force with 13 seats on 10.61%. The higher bar also claimed a prominent victim on the right: Eli Yishai's Yachad, at 2.97%, missed the threshold and its votes were lost to Netanyahu's bloc.

The late swing

Netanyahu closed the campaign with stark appeals to right-wing voters — warning against a left-wing government backed by foreign-funded NGOs, ruling out a Palestinian state, and famously declaring on election day that Arab voters were heading to the polls "in droves". The tactic worked largely at the expense of his satellites: the Jewish Home of Naftali Bennett fell to 8 seats and Yisrael Beiteinu to 6, while Likud gained 12. Moshe Kahlon's new centre-right Kulanu, campaigning on the cost of living and housing, took 10 seats and instantly became the kingmaker. Yesh Atid won 11, Shas 7, United Torah Judaism 6 and Meretz scraped in with 5.

Building the coalition

President Reuven Rivlin tasked Netanyahu with forming a government, and on 14 May 2015 his fourth cabinet was sworn in — a narrow 61-seat coalition of Likud, Kulanu, the Jewish Home, Shas and United Torah Judaism. The bare majority made every backbencher a veto player until Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu joined in May 2016, with Lieberman as defence minister, widening the coalition to 66. The government lasted until the December 2018 dissolution that opened Israel's era of repeat elections.

Why it mattered

The 2015 vote confirmed the structural advantage of Israel's right-religious bloc and inaugurated the Joint List as a durable expression of Arab political power. It was also the last Israeli election for almost a decade to produce a government that served most of its term: the five elections that followed between April 2019 and November 2022 were fought in an ever-deepening deadlock over one question — Netanyahu himself.

About the figures

Israel elects the Knesset from a single national list, so there are no constituency contests to map. Vote shares on this page are shares of valid votes as certified by the Central Elections Committee, reported to two decimal places; lists that fell below the 3.25% threshold won no seats.

Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.