President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem May 23, 2017 (Wikimedia Commons)

U.S. media coverage of the Israeli election Tuesday has misrepresented the results as a loss for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, contends the American-born Israeli columnist Caroline Glick.

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not lose and his challenger, former IDF chief of general staff and Blue and White faction chief Benny Gantz did not win," she wrote in a column on her website.

Glick, an adjunct senior fellow for the Center for Security Policy and the director of the Israeli Security Project at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, said the misrepresentation by media isn't necessarily deliberate, noting the complexity of Israel's multi-party, parliamentary system.

She pointed out that while Gantz's Blue and White Party won 33 seats in the 120-seat Knesset compare to the 31 seats of Netanyahu's Likud, Gantz cannot build a majority coalition to form a government.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu assembled on Wednesday the heads of all the right-wing and religious parties that form the basis for Likud-led governing coalitions.

The factions unified into one, 55-member, right-wing bloc under Netanyahu's leadership and agreed on principles for future coalition talks.

By forming the bloc, she explained, Netanyahu created a situation in which he is the only possible prime minister.

Either Gantz' Blue and White Party or another party will join him or Israel will have new elections.

Significantly, she said, the balance of power is on the right, with 55 seats, while the left has 44.

The problem, she explained, is the defection from the right of Israel Beitenu leader Avigdor Liberman.

The latest election was necessary because Liberman -- described by Glick as "nothing but a Bibi (Netanyahu) hater" -- refused to join a Netanyahu-led coalition after the April election.

Even if Liberman's eight-seat faction joins Gantz, the left will still be short nine seats. And a coalition with Liberman and the Arab parties "is inconceivable because Liberman’s Russian voter base would abandon him if he were to go that route."

"Then too, the Arab parties are so extreme that they cannot be considered for any governing coalition," she said.

Glick unsuccessfully ran for election to the Knesset in the April elections as a member of the New Right party.

She said the Washington Post editorial board slandered Netanyahu and Israeli society by falsely claiming that the public’s aversion to including the Arab parties in a government is a product of racism.

"This is a lie. Israelis don’t want to share power with the Arab parties because there is not one Arab party that accepts Israel's right to exist," she explained.

"There were Arab politicians elected yesterday that have written odes to terrorist murderers on their Facebook pages," Glick pointed out. "Arab lawmakers were elected that have met with terror kingpins. Arab lawmakers routinely support the Palestinian war against Israel and express support for Hamas."

She argued it's not racist "for Israelis not to want Hamas supporters and champions of terrorist murderers in the Israeli government or receiving security briefings from the military and intelligence services. It is rational."

https://www.wnd.com/2019/09/netanyahu-didnt-lose-israeli-election/