Israel Legislative election 2022 (Knesset) — Results

The snapshot

Israel's fifth election in under four years, held on 1 November 2022 for the 25th Knesset, broke the deadlock decisively. Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud won 32 seats on 23.41%, and his right-religious bloc — with the ultra-Orthodox Shas (11) and United Torah Judaism (7) and a surging far-right Religious Zionism–Otzma Yehudit list (14 seats, 10.84%) — took 64 of the 120 seats. On 29 December 2022 Netanyahu was sworn in at the head of the most right-wing government in Israel's history, with Itamar Ben-Gvir as national security minister and Bezalel Smotrich holding the finance portfolio.

How the majority was made

The bloc's 64 seats rested less on a landslide than on the other camp's wasted votes. On the anti-Netanyahu side, caretaker prime minister Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid grew to 24 seats on 17.79% and Benny Gantz's National Unity took 12, but the left fractured fatally: Meretz, at 3.16%, fell below the 3.25% threshold for the first time since its founding in 1992, and the Arab-nationalist Balad, running alone at 2.91%, followed it. Nearly 290,000 of their combined votes elected no one. Labor survived with just 4 seats; Ra'am (5) and Hadash–Ta'al (5) held on; Yisrael Beiteinu kept 6. Netanyahu, by contrast, had consolidated his flank, brokering the union of Smotrich's and Ben-Gvir's parties so that no right-wing vote would be lost.

The campaign

The vote followed the June 2022 collapse of the Bennett–Lapid "change government", whose one-seat majority had bled defections. Turnout rose to 70.63%, the highest since 2015, with mobilisation especially strong in Likud and religious strongholds. The campaign turned on personal security after escalating violence, the cost of living, and — as in every contest since 2019 — Netanyahu himself, still on trial for corruption.

What followed

The new coalition moved quickly on a sweeping judicial-overhaul programme that brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets through 2023, and it was in power when the Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023 plunged the country into war. The 25th Knesset's term runs until October 2026 — the horizon of Israel's next scheduled election.

Why it mattered

November 2022 ended the five-election stalemate by arithmetic rather than realignment: the blocs barely moved, but threshold casualties converted a near-tie in votes into a solid 64-seat majority. It normalised the far right at the heart of government and set the stage for the deepest domestic crisis — and then the gravest war — in decades.

About the figures

The Knesset is elected from a single nationwide constituency (d'Hondt/Bader–Ofer, 3.25% threshold), so no regional breakdown applies. Percentages are certified Central Elections Committee shares of valid votes, to two decimal places.

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